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2007-10-22 SP MTG46 67 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 10-22-2007 MTG. #46 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING MTG. #46 OCTOBER 22, 2007 RES. 466-468 6:30 p.m. TOWN BOARD MEMBERS SUPERVISOR DANIEL STEC COUNCILMAN ROGER BOOR COUNCILMAN RICHARD SANFORD COUNCILMAN JOHN STROUGH COUNCILMAN TIM BREWER Director of Building and Codes Dave Hatin Zoning Administrator Craig Brown Sr. Planner Stu Baker Fiscal Manager Barbara Tierney DISCUSSION: COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT UPDATE ? Land Access Councilman Sanford-Received a call from a lady who owns property on Lynn Avenue regarding land with no access. Zoning Administrator Craig Brown-Suggested that the town take the land to continue the road and everyone would have road frontage. Supervisor Stec-I think our desire is to own the land and give them frontage to a road. Asked that Administrator Brown follow up with Attorney Noordsy on this. ? So. Queensbury Fire Company Lease Councilman Sanford-Eric Lettus has given a lease document to the Town and wishes that all the Board members receive a copy. Supervisor Stec-Noted he believes that Steve Lovering has the document. It is an old lease where we were going to give them two hundred dollars a year but it says it is supposed to be adjusted for inflation. Will get the document and have copies distributed to the Board. ? Home Improvement Loans Councilman Strough-Re: Home improvement loans, can they go outside the identified district? Sr. Planner Baker-Possibly if they are elderly or disabled. I will give you some information to give to them. ? CEA Councilman Strough-Re: CEA-you both had concerns about the number of Planning Board of Reviews that may it lead to. Noted he is including comments made by Sr. Planner Baker and Zoning Administrator Brown, will send the document to the Planning Board to see if they have a consensus. I think they want to enlarge their capabilities of doing site plan reviews and CEA’s. Regarding SEQRA there are not too many things that we have to add or subtract just notations. ? FAILING SEPTIC SYSTEM Councilman Boor-Spoke to Board regarding an individual in Ward I, that has a failing septic system, has applied for a grant. This individual is related to a public official of the Town. 68 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 10-22-2007 MTG. #46 Sr. Planner Baker-In this case it is a matter of health, safety and welfare with a failed system we should be able to assist this individual under the ’07 award but there will be a lot of paper work involved. It is outside the area and because he is related to a Town Employee there is going to be more paper work and actually an additional public hearing required. Councilman Boor-We are going into winter and he has been like this for some time, I am not happy about additional paper work but this is somebody’s health, if it is a matter of pushing some more papers thorough the system lets do it. Sr. Planner Baker-In that we will, by the time he applied the remaining home funds and CBG funds had already allocated so the well was dry when his application was submitted. On a related note applicants for these housing programs are suppose to remain confidential under Private Law. ? SOUTH QUEENSBURY Councilman Sanford-Requested a demographic profile of So. Q and portions of Ward IV. Sr. Planner Baker-Questioned if he wanted owner vs. rental profile? Councilman Sanford –I would like to understand what the universe of the sample is for potential eligible at South Q, and make sure I would like to have an understanding of that. ? LANDUSE PLANNER Sr. Planner Baker-All of the grants to this date have been for target areas, So Q and West Glens Falls. Land use Planner Position-noted one person will be in the area to be interviewed on Friday if possible… Supervisor Stec-Noted we had indentified the top three, we interviewed one, and one is no longer available and the other one we are having a hard time hooking up to interview, how much do we like the one that was interviewed are we comfortable to act on that or wait? I will e-mail you the statistical data as far as what the Land use Planner Salary range is and if Stu could verify that she is still available Stu, maybe at our next meeting th on the 5 we will have a resolution if the Board is in agreement. ? DRAFT ZONING CODE th Sr. Planner Baker-Re: Nov. 12 workshop I would like to start the review of the draft zoning code. Councilman Strough-We need to work on the language of the new commercial zone which is basically highway commercial with upgrades, and no mention of whether we should have it moderate or intensive was mentioned, that should be discussed. DISCUSSION: 2008 NON-PROFITS BUDGET DETAIL Soap Box Derby Councilman Brewer-Re: Soap Box Derby - would like them listed in the budget at $5,000. Mr. Drellos –Spoke about the Soap Box Derby, the Bay Road site this year was the largest rally in the Country… Would like to schedule one for the end of April, beginning of May. 69 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 10-22-2007 MTG. #46 Supervisor Stec-Noted that the amount that we budget isn’t necessarily the amount they will