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2001-07-16 SP SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING JULY 16, 2001 MTG. #29 RES. 2947:03 p.m. TOWN BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT SUPERVISOR DENNIS BROWER COUNCILMAN JAMES MARTIN COUNCILMAN THEODORE TURNER COUNCILMAN DANIEL STEC COUNCILMAN TIM BREWER SUPERVISOR BROWER-Opened the Meeting. The first item on the agenda is a resolution to accept the Aviation Mall GElS and I understand that the applicants are here, Chris do you have anything? EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR CHRIS ROUND-You have received a proposed final environmental impact statement several weeks ago you got a memo from me just a couple weeks ago transmitting it. Frank Palumbo is here from Sear Brown. Sear Brown has been involved in this project since its inception which was in '98 which was a little bit different project then. As you recall the applicants had and the Board agreed to submitting an addendum to the draft EIS and that addendum identified a modified project and the modified project is, don't quote me on the numbers, but it is one hundred and twenty five thousand square foot retail facility that is immediately proposed or is proposed to be constructed and that is attached to the Aviation Mall. Then up to a hundred and fifty thousand square foot retail facility that is a free standing building which is on lands called the northwest lands, the lands that we know as the Howard Johnson's and the Seven Steers Restaurant area. That addendum was accepted, a public hearing was conduced we received public comment at that hearing those comments are included in this proposed final EIS. The response to those comments is also included, we have been reviewing the final EIS for approximately two weeks, three weeks. It generated a series of comments and concerns on that. That applicant has submitted several revisions to those comments in response to our comments those revisions are in front of you tonight, I just dropped that in front of you. It is a twelve it is an eighteen page document and several of those pages are cover letters but it identifies some suggested responses that we have reviewed and we feel assess our concerns. What is in front of you tonight is adoption of this final EIS should you agree that the comments have been addressed satisfactorily. Frank is here, two of the areas that we have been most sensitive to and the public had commented on are traffic and aesthetics. Traffic the New York State DOT it is a State Highway, the DOT will provide comment on the project and any proposed mitigation. We have not yet received DOT comment as of this date. Frank, I do not know if you want to jump in on traffic the conclusion with the traffic analysis is that there is no mitigation is required as a result of the hundred and twenty five thousand and the hundred and fifty thousand square foot build out. As you know there is a project that is proposed or in the planning stages for this area and that is improvements to Nine and Two Fifty Four. Previously it has been identified as a Greenway Connector, that connector our Board gave us direction some nine months ago that, that was not the preferred alternative. The project iself is identified on the transportation improvement plan it will go to scoping in October of this year and during scoping they will evaluate other alternatives. This Board in speaking with DOT and speaking with a consultant Craton Manning indicated that they would prefer additional turning lanes at Nine and Two Fifty four. That would be an additional turning lane in Aviation Road, that is the east bound approach for a left hand turn lane to Route 9. I apology there is a lot of information, I will throw out at you. That is the Town's preferred alternative. But, still that project still has to go through a formal DOT design and evaluation process, with that improvement is, at the end of the day, we don't yet know. We don't yet know whether that will be a turning lane or it will be a connector. We do not know what the final costs is for that. The applicant has proposed that they enter into a cost sharing agreement we have not yet defined, we have defined it in concept but we have not defined the dollar igure or what the actual methodology on how we would calculate the cost sharing mechanism. There has to be a nexus a connection between the project and the mitigation and a fair share assessment. So, we are not yet at that point. We feel that the cost sharing mechanism can be identified and deal with it in the findings statement, that is the next document that would be drafted after we accept a final EIS. So, that if traffic in a real quick nut shell, I would be happy to answer any questions. The other issue that we talked about is aesthetics and the applicant and within the FEIS in our comment in the draft EIS we indicated that there was not sufficient information for us to make a judgment on aesthetic impacts on this new hundred and twenty five thousand square foot structure and the change in zone that is proposed. They have proposed a zone change that would allow up to an eighty foot tall structure. In the FEIS, they did provide additional evaluation of the aesthetic impacts there are additional phoo simulation of a proposed building in this. In tonights submission there is an additional cross section of how a building might be laid out on the northwest lands. We feel it is satisfactory information for us to make a judgement, however we may want to include additional provisions in the SEQRA findings that would allow us to review a specific proposal and make those same judgments. Under SEQRA you have to identify before project approval or when you revisit a SEQRA determination you have to and several of you are familiar with this, you have to conclude that the SEQRA findings or the SEQRA process that a project has gone through contemplated the environmental impacts that are presented as you go through the site plan development process. In the event that the Planning Board receives a Site Plan Review and they feel that they have not identified the aesthetics impacts of a proposal in front of them we would like the opportunity to go back and revisit that issue. That is what we discussed loosely and ho that would be constructed whether that would be a SEQRA findings, whether that would be allowed under site plan review etc., so traffic and aesthetics those are the two substantial issues in our minds that we have talked about through this process. I would be happy to answer any questions you might have or any questions you might have for the applicant. COUNCILMAN BREWER-Is the language you just talked about in here, Chris, or how do we incorporate that so that, that can happen? EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR ROUND-It is not, Frank do you want to? MR. FRANK PAL UMBO-In many cases it is in here some of the additions that they made just today were directly linking some of our comments and some of the issues that Chris just talked about. Clearly there will be more to include directly in the findings statement but we do feel comfortable that the basis, since the findings statement does have to be related on the information that is in the document we do feel that, that information is there and enough is in there for us to base our findings statement on. The finding statement that you would adopt eventually. COUNCILMAN BREWER-And you have no problem with that, John? ATTORNEY JOHN LAPPER-No, we agree with everything that Chris and Frank said, we like usual the Planning Staff and Consultants were very professional, we certainly started out with a number of meetings where there were a lot of issues on the table and as we understood what they were looking for and we were able to narrow the focus, make changes to the document and we are very comfortable with the idea of the traffic mitigation payment it certainly works out well that the Town and the County and the DOT are already contemplating a project. A lot of that deals with existing conditions not, because the mall expansion is relatively small in terms of traffic as compared to the corridor but at the same time we think this is an appropriate way to work it out and the next step as Chris said for the findings we would be to sit down and negotiate what would be a fair way to calculate what that is going to be and that would all have to be set in stone for the findings which we will proceed to immediately after we get though this step. COUNCILMAN STEC-Now, Chris I did not see anything in here that is specifically addressed the related issues on the northwest properties as far as visual impact. EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR ROUND-That is something that we have discussed I think that is a question you want to direct to the applicant. We.. COUNCILMAN STEC-At what point in the process is that appropriate, should it be in this or should it be in the EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR ROUND-It is not necessary in the FEIS because there is no proposal in hand for those lands at this time. So, there is not an impact as the result of a project that you have to mitigate. That is an existing condition, there are several opportunities to do that, you can identify it in findings. You are offering, the applicant is requesting a rezoning and rezonings are discretionary actions so if you are not comfortable with offering a rezoning for a project you do not have to give that. That offers the Town some leverage. I do not know how to say that any more and less bluntly or more bluntly. Frank do you want to address that? The concern is the impacts of the existing facilities they have been identified in here as an eye sore, there are response to those comments, John can you pull one of those out? ATTORNEY JOHN LAPPER -They are in here. What I would say generally is that I do not know if we announced it to this Board because we were at the Planning Board the first time we had the opportunity to talk about it, but in hearing the comments from the public and especially from members of this board, Bob Orlando who is sitting next to me has been negotiating with the tenant who is interested in the Seven Steers Building primarily and he has been talking to other potential tenants as well. What you most voiced was the idea that they were sitting vacant that, that doesn't leave a good impression when you are coming to an other wise healthy successful town. We think that is a way to deal with it short term until Pyramid has a tenant to redevelop that property, and Bob is negotiating a lease and we think that, we will be able to discuss that more very shortly. COUNCILMAN STEC-So, in the future between now and the actual final resolution approving the rezoning you will know more and feel more comfortable to commit more specifics. I am concerned about a time line and a game plan, not necessarily something set in stone but some broad stroke you know commitments to a time line and you know what the rough sketch you know. ATTORNEY JOHN LAPPER-Probably not that broad at that point, we're, Bob is negotiating a lease and getting close. SUPERVISOR BROWER-Chris will the financial or other contribution be clarified by the time we approve this final? EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR ROUND-It will be contained in a findings statement an actual hard number. SUPERVISOR BROWER-I know you refer to the Foster Avenue connection and that has been something that has been proposed a few times in the past. EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR ROUND-The town generated, the town itself on behalf of the Town we generate two sets of comments, one came directly from my office and one from Frank's Office. As it relates to traffic improvements we ask, there is some degradation level of service as a result of this project to the 9 and 254 intersection. They are minor in terms of gross or times of delay but they are significant in that they go from level service D to E and E is an unacceptable level of service in the mind of DOT in maintaining the overall level of operations of an intersection. So, what we have had discussions about how would we improve 9 and 254 or how would you address this degradation in level of service to 9 and 254 and the applicants agreed to enter into some kind of cost sharing mechanism for this public project that we have talked about for several years, the other thing that we asked them to revisit is revisit the Foster Avenue Extension. That was another project that was identified in the 1992-93 transportaion concepts corridor studies and the response that it was not a requirement as a result of this modified project and because of the economics of a smaller project they did not feel that it could be justified. I am paraphrasing their response. We still feel that there is an opportunity for long term for an improvement to 9 and 254 intersection if Foster Avenue was constructed, it is just that we cannot tie it under SEQRA to this project and it is something that we will continue to explore and we will continue to explore with Pyramids cooperation in that project where it is a cost sharing or facilitating an internal site modification to allow Foster Avenue to come into the back of their site. SUPERVISOR BROWER-Thank you. John? ATTORNEY JOHN LAPPER-We appreciate that the project and the process has moved along smoothly and we hope that the Board is prepared to accept the FEIS tonight and of course that does not mean that the process is over because it will be the findings where we work out all the details. But, this is an important milestone and we, as we have said all along we have a tenant that is eager to get going and we are trying to accommodate them because it is important for the mall. COUNCILMAN BREWER-As we sit here tonight and approve this there will be details we will work out could one of those details, Ted and I talked about the parking, if we approve this tonight does that ultimately approve the EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR ROUND-Parking in what regard, Tim? COUNCILMAN BREWER-Wasn't there relieffrom the parking? ATTORNEY LAPPER-That was one of the Zoning Changes that we have requested. COUNCILMAN BREWER-So, if we approve this tonight does that approve that, I guess is my question. EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR ROUND-I want to make sure what is the, what is the specific concern? COUNCILMAN BREWER-The reduction in size of the parking? EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR ROUND-That would be allowed under the ordinance, that would allow them to go from currently from a five to a four, four spaces per thousand they talk about four and a half. COUNCILMAN BREWER-My concern is not whether they have that amount of parking I would rather see that you show us on a map that you have that room for parking rather than putting blacktop down. That is my concern only because as you drive around this Town, K Mart is an example that is ludicrous. ATTORNEY LAPPER -We are trying to avoid the K Mart look that is like seven per thousand in terms of the parking ratio, which is overboard. COUNCILMAN BREWER-Whatever it is to me it is crazy because you have got nothing but just a big piece of land with blacktop on it. It does not get used. ATTORNEY LAPPER-The other thing that we have here because of the topography and because we know, the Planning Board has already told us that they are very focused on the qualify of the visual buffer along Aviation Road that the parking lot is shielded where K Mart you see, you are driving by and you see nothing but cars and asphalt, so it is a very different site. COUNCILMAN BREWER-As I remember though John even when you drive into the mall and you go past Friendly's and take a right, the originally was parking spaces all along there and I can remember when I was on the Planning Board we asked you to re-stripe that so that there wasn't parking places there because it was never getting used, people were cutting across the lines and it was useless. ATTORNEY LAPPER-Now, where the new building is going to go that is going to replace one of the parking fields so this site plan proposes that there would be a new parking lot that would be potential if we need it for the tenant, on the other side of the entrance drive from Friendly's to the west of that entrance drive but that is something that could stay green until such time as it is needed. COUNCILMAN BREWER-I would prefer that. EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR ROUND-The proposal is a decrease in the parking that is required, that is what is being asked by the applicant. COUNCILMAN BREWER-I am talking actual blacktop on the ground. If they don't EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR ROUND-Well we have indicated that in our, in one set of comments was that our concern is the visual impact to Route 9 because this project is going to be very close, excuse me, to Aviation Road, is going to be very close to Aviation Road, you are going to lose some mature trees as a result of the project and that we felt that all, that corridor to address is the 187 and Aviation Road we want to minimize the visual impact there so we can acquire additional plantings or landscaping plan to be evaluated as they move forward through the process. MR. FRANK PAL UMBO-If I could add just the amount of parking in reviewing that the amount of parking that they are requesting is very much toward the low end of what this type of operation would normally be requesting and in doing so they are really accepting That lower lever of parking after an historical basis of seeing that there have been so many spaces, I think that malls and some of the other businesses have come around to see that they are always having those additional spaces there, they are not getting used at a lot of time and they have found themselves looking for that reduction. But to go much less than the 4.0 per thousand you start to I think get into a risk of making it a difficult you know place to just go and use. So, the 4.0 is really a pretty good ratio at this point. EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR ROUND-If you have any other questions or if you are, we do have a prepared resolution, I do not know if Pam got everybody a copy of it, do you know? Everybody but you, here you go Bob. RESOLUTION ACCEPTING FINAL ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT (FEIS) AND AUTHORIZING NOTICE OF COMPLETION OF FEIS REGARDING PYRAMID COMPANY OF GLENS FALLS' PROPOSED AVIATION MALL RENOVATION AND EXPANSION PROJECT RESOLUTION NO. 293.2001 INTRODUCED BY MR. TIM BREWER WHO MOVED ITS ADOPTION SECONDED BY : MR. DANIEL STEC WHEREAS, in April of 1998, the Pyramid Company of Glens Falls (Pyramid) submitted a Petition for Change of Zone application to Amend the Town of Queensbury Zoning Map and Ordinance, a Full Environmental Assessment Form in accordance with Article 8 of the Environmental Conservation Law and its implementing regulations (6 NYCRR Part 617) known collectively as the New York State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA), and an application for site plan approval including site plans (collectively, the "Petition") to the Queensbury Town Board, and WHEREAS, on April 20th, 1998, the Town Board by Resolution No. 160,98, forwarded Pyramid's application for rezoning and zoning amendments to the Town Planning Staff, indicated its wish to be designated as SEQRA Lead Agency for environmental review of the proposed expansion project, authorized the Town Clerk to submit Pyramid's application to the Town Planning Board for report and recommendation, and authorized and directed the Executive Director to notify all SEQRA involved agencies of the Town Board's wish to be Lead Agency and request their consent or objections within thirty (30) days, and WHEREAS, the Town Board acting as SEQRA Lead Agency received consent from the two (2) SEQRA involved agencies, the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) and the Town of Queensbury Planning Board (Planning Board), and WHEREAS, on April 24th, 1998, Pyramid submitted a Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for review by the Town Board, The Sear-Brown Group, the engineering firm retained for purposes of assisting the Town in connection with the SEQRA review (Sear-Brown), NYSDOT, Town Planning Staff and Planning Board, and WHEREAS, on May 4th, 1998, by Resolution No.: 189.98, the Town Board made a SEQRA Positive Declaration, accepted the DEIS as complete with respect to its scope, content and adequacy for the purpose of commencing public review and commenced the public comment period, and WHEREAS, on June 8th, 1998, the Town Board conducted a public hearing on the Project and DEIS at a joint session with the Planning Board and on June 19th, 1998, the public comment period concluded, and WHEREAS, on May 7th, 2001, Pyramid presented a modified proposal to reduce the size of the prior proposal to authorize construction and operation of a 125,000 SF GLA department store, which results in a net expansion of the existing Aviation Mall by HOO,OOO SF GLA, associated parking and other site improvements (Modified Project) and requested the Town Board to resume its consideration of the Petition and Modified Project as submitted, and WHEREAS, Pyramid submitted a proposed Addendum to the DEIS (Addendum) to the Town Board for review and consideration, and WHEREAS, by Resolution No.: 212.2001, the Town Board on May 14th, 2001, accepted the Addendum as complete with respect to its scope, content and adequacy for the purpose of commencing public review and commenced a public comment period, and WHEREAS, on May 21,2001 the Town Board duly conducted a public hearing on the Modified Project, the DEIS and Addendum and on June 18th, 2001 the public comment period concluded, and WHEREAS, the Town Board has considered those comments made at the public hearing and during the public comment period, and WHEREAS, the Town Board, with assistance from its consultants the Sear-Brown Group, Inc., has reviewed and considered the Applicant's proposed Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) and may now decide to accept the FEIS as complete, NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the Queensbury Town Board hereby accepts the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) submitted by Pyramid Company of Glens Falls (Pyramid) in connection with the proposed renovation and expansion of Aviation Mall, and BE IT FURTHER, RESOLVED, that the Town Board hereby approves and adopts the Notice of Completion of FE IS presented at this meeting, and BE IT FURTHER, RESOLVED, that the Town Board authorizes and directs the Executive Director of Community Development to file and publish the Notice of Completion of FEIS presented at this meeting in accordance with 6 NYCRR Part 617 and other applicable statutes and regulations, and BE IT FURTHER, RESOLVED, that in accordance with 6 NYCRR Part 617 and other applicable statutes and regulations, the Town Board further authorizes and directs the Executive Director of Community Development to file, circulate and make available for public review, copies of the FEIS as follows: 1. Queensbury Town Clerk's Office; 2. Queensbury Planning Department; 3. New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, Division of Environmental Permits, 625 Broadway, Albany, New York 12233; 4. New York State Department of Transportation, 84 Holland Avenue, Albany, New York 12208; and 5. Any person requesting a copy of the FEIS. Duly adopted this 16th day of July, 2001, by the following vote: AYES Mr. Turner, Mr. Stec, Mr. Brewer, Mr. Brower NOES None ABSENT: None ABSTAIN: Mr. Martin Discussion held after vote: Attorney Lapper- Thank you very much and we hope to be back soon to talk about the findings. 