receive. Councilman Brewer-They are proposing two events, a Rally and a local one. Councilman Sanford-What fund raising are they receiving other than ours we need to look at that. Councilman Boor-We did receive a budget but the original did not have a schedule A on it, you did get us a Schedule A prior, that was for one event. I did not see one for this year. Councilman Brewer-I will call for it tomorrow. Board agreed to $5,000. Warren County Historical Society Board agreed to put in $2500. Occupancy tax. North Queensbury Library Councilman Boor- $1500 to stay solvent. Occupancy tax ? OTHER NON PROFITS Supervisor Stec-Kept the same from last year to this year the rest of the non profits… Others to be reviewed Glen Lake Request – Sunnyside Request – Land Conservancy Councilman Boor-I do not have a problem to making the amount contingent upon a grant being awarded for Sunnyside. Board agreed to $12,000 for Sunnyside PALS (Protective Association for Lake Sunnyside) Discussion held regarding mil foil in Glen Lake Councilman Sanford-Would like to see a comprehensive plan. Unknown-Described for the Board the different types of treatment that have been suggested, noted it is very important for the lake to have treatment. Supervisor Stec-Spoke on a Glen Lake Protection District. Unknown-We are in the process of looking into the formation of a Glen Lake district and the cost of doing the back line survey. Discussed rules for Glen Lake Unknown-I have asked for in the CEA is restriction of fertilizers, and when a property changes hands that, that septic system be inspected and brought up to code or made usable or made so it is not polluting the lake. Councilman Brewer-Is there a fix for the Lake? Unknown-No, it will be ongoing maintenance issues. We are looking a hundred thousand dollars every three years. The membership seems to be in favor of a taxing district. Unknown-Will do a major presentation to the membership in May and see how it is received. We will apply for grants…grants for lake management are hard to come by. 70 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 10-22-2007 MTG. #46 Supervisor Stec-Proposal of Seventy five thousand, is there an understanding that the intent is that you will wrap up the district next year? Unknown-Noted he is only one person, will invite the Board to the presentation next year. Supervisor Stec-We will appropriate seventy five thousand for this, it will get a closer examination. Next discussion – Lake Conservancy and Feeder Canal FEEDER CANAL Supervisor Stec-Feeder Canal asking for twenty five hundred. Fiscal Manager Barbara Tierney- To preserve and promote the Feeder Canal Historic towpath trail. Board agreed to twenty five hundred from Bed Tax LAND CONSERVANCY Board agreed to six thousand REQUESTS TO REMAIN THE SAME AS LAST YEAR American Legion Greater Glens Falls Senior Citizens Queensbury Seniors DISCUSSIONMEADOWBROOK DRAINAGE STUDY UPDATE-DAN : RYAN MICHAELS DRIVE Engineer Dan Ryan-We authorized observation wells, we will work tomorrow with the Highway Dept. in putting those in, there will be eighteen approximately ten to twelve feet deep. That will establish the parameters we need for design and final analysis of what is happening and verifying the original report. TAKUNDEWIDE Engineer Ryan-Takundewide is an association with multiple camp style buildings, some being converted to long term residences. They are proposing to install a community sewage systemfor eleven or twelve of the buildings, the ones closer to the lake. I think from a sewage standpoint will be a benefit to the lake because all the old systems will be moved farther away. At the Planning Board Meeting there were concerned residents as far as storm water issues in the area in particular closer to the lake just down gradient of where the new system is proposed. There are dry wells and a culvert pipe which ultimately discharges directly to the lake. This area was targeted by CT Male back in the 90’s are one of the potential problem areas to be addressed, I do not know if anything happened as a result of this report. Biggest concern with the storm water run off is the dry wells which are perforated and they are shallow. Testing was done in the early 90’s there was coliform in the storm water being sewage basically. One of the residents was getting sick, the children were getting sick from the water that they pump out of the lake and swimming in the lake was obviously a potential problem. They tested the lake within fifty feet of that culvert and they also tested the storm water in the dry wells all being positive for sewage. I have looked at the area briefly, it is apparent that storm water could be an issue here there are a few roads and part of Takundewide Assoc. itself that collect storm water in drainage ditches and ultimately go to this pipe which discharges 71 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 10-22-2007 MTG. #46 into the lake. My biggest concern is that there is sewage being directly pumped into the lake. Councilman Sanford-I thought we made it clear they needed to connect a number of those cottages to a system and then in the rear have a centralized leaching system. Engineer Ryan-That is what they are proposing. The Planning Board tabled any approval. The ones closest to the lake and a few of the other ones they are planning to interconnect and pump to a community system. My recommendation would be to take these dry wells out and put solid catch basins in that would decrease infiltration from sewage directly into the storm water system that is in place there. That might benefit at least from a sewage standpoint. Councilman Sanford-The MOU that was developed jointly between the Homeowners Association and the Planning Board has no legal validity to it. Councilman Strough-There is a little bit more history, it was requested that we go in that direction because that was the only sane way of doing it to come to some mutual understandings on behalf of the Planning Board at that time. Some of the mutual understandings was to limit the size of the structures because they were proposing two stories, two to three thousand square foot structures out of structures that were eight hundred square feet to start with. Limit the number of bedrooms, limit the size of the structure to something to effect the fourteen hundred square feet on the lake. A lot of this discussion that we are having now came out of the memorandum of agreement. Councilman Sanford-The logic behind it was that if they had reached this understanding that every time somebody wants to put that second story on there would be a template to expedite the process and they would not have to go through the whole approval process. I understand that was the intent, at the time I raised the technical, legal question is there anything at all about this document that has legal standing, and the Attorney said really no. However, it that is not to say that it can’t be used as a guideline. Engineer Ryan-I am not entirely convinced that what they have proposed will impact negatively this problem that already exists, I do not necessarily think it will impact it all that much. Councilman Strough-The conclusion that came out of that was would it negatively impact the storm water which already was in …a problem. Engineer Ryan-My answer to that is probably going to be I do not feel that it will have a significant impact, they have not addressed the tennis court runoff and stuff that is directly up gradient. Councilman Strough-I felt I think basically what you are saying too, that this system would not adversely effect the storm water situation, however, it would make the neighbors feel better if we would address and remedy the storm water situation. Engineer Ryan-The coliform were done in the 90’s the next time we get a decent storm I will go up and work with the water dept. and see if they can draw a couple of samples and see if it is still an ongoing issue. Councilman Strough-Suggested that Larry Eichler be contacted to see if he would add this to his testing sites, they test a hundred sites around Lake George. Engineer Ryan-In summary I do not think this project has a direct impact on that particular issue but what does surprise me is this issue has been persisting for ten years and nothing has ever been done. I have talked to Mike about doing something just to treat the storm water before it does enter the lake. Councilman Strough-Spoke to the board regarding retention basins. Engineer Ryan-Not sure there is enough land, that is something for future talks. 72 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 10-22-2007 MTG. #46 QUAKER ROAD Engineer Ryan-Minogue’s Culvert System – Question was raised if Jarrett Martin had done any investigative work previously it turns out that they did nothing extensive. Dave Wick has some history on this. Councilman Sanford-How long will the construction phase take? Engineer Ryan-I think within a couple of weeks, it does depend on the man power. MEADOWBROOK Engineer Ryan-Meadowbrook is an on going study, I have spent a lot of time in the field this summer, to get a handle on what type of flooding if any occurs during normal summer conditions. Try to determine and delineate the watershed that affects that culvert duly south of the sewage pump station on Meadowbrook. Noted that 90% of the pipe is submerged, also noticed that fifty feet directly west there is a old farm crossing across the steam and that is a berm with a collapsed concrete culvert in it, essentially the stream is stopped at that point. Councilman Sanford-We need your report to proceed with the SEQRA determination, what we will probably going to do is on the PUD we are really going to say there is areas that there are suitable property for development there are others that are severe drainage problems and limitations so what we are going to do is that we are going to request that even though it is a PUD that every time any application comes in for a development that it receive a long form SEQRA Review done at the Town Board level. The Michaels thing that was referred back to us by the Planning Board and based on the delineation that was done by DEC that project cannot happen it is right in there, when we take care of that we then draw the SEQAR determination which basically says that since it is an eight hundred acre PUD there are going to be some properties that are suitable and others that aren’t and that no one SEQRA review does