2.0 DISCUSSION 2.1 Queensbury/Glens Falls Sewer Agreement Proposal/Veterans Field Annexation SUPERVISOR BROWER-I would like to move onto a discussion item, the only discussion item this evening, Queensbury, proposed Glens Falls, or Queensbury Glens Falls Sewer agreement proposal, we also have a revised memorandum of understanding proposed memorandum of understanding that our Sewer Negotiating Committee attempted to finalize today. We met at 9:30 this morning for about two hours and Bob Hafner redrafted the memorandum of understanding you had seen previously and the one that you have dated 7-16-2001 before you is the current one and our proposal this evening is to go through the memorandum of understanding in a public session enabling the public that is present to better understand what is happening and of course a reporter from the Post Star is here and hopefully he will have a copy of the proposed, the Queensbury MOU proposal before he leaves this evening. At least that would be my hope even though it is not signed, it may be revised. TOWN COUNSEL BOB HAFNER-Before we have given it to Bob Morris? SUPERVISOR BROWER-We probably should, give it to Glens Falls first. TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-We had told Bob Morris that we would give it to him. SUPERVISOR BROWER-At that point it would be a public document and we will give it then to the Post Star. Although we expect that there might be some changes. Now lets see for those of you that are not aware the Town of Queensbury desired to attain more sewer capacity at the Glens Falls Plant and we started a discussion period that was not very fruitful at the time. The Chairman of the Board of Warren County Bill Thomas newly elected by members of the Warren County Board proposed that the County participate in a solution to a sewer agreement that would enable the City to achieve further revenue and the Town to obtain necessary sewer services so that we can extend sewer service to our commercial areas in the Town and enable to potentially further development on our commercial areas and service to existing businesses. With that in mind Queensbury formed a sewer negotiating team authorized by the Town Board. The members of that team comprised of Ralph VanDusen, Mike Shaw Director of Water and Wastewater, Hnry Hess Town Comptroller and Chris Round Planning and Community Development Director and of course myself. We had a number of meetings with the City at least ten or more and generally they were productive meetings we had a number of very interesting interchanges and it was quite a process. It has been time consuming and yet I think it has been productive. So, with that and with our sewer negotiating team present we would like to kind of go through this and our Attorney is here as well Bob Hafner who drafted the MOD. Bob do you want to lead us through part of this? TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-I do not know how much detail you want me to go through, Dennis, so. COUNCILMAN TURNER-Can we do it this way, lets take it page by page and if there is anybody that has any comment or you have any, you will lead us on that way, just so nothing gets missed, because I already have a comment on the first page. SUPERVISOR BROWER-I would like to add that at the end of the Board and Sewer Negotiating Team process we will open the meeting for questions or comments from the public but at this time we would like to proceed with further discussion. TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-It is a memorandum of understanding. It says that the Town and the City plan to enter into certain agreements to purchase sewage capacity. Then we go into the different terms that need to be in those agreements. The first is the right to purchase and talks about the price per gallon. It gives the Town the right to purchase as much capacity as they need up to the amount of capacity that is available. Purchase price is seventy five cents per gallon, you have to pay it every time you purchase. That right to purchase will be for the entire term of the contract which is set at forty years and it talks about how it will be done. Are there questions on paragraph one, from the Town Board? COUNCILMAN TURNER-Bob, if capacity, down on the bottom of the page, capacity available to the Town will be sewer treatment plants uncommitted excess capacity available at the time of the Town's request for and purchase of additional capacity. When we did the Moreau Water Contract, they had first refusal on any additional capacity. So, lets say we go twenty years. TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-This is better. COUNCILMAN TURNER-They had first refusal on any, you know, any uncommitted capacity. Do we have first refusal on this? COUNCILMAN STEC-Before they could sell capacity to Moreau? COUNCILMAN TURNER-to anybody else, if we need maybe EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR ROUND-Ted you talked to me about this, and ...different ways. Somebody comes in want to buy, there is six million gallons of capacity left and they want to buy it all from the City of Glens Falls, we get what our immediate need is now do we have the right to reserve some of that six million somebody else is going to buy before they buy it out? That is something that we never discussed as a committee. TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-That was never part of the discussions that the committee has and the committee, the last couple months the committee negotiated without the Attorney present. I do not, you guys never told me that, that was ever an issue. COMPTROLLER HENRY HESS-I would just like to clarify, think as an example the Moreau example I do not think that they had unlimited right of first refusal on a specific amount. TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-It is the last million.. COUNCILMAN TURNER-Million gallons. TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-It is the last, it is when we get up to that far WATER/WASTEWATER SUPERINTENDENT RALPH VANDUSEN-It was discussed, if I canjust interrupt for just a second, it was discussed briefly because there is so much capacity available we felt that it really wasn't a major concern for us. COUNCILMAN TURNER-Yea, I know there is a lot more, that was not an issue, you do not see it as an issue in the future? I mean that we are looking at a crystal ball but. SUPERINTENDENT V ANDUSEN-I realize forty years is a long time but realistically COUNCILMAN BREWER-How long has the plant been there now? SUPERINTENDENT VANDUSEN-You know, I don't see a user coming in using that kind of volume. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-I do not think history would show in either community the rate of increase or demand, the increase in demand has not grown that much at a forty year term even at an average rate. SUPERINTENDENT V ANDUSEN-A single user is going to come in and use, lets just say the Ciba Geigy property became developed, they are going to have to pre-treat and it is only the secondary portion of the plant, the primary would not be. So, you would really need residential type sewage going in there. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-Even in that case Ciba Geigy plant is in the Town of Queensbury, so. EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR ROUND-The contract does contemplate our immediate capacity needs. Immediate meaning the several districts that are currently under examination, Route 9, South Queensbury, so it is planning for growth in the future so it is not just looking at what our existing needs are. TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-But as I recall to talk about the numbers that they have, you have got to tell me what the uses are but they have a total capacity right now rated at nine and a half million gallons and they are using a small fraction of that. What is the percent? DEPUTY SUPT. OF WASTEWATER. MIKE SHAW -About 4.7 million of that a day. So, they are some wheres in half the neighborhood. W ATER/W ASTE WATER SUPERINTENDENT RALPH VANDUSEN-So, they could double their servIce area. DEPUTY SUPT. WASTEWATER MIKE SHAW -We did a projection of a possible scenario over twenty years and we only project like a million and a half on our end. SUPERVISOR BROWER-Yea, but what about forty years. W ATER/W ASTE WATER. SUPT. VANDUSEN-Quite honestly fifteen years from now it looks like that is going to be a problem you can buy as much capacity as you want at seventy five cents a gallon. COMPTROLLER HENRY HESS-You can buy tomorrow if you are willing to pay the reconstruction fee every year on that portion of the plant. WATER/WASTE WATER SUPT. VANDUSEN-And no single user is going to come in and use four million gallons a day without a lot of publicity and discussion ahead of time you are going to know about that. COUNCILMAN BREWER-We are not going to buy this four hundred thousand right off the bat anyways until we have a need for it are we? COUNCILMAN MARTIN-No, it is supposed to be as needed basis. COUNCIMLAN BREWER-So, the four hundred that we are talking about that we have been talking about we do not even need right now. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-No, even if the known users like a Great Escape and Main Street, Bay Road those three corridors I think we are only taking up a maybe twenty, thirty percent of that four hundred thousand gallons or forty percent maybe? W ATER/W ASTE WATER SUPT. VANDUSEN-Route 9 would be more than that. DEPUTY SUPT. OF WASTERWATER SHAW-Route 9 always runs two hundred thousand immediate use, you have another possibility although it has very small use now is South Queensbury. The current need is maybe is twenty five a day the ultimate build out is close to three seventy five a day I think, three hundred and seventy five thousand. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-Any early numbers out of Exit Eighteen Corridor, Main Street? DEPUTY SUPT. OF WASTEWATER SHAW-The numbers there are basically small at this time, you know the type of use that you have there is twenty thousand gallons a day or something, if you get twenty thousand gallons a day of something, if that corridor changes you might see something thirty or forty thousand gallons a day. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-So, even with the known immediate growth corridors we are looking at maybe, what three hundred thousand gallons? WATER/WASTE WATER SUPT. VANDUSEN-Three to four DEPT. SUPT. OF WASTEWATER SHAW-Yea, four, fourish. TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-Do you want me to go to paragraph two? (Agreed to by the Board) COMPTROLLER HESS-I would just like to finish on paragraph one, one of the things that there is the City wanted to make sure that we did not go out and sell sewer service outside of the Town and this does provide for that but it also provides except for the pre-arranged deal with Kingsbury, it also protects all the businesses within the town for the town. TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-I will be glad to speed it right up. Number 2 This new agreement that will be drafted will supercede all of the existing contracts that the Town has. It will make it one contract, one set of rules one administration one, that was done to make things easier for Mike and his department. ..to take all of our different contracts which have a whole bunch of different rules and make it one instead of driving him crazy trying to figure out which district are we in and which set of rules apply. Paragraph three is really the heart of it and that is Queensbury's costs. I think that I will go through it section by section. The first is the buy in. It talks about immediate buy in, we have a whole bunch of existing agreements to buy capacity which have never formally been signed. Never been granted the extra capacity from the City. They were at different rates and this contract just says, we are taking all those past contracts which and including these purchases that were never consummated an consummating them as part of this contract, we are buying them for the amounts that the City and the Town agree to at such time. It will mean a buy in of around seventy four thousand gallons per day for a total cost of just under eighty thousand dollars. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-It should be noted that all those per gallon charges will be at the charges that are in those existing agreements so they range from, some of them are a dollar some are a dollar thirty five. COUNCILMAN BREWER-What you are saying is all those districts will pay those fees and the new districts will pay seventy five cents. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-Yea, it says in that next on top of page three, it says unrestricted future buy in of capacity at a price of seventy five cents per gallon. TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER- Those were amounts that were previously agreed. WATER SUPT. VANDUSEN-In several of those the money has already been received by us and is sitting in escrow waiting for that. DEPUTY SUPT. OF WASTEWATER SHAW-In fact all of them are. TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-Next, is O&M, what it does it sets up an O&M cost, operation and maintenance cost for the town that is based on the Town's proportionate share of volume which they send to the treatment plant so just to use some numbers that I can do easily in my head. If we send ten thousand gallons to treatment plant and it has a hundred thousand total gallons going there, we pay ten percent of the cost of O&M. That cost of O&M is calculated in a particular way, the particular way is first it is based on the Earth Tech contract, the Earth Tech contract that was originally signed. The things that are included in that contract we call Earth Tech factors and that's so our O&M costs is based directly on the Earth Tech contract it concludes our proportional share of sewer treatment and it includes our proportional share of collection minus utilities for lift stations times seventy percent and I think that percentage how that was calculated I think that Mike can give us some insight as to where that came fom. The proportional share of electricity to operate the treatment plant. Adding all of those up that is our base O&M charge. On top of that because there was a lot of discussion about costs that the city has that are not in the Earth Tech contract or are not their utility charges and the City is entitled to be paid its fair share of those costs that are in the sewer treatment that are associated with the sewage treatment and the Town in its negotiations wanted to come up with an easy way of calculating it that would not have, that would not have a lot of change from year to year as different things are put in that category of administrative costs. What they did was they came up with a factor of twenty five percent of those first costs that we were talking about, those base O&M costs. So it is twenty five percent on top of the proportional share of sewer treatment the cost of collection times seventy percent and the cost of electricity. In case the Earth Tech contract does not continue, I do not know it exact term but it is less than the forty years, those things that are in Earth Tech are called Earth Tech factors and if the City should ever assume its own sewer treatment those items in its budget that were in the Earth Tech Contract will still be added together and will be treated as in calculating the base operation and maintenance charge. Mike would you like to go into where the seventy percent you know was arrived at? DEPUTY SUPT. OF W ASTEW ATER SHAW-Basically, what happened with that calculation is the City had a signed agreement with Earth Tech for facility operation and maintenance and for water distribution and wastewater collection operation and maintenance. The wastewater collection in the water portion of distribution was one lump sum number and it was not divided out in their budget so they had no way of determining how to divide that out. So, we negotiated something less than a hundred percent we knew that it was something more than fifty percent, fifty percent of sewers generally more expensive to maintain, upkeep so we had negotiated a seventy percent portion of that. Thirty percent would be for operation of the water distribution system. A past history tells us that, that's somewhere in the ball park, because the budget was not broke out when they negotiated with Earth Tech they could not provide any of those numbers, exactly what those numbers were. Apparently Earth Tech when they negotiated with the Citythey felt that the wastewater treatment and the water treatment were the portion of their bread and butter and the collection and the water distribution were a minor factor. That is why they grouped it all into one. That is kind of how they came up with the seventy percent. TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-Let me go onto the reconstruction. Reconstruction costs for the sewage treatment plant are a substantial concern, because they have to keep it you know maintained and there is a lot of expense associated with that. A lot of expense foreseen over the next twenty years. There was a reconstruction plan I think was based on information that came from their engineers and Earth Tech as part of the contract which if you look at it, next year they pay a hundred thousand in maintenance and the next year it is four hundred thousand and the next year it is fifty and the next year it is five hundred. It is based on what they predict the reconstruction costs to be. For the Town's users that would result in big changes year by year depending on what time it was to maintain what part of their system. So, part of what the negotiating team and Henry you know came up with was a way to make that more stable over the next twenty years and to come up with a plan that says, we look at the total cost it s X if we use our present value this is how much we need now lets put that money in a fund now so that it is there and it will over the term of the twenty years be there to make sure that the money is there to do the maintenance that is expected to be required and that there will be interest earned during to help maintain the fund and keep it up. It will pay for reconstruction over the entire year in both the Town and the City would come up with their money for that at the beginning so both of them could be sure that the money is there to do what we see as needed maintenance. Does that explain it fairly? COUNCILMAN BREWER-Well, I am sorry but I have a concern about the top paragraph about the reconstruction money. If we borrow money it is my understanding that we can borrow at a better rate possibly than the City. We are giving this money to the City what restricts them from using that for anything? TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-That is a very good question. One of the sentences that we have in here is COUNCILMAN BREWER-It says it will be in a restricted fund but TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-That has to be in a restricted reconstruction fund that can only be used for expenditures covered by the reconstruction plan. We later COUNCILMAN BREWER-Who monitors that? COUNCILMAN STEC-Who defines what those are? TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-Very good questions. We spent a lot of time this morning fine tuning some of that but we have been working on that. The plan is a plan that you guys worked on during the last two months in the negotiations. It is based on the Earth Tech you know, what they project the uses will be. W ATER/W ASTE WATER SUPT. VANDUSEN-Actually the reconstruction plan has to be submitted to and approved by is it EP A or DEC? DEPUTY SUPT. OF WASTEWATER SHAW-EPA WATER/WASTEWATER SUPT. VANDUSEN-By EPA so they will be the ones to say yes this works or no this doesn't. COUNCILMAN BREWER-I understand what you are saying, but I want absolute one hundred percent assurance that if we give them whatever the number is, five million, two million, one million if it is ten dollars that if the City needs money for something they are not able to go in and take any of that money, without us knowing about it. COUNCILMAN STEC-What caught my attention along that same line on page 6 the second paragraph, at the end of the twenty year reconstruction plan term the Town and City shall agree to a new, the Town and the City shall agree to a new twenty year reconstruction plan for the remaining term. So, I guess, what I saw missing in the previous paragraph is where the Town and the City agree on the initial reconstruction plan. I mean, because you are right, what is to say that there might not be confusion later over well we thought that this, this is a reasonable expenditure for this reconstruction plan and we disagree. Like I said it provides for subsequent joint reviews of new reconstruction plans but like I said nothing in this as, that we will both agree to what the terms of the initial are. W ATER/W ASTEW ATER SUPT. VANDUSEN-It is not part of this document but the City submitted to us a proposal of Capital replacement that was submitted to them by Earth Tech and I am not sure if their engineer reviewed it or not, but it was the dollars associated with each phase and the anticipated year and the projection was over twenty years here is a list of the components that need to be changed, in reality for the life of that treatment they will have to have something along that line. But, that's what was used as a bases for us to develop this plan and the dollar amounts. COUNCILMAN BREWER-I guess for me I would feel more comfortable if we had that plan and we know that we are going to over twenty years what ever the number is, it is going to cost, just to pick a number say ten million when those things need to be done we should let each other know so hey, you know next month we are going to need three hundred thousand COUNCILMAN MARTIN-Can't such an account be set up just like a joint checking account that requires joint signatures for any money to be withdrawn? COMPTROLLER HESS-I would like to address that, they own the plant and we are, they are a vendor to us and we are a purchaser of service. I do not think that they are either willing and probably not required by law or even allowed by law to lay that responsibility off to us. I think that this agreement obligates them in fact the word obligate we inserted that this morning, it obligates them to make their annual contribution it permits the Town to audit the fund on an annual basis to review all the transactions. It does not give us discretion to go in and substitute our judgment for theirs. It is their plant and we own a small portion of it. That is where the area of trust comes in, I mean you are buying from a vendor that you intend to you think will live up to their obligation under the contract and if you have a doubt about that. COUNCILMAN BREWER-I have a doubt about it. COMPTROLLER HESS-If you have a doubt about that COUNCILMAN BREWER-I mean, I am being honest. COMPTROLLER HESS-you have to consider your partner not necessarily the language of the agreement. COUNCILMAN BREWER-Right, I am just saying that if they have a bill for five hundred thousand and the Town's responsibility is ten percent give us a bill and we will pay our bill. DEPUTY SUPT. OF WASTEWATER SHAW-Under this plan COUNCILMAN BREWER-That is the way I feel about it. DEPUTY SUPT. OF W ASTEW ATER SHAW-as Ralph has mentioned EP A is the ruling authority for this reconstruction fund, and I would think EP A is going to have some kind of audit themselves to make sure these monies are correctly used. Also, on the City's end of it ok, the City is responsible according to what numbers we ceased in an average of over ninety percent of the expenses for that plant. So, if you are responsible for ninety percent of your house you are going to make sure your monies are there for future use or repair. COUNCILMAN BREWER-Understood, but my point being Mike is this reconstruction thing was supposed to have been done how many years ago? It was not done, now all of a sudden we are going to play catch up and I do not want to be a part of that because it was not done I do not want to suffer for that. TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-Tim, I think we can deal with your concern, it was envisioned that there would be a reconstruction plan that existed I thought it was farther along but this is a MOU, it is a memorandum of understanding of an agreement that will be finalized that reconstruction plan was envisioned to be an attachment an exhibit to actually exist. What I propose is that we add a sentence, I think it was already implicit in here we will make it explicit that the original reconstruction plan will be reviewed and approved by the Town Board and will be attached as a schedule to the agreement. COUNCILMAN BREWER-That is fine. TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-I think that can stop that discussion because, while we would have made sure it was done that makes it right here that you can see, it is right there. SUPERVISOR BROWER-I have a question for Henry, Henry we had a discussion with the City regarding the reconstruction you had a proposal that suggested borrowing the money up front, both parties borrowing their portion of the money in advance and I think we indicated to the City that if they decided not to do that the Town intended to do that with its obligation is that correct. COMPTROLLER HESS-We did and the agreement as it is written obligates the City to do that, they may negotiate that back down, the Town still has several options. To what degree we can borrow in advance we debated with our fiscal advisory today in New York City, and that question is still open. But, how we can fund in advance or assure that our share is funded to make sure that the money is there really is not open to question. We know we have the capacity to do that. I think from our goal in this issue was to take the City's reconstruction plan based on what their engineers estimates ;and smooth out the hills and the valleys. Because our district just could not absorb going from a fifty thousand dollar expenditure one year to a five hundred thousand dollar the next and especially early on in the plan, in the first two or three years. If you had ten years to plan before those big expenses hit we could build a reserve. The way to get around building a reserve when you do not have the time to do it is to ust borrow the money up front plug in your debt service and the money is there for the whole twenty years. .. it irons it out, so that's the plan we come up with. To what degree that has to be modified to meet regulations or the City's needs I am not sure but I think the plan spelled out in the MOU is sound for both the Town and the City and I think if they do not want to do it their way, they do not want to do their share on this the Town has a decision to make to make sure their share is covered but is does serve the Town's purposes well for leveling off the cost. SUPERVISOR BROWER-I know that I was impressed with the plan you proposed because it cut the annual budgetary expenditure in half over what the City had projected so, I thought that was pretty neat. COUNCILMAN STEC-Will the difference between what falls under the repairs that are mentioned in where reference is made to the twenty five percent of the base O&M charge and anything that would be repairs under this reconstruction plan, I mean how will it be clear whether hey, that is covered by our twenty five percent O&M kicker or will it fall under this capital reserve plan. How is that delineated? DEPUTY SUPT. OF W ASTEW ATER SHAW-When we first drafted this and it certainly is a draft as Henry said, we referred to their plan, Earth Tech had gone through the plan made a list of all equipment in there the major equipment in there quite a list, condition was in and their opinion of what dates you know within twenty years, repair or replacement, ok. That whole plan is three point one million dollars or the five point one million dollars you need for that plan is what that reconstruction would be for. Anything outside of the plant per se something to do with their collection system, twenty five percent, that one of the contingencies the twenty five percent is to take care of the future repairs within that collection system. COUNCILMAN STEC-Well, I mean what I am saying if it is a gray area, it is like going to the shop for warrantee work or anything else where you say, this is a gray area and if we say it falls under repair then we are on the hook for the whole nickel, we being the owner, the City, where as you could say well, this is actually you know this is more of a capital thing and then Queensbury would pay its proportionate share whatever our flow percentage is. WATER/WASTER SUPT. VANDUSEN-Actually if it is part of the annual O&M we are going to pay a higher percentage of that then we would if it was part of a Capital Plan. The O&M we pay a percentage of actual flow through the plant and our percentage of flow through the plant is higher than our percentage of capacity in the plant. COUNCILMAN STEC-What I am saying is that there could be an advantage or disadvantage for those ones that are on the bubble where you could say this is something that falls under reconstruction this is something that falls under, and is there something that clearly says these are the things that fall under this repair. DEPUTY SUPT. OF W ASTEW ATER SHAW-Well, I will tell you the reconstruction plan that we have talked about that the City had down and that pretty much has the pieces of equipment listed in there. COUNCILMAN STEC-If it is not explicitly listed in that then it falls under this whole repair thing that our O&M is covered. DEPUTY SUPT. OF WASTEWATER SHAW-That is our opinion. COMPTROLLER HESS-Is it likely that there will be some disagreement and arbitration along the way, yes I would imagine in forty years there will be. TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-Because you cannot predict, you cannot predict twenty years what the reconstruction is going to be. The intent, there is a right to audit and any changes has to have the approval of both people but we can't I do not think you can be quite so ridged, there are going to be changes and the Federal Regulations say that when we use a certain percent that we are supposed to pay a certain percent of the reconstruction costs which to some extent the Federal Regs. Detail. COUNCILMAN STEC-My only concern was that repairs was mentioned two separate parts of the agreement and I was curious how are we saying these repairs fall under this part of the agreement and these other repairs fall under this. I guess what I am hearing from Mike is that those are spelled out in this reconstruction plan if they are in that, that is how they get charged out and if they are not presumably they are less serious nature where it is not a capital replacement it is a smaller repair. WATER/WASTE WATER SUPT. VANDUSEN-The current contract the City has with Earth Tech basically if it is a maintenance item where you fix something or you replace a component of it and make it work that is operation and maintenance if however you have to take the whole thing out and replace it then that becomes part of this reconstruction. EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR ROUND-The City is going to argue to include it in Earth Tech costs which is great for us because it is not going to get put on our capital plan. WATER/WASTE WATER SUPT. V ANDUSEN- That is a good point. COUNCILMAN STEC-Where I work my day job, where we have maintenance work that has to be done, we do, we as the operational side of the business go and lobby with the accounting side of the business to say, I want this coming out of my operational budget because my operational budget is very small and blah- blah-blah and this would be to my advantage to have this capital. Then you have to go and then there is an accountant that is trying to figure out well, is this really a capital repair or is this an operational repair. Even there, it is a gray area where, I mean there is a lot of times where you say gee, which pile of money does this come from? COMPTROLLER HESS-I would just like to clarify that there are really three piles of money here, we are talking about two, we are talking about O&M and Capital Reconstruction, there are really three piles and the more we negotiated the piles just kept multiplying. One of the reasons we came up to twenty five percent was to minimize some of those piles, because contingency is another pile. They have a number of contingency funds they alluded to a number of contingency funds for repairs that fell within the two, how did the . .for that? Some of our twenty five percent contingency was negotiated and settled on to off set some of those other repairs that fell in a black hole where we were not sure where they were. W ATER/W ASTE WATER SUPT. VANDUSEN-One thing that made me feel better anyway, if you thought about that was, if a decision is made that this isn't a fix, it is a capital reconstruction, we are paying roughly ten cents on a dollar and the City is paying ninety cents on a dollar. Now, as we grow we are going to make our way to twenty they are going to come