justice in terms of environmental.. it has to be done at subsequent stages as property owners look to develop and then it resides pretty much with the Planning Board. Engineer Ryan-I do have a draft report and I could probably expedite things. Councilman Sanford-Spoke on two projects that are now on hold until the report is done. Engineer Ryan-As far as recommendations go I have quite a few but some are based on the Town taking some initiative to maybe remedy some problems, do we have a separate set of recommendations for current on going projects because we may not remedy anything in the near future. Councilman Sanford-In your report, do your recommendations as to what you think the Town should do. Councilman Boor-I think you should talk to Counsel on this, when we start physically working outside of easements on private property I think we need to be leeryof what we can and can’t do. Engineer Ryan-To summarize what I have basically determined is that the analysis does show a flooding of this culvert with a fifty year storm, the water shed that incorporates for this culvert is about seven hundred and seventy five acres, it does loop back almost to Sunnyside. Now the percent of developed area in this watershed that feeds this culvert is not a great percentage, there are only a few developments down here by Waverly at the Sunnyside end there are a few up at the north end but in between it is wooded, so I would not say there is a huge percentage of development that has occurred to make a problem have occurred itself. 73 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 10-22-2007 MTG. #46 Councilman Boor-Is there any validity can you associate in any way the Meadowbrook coming from the other direction and also flooding. Engineer Ryan-It is separate. It does not have an impact. The final report will be done in about two weeks. The Planning Board and the applicant will want to see the report. DISCUSSION ITEMS Mr. John Salvador-Reported to the Board on the public hearing of Crandall Library Budget, Mr. Stec was also at the meeting. The meeting opened with a presentation by the Library and then Mr. Hess brought up the issue of the debt service not being in the budget. They noted they were advised that the debt service did not have to be in the budget. This has been challenged, and successful I believe, they understand it must be in the budget. Question was raised if it is not in the budget how are you going to pay it? Their answer to that was they intended to issue a letter to the County Treasurer asking the Treasure to put the taxes on our tax bill in January to cover the debt service. No, vote, no th hearing. It ended that night that is the way they would do it. That was on the 10 before th we had Judge Nolan’s assigned order to show cause signed on the 11 so the library was not aware of the fact that we were challenging in court. We have now a return date of th October 25 on that issue circumventing the Town Municipal Government in Councilman Boor-not having the resolution go to the County from the Town Board. Mr. Salvador-I heard the Library has contact the City of Glens Falls and asked them for a resolution that they would adopt at their counsel meeting that would ask the County to withdraw their request. The City of Glens Falls is the only municipality that did it exactly right. The library asking them to withdraw it is kind of admission that they were wrong in circumventing municipal government. Councilman Sanford-At Queensbury a year ago we wanted an informed public, we knew it was their budget and we were not weighting in on their budget but we want the public to know what the amount was and how much of a percentage change from the prior year, so someone would have a basis of making an intelligent decision. They argued their case and they said we do not need to go through you and then the next year came and they didn’t. But, they did the same thing with Glens Falls and their City Clerk questioned it and had their lawyer review it and the next meeting I noticed they did it by lawyer resolutions. So, they did not have the same comfort level that the library had. Councilman Boor-What happed last year and this is where it is interesting and it gets by some people is what people fail to realize is the Queensbury Board did pass a resolution to have it put on the ballot, they came back and we said we want you to change the language of that wording, they said we do not have to come to you at all. But, the County already had in hand a resolution passed by the Town Board that is why some people think that no we did not have to do it, no we had already done it we just wanted it revised. Mr. Salvador-The answer to that question was why have you done it this way for fifteen years and now we are changing and do it another way this year? Supervisor Stec-We will have an answer Thursday from the Court. Mr. Salvador-The answer the library gave to that question well, we considered the last fifteen years to have been a courtesy. Councilman Sanford-I would like to know for sure, because all we are hearing now are lawyer representations. We need to go to the State Comptroller’s office and ask them two questions, one is on the ballot issue as to whether or not the library’s budget has to be passed on to the County by the Town Board or doesn’t it? The second one is going back to your old historical thing which is as a special taxing district should it appear as a line item on the Town of Queensbury Budget? One way or another we can get this thing resolved, if the Town Board send an inquiry to the New York State Comptroller’s Office. 