down to eighty but it is certainly in the City's best interest to keep it in the O&M because Earth Tech pays that, that is their problem. TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-Do you want me to go on? (Board agreed) That was about the reconstruction costs which is really a very important part of this, I mean, it is very important for both of us, because they have some reconstruction issues over the next few years that they need to do and that we are going to have in the plan and we are going to pay our share and they are going to pay their share. Transmission is the next section under three and it says that all costs of maintaining the City's transmission lines are included in that twenty five percent mark up that we talked about .But, if the Town in using the City's lines wants to increase flows in those increased flows into the City will require improvements to the City's lines which weren't necessary without those additional flows, we are causing them to have to improve their lines to take additional flows from the Town then the Town will pay those costs. COUNCIMLAN BREWER-The cost to put those TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-Up grade their lines so that they can handle our increased flow. COUNCILMAN BREWER-That means that we go in and pay to have the pipes put in? TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-If we are causing that to be necessary because we are saying we want to send you more stuff, the other alternative is to not send more sewage which is against the whole point. COUNCILMAN BREWER-And I understand that and I appreciate that but they have a plant with a certain amount of capacity and they have not enough infrastructure to handle that capacity and we are paying for it and they want us to pay for the DEPUTY SUPT. OF WASTEWATER SHAW-That is not necessary their collection system all comes into the treatment plant, you have several fingers I might say or several pipes ok, we may decide to discharge at a point that makes sense for us but it is not designed to take that kind of a load. All we are saying, the City brought to us and we said that sounds fair if we for some reason what to put more in the pipe than the pipe is designed for then we agree to pay that change, the upgrading of that pipe. As Bob reads along there I think it will say, we also have a clause in there to if the pipe is designed to take a hundred gallons a day and this is crazy but, and for whatever reasons the pipe is only taking fifty gallons a day and we come along and we want to put fifty more in there then it is not on our end to upgrade that pipe. SUPERVISOR BROWER-Mike you might want to use a specific example that we have had experience with where you were told by someone that, we did not have any more capacity. DEPUTY SUPT. OF WASTEWATER SHAW-Originally on the Quaker Road Sewer District Contract, I guess it was always unclear prior years back in the mid or early 80's that Bay Street Connection where we connect our transmission line or force main at Bay and Sanford. There was concern there that, there was ability to take our four hundred thousand gallons a day but anything beyond that that we would have to build a connector over Sanford Street to Glen Street. Here a few years ago I became concerned about it and looked at it and looked at the size of the pipe and realized that it looked to be substantial more ability to take much more gallons there. So, we hired O'Brien and Gere Engineering some years ago to do flow tests and take a look at the pipe and after we did that it was agreed that there was substantial more room for discharge at Bay and Sanford somewhere in the range of two million gallons a day. So, originally they wanted us to pay for a connector pipe over to Glen Street at our cost which was five or sx hundred thousand dollars. So, that, those are the types of things when we get into gray areas we will research that. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-Correspondingly, if we are sending stuff into the City by a means ofa pipe and for what ever reason you know, it is properly sized and all of that and that pipe fails, and it is in a City street that is their responsibility, right? DEPUTY SUPT. OF WASTEWATER SHAW-That is correct, that is what our twenty five percent gray area, slush fund is for. SUPERVISOR BROWER-That is what the end of this sentence says, the cost to upgrade or repair deteriorating lines will be borne by the City. COUNCILMAN STEC-Now, lets say that they got one that is on its last leg and they want to replace it but we also know that hey, we want more capacity here do we pay the difference or how does that work? If we request a larger line? COUNCILMAN MARTIN-We pay for the larger lines. COUNCILMAN STEC-We pay the difference. TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-Can I move on? (Board agreed) The next one is right to audit. The Town has the right to audit and it get information so that we can make sure you know the numbers and we can see how the plant is doing and we can make sure that everything is calculated right, pretty typical thing in a contract like this. Paragraph 5, they have negotiated that they want the Town to show its support for the separate contract with between Warren County and the City about the sales tax agreement and while that is not a binding thing that this Town Board can do that's, they can show their support of it. Paragraph 6 deals with COUNCILMAN STEC-Bob, if I could go back to four for a second. To me it looks like we have a right to request information, financial statements and what not records does this give us or if it doesn't should we request that they give us a right to inspect the plant. To, have Mike go visit the plant periodically to make sure that we are comfortable that it is ready, that is very common in private industry for a customer to be able to inspect the supplier and I was just curious if we wanted our people to be able to go in and eye ball things every once in a while. I mean announced, I am not saying you know Gestapo tactics, but we want the right to have a schedule on site visit to come in and just make sure that, I know that there are other agencies that have other responsibilities here but as a customer I think it might be in our interest to say we would like to be able to visit. COMPTROLLER-I would like to respond to that, the right of audit doesn't necessarily mean that we would personally perform an audit, it means that we would hire somebody qualified to go in and do the audit on that plant. An audit does include right of inspection. COUNCILMAN STEC-So, it does ... SUPERVISOR BROWER-Maybe we should clarify that. TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-So, why don't we, to make it clear why don't we put including physical inspection. COUNCILMAN STEC-including physical inspection. Just so that we are not arguing ten years down the road from now whether or not. TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-Again this is just an MOU those details will be in a much more boring agreement than this one already is. COUNCILMAN STEC-Sorry. TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-I am putting that right in that was actually something that we talked about today and we thought that this covered but now it covers it even better. We went through five then, six, Veterans Field, this is the annexation part of the agreement and we envision this to be part of the sewer agreement, to the extent State Law permits the City and Town will as far as their agreement have an agreement where the City can annex its Veterans Field Property. We describe what that property is and it says the City and Town will follow State Statute for doing so. It will be a whole bunch of provisions for that part of the agreement. COUNCILMAN BREWER-Which one of them will be that connector road that I talked to you about today. TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-I cannot hear you. COUNCILMAN BREWER-The expense of the connector road? TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-Chris in the SEQRA findings? EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR ROUND-Under item C there was an initial MOU included that the packet was going to go back to both Planning Boards and I indicated and I think Dan had brought this up, that in this SEQRA findings it indicates that all site improvements are going to be approved by a joint committee comprised of representatives of the two LDC's the Glens Falls LDC and the QEDC. On those two boards are the Mayor and the Supervisor of the Town of Queensbury. The Seqra findings indicate that there is a set of design criteria that they have to follow when they construct a building, color, height, appearance, lighting, landscaping, site design and so on, so I handed them those esthetics concerns that I think were voiced last week. Also, in the SEQRA findings it requires a contribution to two categories of traffic one being the connector road and one being some intersection improvements in the City and the Town. Those are part of the seqra findings that obligates the City to do that. It is our understanding andl do not yet have a copy of it, that the City has adopted identical findings. COUNCILMAN BREWER-I just want to make sure that, that contribution is in this document so somewhere down the line it doesn't get forgotten. COUNCILMAN STEC-Right, what was said in the SEQRA document. COUNCILMAN BREWER-The SEQRA document will, this document should reinforce that EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR ROUND-We can reiterate that, I can give Bob COUNCILMAN STEC- The highlights the real important stuff I do not see any harm in printing it in two locations, I guess COUNCILMAN BREWER-We are talking about two hundred thousand dollars. COUNCILMAN STEC- That is important, and Chris actually what you said raised the question on B here where it says they will adopt we were told that they have adopted so TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-Except that we haven't ever received physical proof of that yet. COUNCILMAN STEC-If someone looks at the date of this agreement and the date that they adopted it will that cause any sort of legal confusion or issues as far as well apparently the town was waiting for something else? EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR ROUND-We will get a copy and we will reiterate the terms that you are concerned about. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-The other thing I would suggest to round out this loop is that you put a clause in there that the City adopt in their zoning code a zoning district that is the same as the one the Town adopted. Didn't we do a new zoning district for that? EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR ROUND-Yea, BF light industrial COUNCILMAN MARTIN-Why don't we just have them take that whole zoning ordinance, whole zoning district and insert it in their zoning code. That way the uses are not a matter of question. COUNCILMAN STEC- The concern that I had was in the future, things change, people forget stuff, we have seen it with the library, we have seen it with dozens of issues here some involving this City some involving totally different subjects, but is there language in the SEQRA document or anywhere else that would prevent five years from now some developer and coming and requesting a rezoning of this portion of then Glens Falls? COUNCILMAN MARTIN-I do not think you can bind that. TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-I do not think that you can bind that. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-If they sell a lot in there to a private person, private entity, and they want to change zoning, yea, I do not think that you can bind it would be out of the City's hand too just like it would be out of ours. COUNCILMAN BREWER-Well I disagree with that Jim, if they made this SUPERVISOR BROWER-One of our stipulations is that this be used for light industrial purposes only. COUNCILMAN BREWER-So, I think that we can bind it. I would insist that we bind it. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-I am just saying I do not know how enforceable that is. COUNCILMAN BREWER-We talked about retail going there and said we did not want retail there. COUNCILMAN STEC-I understood that the Mayor is comfortable with that but my only concern is five or ten years from now when we are all gone and somebody else is sitting in these seats and they do not remember the history. We have had it preached to us by previous board members that have come back and said I remember when we did this four years ago, when ever and now you have got that times two because you got a similar situation in the City where maybe we need to try to rap that up. I am sure that the Mayor is committed to the agreement that we have got here but, I am thinking down the road, is there anyway to address, rezonings. Because we do not have say so after next year. COUNCILMAN BREWER-We do not have say so after this.. COUNCILMAN STEC-Well, yea, this time next month we might not have any say so. COUNCILMAN BREWER-Bind it for the length of the contract. COUNCILMAN STEC-I am sure that the Mayor would agree to that. SUPERVISOR BROWER-You probably can bind it for the length of the contract couldn't you? COUNCILMAN BREWER-If it is in the contract they sign it, it is bound. Yes, because we strictly or we specifically spell out in that SEQRA findings that this would be light industrial development not retail. TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-I think a deed restriction would be more effective. COUNCILMAN BREWER-A what? TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-A deed restriction, you could, they own the land you could require to put a deed restriction. I am much more comfortable with that than the other things that you are talking about. COUNCILMAN BREWER-Put it in here that it is referenced in a deed. I do not think it is that big of a deal to put it in ... COUNCILMAN STEC-I say this only to close the loop on other discussion you and I have had, that was some of the source of my concern is that I believe that everyone is on the same page today, but five years from now when all the pullers are different and this is five years old and has collected dust as you know so many things you know around government does collect dust after a while and that somebody is going to say you know what would be great right here and then COUNCILMAN MARTIN-I agree, I think you could do it with a deed covenant or deed restriction that would work. COUNCILMAN STEC-I am sure that the City currently, the Mayor feels that way today. So, I am sure that he will not have any objections to it. But, like I said my only concern is you know the next Mayor, because our term limits and the City. SUPERVISOR BROWER-Bob why don't we go through each point here starting with A TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-That is where we were. Restricts the use of the property to what was the exact term of the zoning? EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR ROUND-Light Industrial Manufacturing. TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-Light Industrial Manufacturing and...ok, we are talking about the portions of our agreement that deal with annexation. One is the Town will approve and permit, Two, we are going to add that deed restriction language What is B in the list here is the City will adopt SEQRA findings that the Town adopted. C. Deals with buildings and improvements will be in conformance with the model site plan that the Town approved. And talks about the involvement of the Glens Falls LDC and QEDC. D, is annexation shall not set any precedent for any future annexation by the City of property located within the Town. E. Is a provisions that says during the agreement the City shall not request or seek to annex any property within the Town unless the existing Town Board shall first authorize such action. F. is the annexation will not include where the Luzerne Road transfer Station is currently located and the Town can continue to retain control of that. The Town uses it for its transfer station. COUNCILMAN STEC-So, Bob, again, because I know I asked you questions about this, or I asked somebody a question about this a few days ago, the Luzerne Road Transfer Station right now, what is our relation, that is on City property? TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-It is owned by the City and the City I have never seen the exact document, there has been some sort of agreement where the Town can use that property for its transfer station. That has never been a question that we have been asked. COUNCILMAN STEC-It is more a curiosity than a concern, I was just curious what the relationship was. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-I think that came about during the Fran Walter's, Mayor Bartholomew days when they had that joint landfill worked out that was when that came about. TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-G. The Town is going to provide water and sewer service to the property and the City will pay the Town for such services if the property were, for water and sewer purposes were still within the Town. If there are any costs to the Town's Sewer or Water because of future owners of the property, just like the City requires us to pay those types of costs we would require that future owner to pay for the costs. The Town and City will jointly provide Fire and EMS services to the property and the City is going to pay the Town a certain amount for the town providing such services. W ATER/W ASTE WATER SUPT. VANDUSEN-Bob, can I interrupt you for a second. I am sorry that I did not do this earlier today but I just thought of this as we were discussing this, when we get to G, of the town supplying water and sewer we should make sure that we include in that a clause that they must meet the Town design standards for construction, even though the property is in the City. Thank you. TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-Shall meet the towns, what kind of requirements? W ATER/W ASTE WATER SUPT. VANDUSEN-Design and construction standards. SUPERVISOR BROWER-For water and sewer, correct? TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-We were on to, we did fire, we talked we have a provision that as part of the consideration for the whole agreement that the Town will give a portion of Sherman Avenue from the City boundary to Veterans Field. The Town of course will retain easements for town utilities. Sewer service will be established. ...Sewer service will be established by the City at its own costs along Luzerne Road to the Western end of Veterans Field. That is so the Town can extend sewer service farther up Luzerne Road to the Trailer Park which is something that is hoped to happen in the future. The Town owns a land locked parcel in the middle of the City's property and the Town will transfer and the City will accept all its interest in that small parcel. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-I would not use the term trailer park just the word, that is not very trendy anymore these days. TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-Well, tell me how you would rather, teach me how to be trendy, that is not one of my skills. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-Mobile Home Park, I think that is kind of an offensive term.... TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-Mobile Home Park UNKNOWN-Manufactured Home COUNCILMAN MARTIN-Manufactured Home that would even be better. TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-I can tell you that there was no thought given to any insults. The portion of the agreement dealing with annexation will survive the date of annexation and will have a term equal to the term of the sewer agreement. Contingencies, there is a whole bunch of contingencies. COUNCILMAN STEC-Could we go back to I, briefly, because Tim and I have a question that we think we need clarification. COUNCILMAN BREWER-Clarify this in simple terms, number I and number 2. The way I understood what we agreed to was today, tomorrow we get the regular fire and ems rate, when the property value goes up we get half of the TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-Increase in assessment. That is what this says. COUNCILMAN STEC-Because of the word plus. COUNCILMAN BREWER-Plus the standard what ever it is today. COUNCILMAN STEC-We get whatever we get today plus half of whatever it grows by. COUNCILMAN BREWER-Why does it say less the 2001? COUNCILMAN STEC-Because it will be, if it is assessed at ten thousand today and it is assessed at a million tomorrow, we get half of a million minus ten thousand, plus TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-Of the nine hundred and ninety thousand increase in value. That is exactly what I understood that they COUNCILMAN BREWER-Why not just the flat fifty percent of TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-This is slightly better for the Town. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-That would be better the way he is saying is better for the Town. TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-It is more complicated you are right we had fun drafting it. But it is what was agreed to. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-That is why you went to law school Bob. TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-Yes, Contingencies, ...there are a bunch of contingencies, Veterans Field light industrial Park will be incorporated within the City in accordance with the terms of this MOD. That is basically saying the annexation. It needs the approval of the Queensbury Town Board, it needs the approval of the Glens Falls Common Council, it needs the approval of the Glens Falls Water and Sewer Board, it needs the approval of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. I expect they may come back, it may also need some EP A approval, but we do not know that, that is their thing. I expect that they will, but they did not put that in the last time that they did it and I will just raise it to Bob Morris, that is their call, we do not care as long as they get all the approvals they require. The negotiation and preparation execution and delivery to each other of the agreements that actually have even more meat on them than this. Paragraph 8 says that the City and Town will endeavor to neotiate and execute the final agreement within sixty days. This memorandum of understanding can be changed only by a writing by both the Town and City which would have to be approved by resolution of each. Each party has to pay its own expenses associated with this work and number ten says that whatever any prior agreement was ignore that this is what the agreement is intended to be between the parties. Paragraph II says if the Town and City do not execute a final agreement within sixty days of the signing of this MOU, either party can terminate the memorandum of understanding. That was in there from before for the version that the City provided us with. SUPERVISOR BROWER-Maybe we should say thirty days at this point? TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-All the time we spent on the MOU COUNCILMAN STEC-Remember there are more than two lawyers involved in this. SUPERVISOR BROWER-You don't like thirty days how about fifteen? COUNCILMAN STEC-How about thirty four that is a big number tonight. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-You have to have thirty days for each attorney involved is the factor there. TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-Number 12 just says that this does not have every detail that will be in the final agreement and isn't meant to be. Then it would be signed, of course parties cannot sign it until we review it and go over it with Bob Morris and make sure gets the City's input and then the Town Board and City Counsel would have to pass a resolution authorizing the signing of the MOD. We told Bob Morris last week that we would try to get your input by today and get it over to him tomorrow and if you guys are in agreement I see no reason why we cannot meet that schedule. SUPERVISOR BROWER-You have a couple of changes that we discussed TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-And some that Chris and I are going to work on tomorrow, but the rest of the committee is comfortable with the comments that we made, right? So. SUPERVISOR BROWER-Asked for public comment... MR. JOHN SALVADOR-Resident of the Town of Lake George and property owner in Queensbury RE: Sewer Will people have to tie into the system? COUNCILMAN MARTIN-No. MR. JOHN SALVADOR-Questioned if we were buying capacity that will never be used? COUNCILMAN BREWER-We are not buying anything until we have a need for it. MR. JOHN SALVADOR-Questioned the repair of a sewer line in the City if it is upgraded to take care of Qsby. needs? COUNCILMAN MARTIN-If it is upgraded yes...the cost of upgrade. MR. JOHN SALVADOR-Noted we could be incurring costs to infrastructure improvements and upgrading in the City and maybe never use it. COUNCILMAN BREWER-Only if the upgrade is necessitated by our flow. MR. JOHN SALVADOR - We could be forced to pay 25% of an upgrade anyplace in the City ... DEPUTY SUPT. OF WASTEWATER SHAW-The 25% is in excess of the Earth Tech contract it is to take care of repairs that are not in the Earth Tech contract. MR. JOHN SALVADOR-Unless you know what those costs are you are signing a blank check. TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-What we defined as the Earth Tech factors, the Earth Tech original contract said the City was buying certain services and they were providing certain things to the City those things are called the Earth Tech factors, if the contract is changed in the future that doesn't change what the Earth Tech factors are, those additional costs get subtracted out from what the Town pays because they are included in the 25% times the Earth Tech contract. EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR ROUND-Just using numbers, Earth Tech costs to the City are a hundred dollars, we pay our proportional share of Earth Tech costs based on our flows right now it is between seven and eight percent so we are going to pay seven dollars for our Earth Tech costs. We are going to pay twenty five percent of that seven dollars which would be a dollar seventy five for all other categories of cost that are not covered or defined under the contract. Then there are reconstruction costs that is a fixed plan that we will define what those costs are. The last category that you are concerned about is if we require, when we build a new system that is going to cause a burden on the City we have to pay the cost to upgrade that system if it is us causing that. Is it because of anticipated flows, purchase flows, when we buy capacity we could buy a million gallons of capacity tomorrow it doesn't say we are going to deliver it to point X, Y or Z as we develop a sewer district we are going to define where that s delivered and there will be an engineering evaluation as it is done with any map, plan and report. That report will define if there capacity in the system, we will say yes there is capacity or no there is not capacity, we will say there is a deficiency we are causing that deficiency there will be negotiations the contract says we will pay our fair share. MR. JOHN SALVADOR-Noted he did not agree..Questioned if the Earth Tech costs are capped? COMPTROLLER HESS-They are contractual costs it is a specific dollar amount up to so many gallons and if it goes over that there is a factor that says we pay two hundred and eighty dollars for every million gallons over that or whatever it is per year. It is a specific defined cost that we can project. MR. JOHN SALVADOR-Are these cost material and labor costs? COMPTROLLER HESS-They are Earth Tech's charges to the City... WATER/WASTE WATER SUPT. VANDUSEN-The Town would not be asked to pay any additional funds unless the Town requested that, that pipe be put in larger to handle a future increase flow. So, if the Town does not ask that question for more capacity then the Town would not pay a penny. MR. JOHN SLA V ADOR -Questioned who rated the Sewer Plant capacity? DEPUTY SUPT. OF WASTEWATER SHAW-The EPA Primary Treatment 9.5 Secondary Treatment 13.4 MR. JOHN SALVADOR-Questioned if an environmental assessment is going to be done? COUNCILMAN MARTIN-Yes we are...when we have the results back, we have a map, plan and report in process now. MS. CONNIE TUCKER-Glen Lake area ... Noted she was happy that you are deciding to go along with the sewer district and bring us into the 21st. century, I think environmentally it is very sound. Where are you going to put the sewer systems lines that you are going to put in? DEPUTY SUPT. OF WASTEWATER SHAW-I assume you are talking about the Route 9 project, the current plan on Route 9 is to go from Wal Mart north to 149. The only side street involved is Weeks Road and possibly Sweet Road. EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR ROUND-There are other districts that are being contemplated. MS. TUCKER-Questioned how flow is measured? DEPUTY SUPT. OF W ASTEW ATER SHAW-It depends on the flow that you are talking about, a design flow for an area that you are looking to sewer, there is a design standard for businesses, for houses per capita that is used as a design flow. MS. TUCKER-How are they actually billed? DEPUTY SUPT. OF WASTE WATER SHAW-It comes from engineering standards a ten state standard is generally what is used in this day and age and that is used to design a sewer system or water system. EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR ROUND-You meter water usage do you use the water billing or how does the City know how much waste is coming to the plant? MS. TUCKER-You are going to be paying for X amount of flow the flow that is actually going into the treatment plant how are you determining what actually belongs to the Town of Queensbury vs. Glens Falls? DEPUTY SUPT. OF WASTE WATER SHAW -We have meters and we know exactly what we discharge the City and the City has a master meter there to know exactly what its effluent is. MR. JOHN STROUGH-As a Planning Board Member and certainly not representative of the Planning Board in reference to the Veterans Park EIS, the traffic study was based on a half percent growth, questioned what will trigger mitigation measures such as the connector road.. EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR ROUND-Noted Pine Street may need to be upgraded if truck traffic is on there... MR. STROUGH-In favor of connector road, who would fund it... EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR ROUND-The MOU reinforces that the City has to adopt that requires them to participate in those six intersection improvements and there is a dollar value based on trip generation. It also said two hundred thousand dollars which is a proportional share of the connector road and the Town is pursuing a connector road as a priority project. MR. STROUGH-Questioned the coordinated review by the various Planning Boards of the Town and City, what kind of powers will each have? What if they do not agree on an issue? EXECUITVE DIRECTOR ROUND-That was an aid to improved communications between the two boards how it would be handled I do not know. Noted the MOU puts the power in the joint committee.. TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-Noted that there are many legal requirements to go through the annexation process. If you are talking about a public hearing for this annexation where it is an annexation by a City of property that it owns in the adjacent town there is no requirement for a normal public hearing. You have to give certain notice to the different taxing entities the school district and the fire district and the water and the sewer district and the Town there is a list of taxing districts that you have to give notice to, they have a right to come and talk and to give objections. But, it specifically says under the statute that it is not a public hearing because the only parties that are involved are the taxing people, the town and the City because there is no privately owned property. The Town Board has to find that it is in the public interest to allow this annexation and since it is all part of the sewer agreement there may be good support for that already. COUNCILMAN BREWER-I would suggest that we openly have a meeting invite the public so that we do not get accused of doing these deals behind closed doors. SUPERVISOR BROWER-Introduced Mr. Jack Moynihan Warren Co. Supv. From the City of Glens Falls ... asked for further comments? MR. PLINEY TUCKER-Questioned when the document will be available to the public? SUPERVISOR BROWER-After it is delivered to the City. MR. TUCKER-Questioned the financing of the project, when will it be put together? Questioned the impact on the Town, cost of the road... COUNCILMAN BREWER-Whether the City owns the park or we own that park or it is a joint venture the cost of the road, it was a fifty-fifty split. MR. TUCKER-Whatever amount of money the County was to give to the City for the sewer if it doesn't go through they do not get it, correct? (Board yes) MR. D AVID STRAINER -1124 Ridge Road The sewer lines in Queensbury will be serviced by Queensbury not Earth Tech? (Board that is correct) MR. ROGER BOOR-83 Sunnyside E. - Re: informing the public suggested notifying the radio, paper and web site... MR. JOHN SALVADOR-Questioned the date for No. Qsby. Sewer hearing... SUPERVISOR BROWER-Waiting for information from Mr. Lamy, as to date and time for the No. Qsby. Sewer hearing. Noted Ralph VanDusen and I spoke to the Assembly Point Association on Saturday morning, they are interested in the No. Qsby. Sewer options. RESOLUTION ADJOURNING TOWN BOARD MEETING RESOLUTION NO. 294.2001 INTRODUCED BY: Mr. James Martin WHO MOVED FOR ITS ADOPTION SECONDED BY: Mr. Theodore Turner RESOLVED, that the Town Board of the Town of Queensbury hereby adjourns its Special Town Board Meeting. Duly adopted this 16th day of July, 2001 by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Martin, Mr. Turner, Mr. Stec, Mr. Brewer, Mr. Brower NOES: None ABSENT: None Respectfully submitted, Miss Darleen M. Dougher Town Clerk-Queensbury