74 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 10-22-2007 MTG. #46 Mr. Salvador-In our lawsuit the only issue is whether or not the library has the authority to circumvent the Town Municipal Government and put an issue on the ballot. Councilman Sanford-There are two things, that answers when we find that out we will know whether or not they have to continue..the other question it is relevant in a legal sense and that is whether or not like we have our, we have in our Town lighting districts, sewage, water all special taxing districts the library the Queensbury tax payers pay a library tax it comes on the same bill that you get for the others and we do not include it as a line item in our budget. Now, the bottom line is we do not come up with that number but never the less the Supervisor is the person who issues the warrant to demand the taxes. That is what he does. Supervisor Stec-Suggested that the Councilmen e-mail with specific questions to be asked the State Comptroller. This question has been asked several times over the years, and past Budget Officers and Attorneys for the town have said it is correctly not on the town’s budget and further more, I do not sign the warrant for Crandall Library that comes from the County. Gretchen Steffan-Spoke to the Board noted she felt that the Community Development Department is understaffed. Supervisor Stec-We have put money aside for positions in the Community Development Department. Gretchen Steffan-There is one issue that I do not think has been discussed is Code Enforcement as a Planning Board Member we are lacking in our Code enforcement as far as staffing capacity. We have had exponential growth over the last fifteen, twenty years at this point and now we have a lot of open projects and we have one code enforcement officer for zoning. I know Craig and Bruce as spending a lot of time manning the window and there is not as much time out in the field. Supervisor Stec-Noted that the Town Board will have a public hearing two weeks from tonight on the 2008 Town Budget. Certainly if the next Town Board wants to hire somebody we can always find room in the budget to hire one person. Gretchen Steffan-Just from a human resource person’s point of view this has been a very difficult time for the Community Development Department, no one there is wining or complaining but having been on the Planning Board and watching the staff they are being pushed pretty far right now. They are doing a lot of jobs without an Executive Director in place and down a land use planner everybody is wearing a lot of hats and that is really an unfair position to put a lot of the staff in from a professional HR person’s point of view. For a short period of time anybody and stretch and do extra work but for a long period of time it is unreasonable. There is work that I believe is not being done that needs to be done. Mr. Salvador-Re: Crandall Library, we read in the newspaper that they are intending to have a special referendum sometime shortly, November, I have talked to a few people and their understanding is that, that is virtually impossibility. Supervisor Stec- I understand that they are going to be in a real pickle to get it done and meet all the necessary time lines. Councilman Boor-Very expensive too, it would have to be all three communities. RESOLUTION CALLING FOR AN EXECUTIVE SESSION RESOLUTION NO. 466, 2007 INTRODUCED BY: Mr. Roger Boor WHO MOVED FOR ITS ADOPTION SECONDED BY: Mr. Tim Brewer 75 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 10-22-2007 MTG. #46 RESOLVED, that the Town Board of the Town of Queensbury hereby moves into an Executive Session to discuss contract issue between Town Counsel and Town of Queensbury. nd Duly adopted this 22 day of October, 2007 by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Boor, Mr. Sanford, Mr. Strough, Mr. Boor, Mr. Stec NOES: None ABSENT: None RESOLUTION ADJOURNING EXECUTIVE SESSION RESOLUTION NO. 467, 2007 INTRODUCED BY: Mr. Richard Sanford WHO MOVED FOR ITS ADOPTION SECONDED BY: Mr. Tim Brewer RESOLVED, that the Town Board of the Town of Queensbury hereby adjourns is Executive Session. nd Duly adopted this 22 day of October, 2007 by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Boor, Mr. Sanford, Mr. Strough, Mr. Brewer, Mr. Stec NOES: None ABSENT: None No action taken during Executive Session. RESOLUTION ADJOURNING TOWN BOARD MEETING RESOLUTION NO. 468, 2007 INTRODUCED BY: Mr. Richard Sanford WHO MOVED FOR ITS ADOPTION SECONDED BY: Mr. Tim Brewer RESOLVED, that the Town Board of the Town of Queensbury hereby adjourns its Special Town Board Meeting. nd Duly adopted this 22 day of October, 2007 by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Boor, Mr. Sanford, Mr. Strough, Mr. Brewer, Mr. Stec NOES: None ABSENT: None Respectfully submitted, Miss Darleen M. Dougher Town Clerk-Queensbury