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2006-05-08 SP MTG17 Special Town Board Meeting 05-08-2006 Mtg. #17 134 SPECIAL TOWN BOARDA MEETING MTG. #17 MAY 8, 2006 RES. 251 7:00 p.m. TOWN BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT SUPERVISOR DANIEL STEC COUNCILMAN ROGER BOOR COUNCIMLAN RICHARD SANFORD COUNCILMAN JOHN STROUGH TOWN BOARD MEMBER ABSENT COUNCILMAN TIM BREWER TOWN OFFICIALS BUDGET OFFICER JENNIFER SWITZER TOWN COUNSEL BOB HAFNER REPRESENTATIVES OF THE FIRE VOLUNTEER FIRE COMPANIES Supervisor Stec-Led Pledge of Allegiance 1.0FIRE DISTRICTS Supervisor Stec-Noted this is strictly a workshop no vote will be taken tonight in the future there would be an opportunity for a public hearing…The law is very clear that fire districts are a creature that the Town Board controls the process, there are a couple of avenues of how we can create it but it is a Town Board decision. There are five fire companies in the Town of Queensbury that provide protection town wide in what is called a Town wide fire protection district. The Fire District Boundary lines do not necessarily need to follow any of your chartered areas. We have a wide open canvass, we have the map of the town to do whatever we want. A district does raise the bar as far as the level of financial reporting, it provides greater oversight and greater controls by the State Comptrollers Office as well as the public. There would be fire commissioners, initially the Town Board would appoint fire commissioners to whatever district or districts are created and then after that they are elected positions. There are financial limits, it works out to roughly to a dollar per thousand. The argument in favor of districts is that you have local, direct residential control by those protected over the budget process through election of commissioners as well as these folks also if they decide to incur debt, most of the incurrence of debt is mandatory referendum. There is at least one company South Queensbury is small compared to the other four, there is nothing that says we should have five different districts and South should be their own district, I do not think that South in looking at the numbers could not operate a fire station and protect that area with the tax base that they have. I know that there are some that maybe it is really easy to say that one makes all the sense in the world we don’t need to do a whole lot, and we can cut them loose and make them a district tomorrow. There are some others that we might need to consider some intermediate steps ie if Central wants a district as I believe that they are, then I think you will need to know the future of South, are we going to combine them with a central district or Bay Ridge District or leave them alone as a Fire Protection District are we going to try to consolidate them all these are things that will not be answered to night. I feel a change will cut fire spending in the Town of Queensbury, by the same token I want to make sure everyone has good fire protection in the Town. Councilman Boor-I think what this will come down to is a give and a take, if we do move toward districting, this would be the most appropriate time to look at any kind of boundary adjustments. The most obvious one is South Queensbury its size and inability to support itself should it be its own district. We see that Bay Ridge cuts Central apart Special Town Board Meeting 05-08-2006 Mtg. #17 135 from South Queensbury, does it go with Bay Ridge does it go with Central. There are going to have to be boundary adjustments. I see members of North that are obviously in favor of districting, I am not sure the boundary of North would stay the same. We will rely on the ability to protect any area of the Town, that is what all this is about. We do want to be conscientious about costs but I do not think we want to do anything that leaves anybody less safe than what they are now. There maybe some companies that do not want to go the route of a district. Noted that they have received a letter from an individual that should West become a Dist. they would like to be one of the commissioners. I think what I am trying to convey to those in the audience that there is going to be a give and a take in this thing and there isn’t anybody that I think is going to walk away getting everything that they want. If we can go in with that understanding we have a greater chance of achieving a better way of doing this. We are going to rely on a lot of the professionals out there and we are going to ask you to be candid. Councilman Sanford-Why are we having this meeting tonight, what initiated this discussion? Supervisor Stec-We have been talking about this for two years, I wanted to revisit this issue because it is important to those in this room right now, and our fire budget is at two million dollars that I think we can save a lot of money on. Councilman Sanford-Requested the following information from Budget Officers Switzer; Financial impact - a. North Queensbury forms a fire district what would be the tax rates for all the other fire protection districts b. North Queensbury and Central had independent fire districts what would be the impact on So. Queensbury, Bay Ridge, West c. I would like to see all the scenarios using historical data for the last three years so we have a basis for decision making. Budget Officer Switzer-We have certain analysis on what their current contracts are now, what it is per capita, what it is per assessed value. Councilman Sanford-Questioned what the impact would be for So. Q if No. Qsby. was carved out? Budget Officer Switzer-We do not know that right now. Councilman Sanford-That could have been known Supervisor Stec-If you had asked a week ago we would have had that tonight. Councilman Sanford-I think there are prudent and fundamental questions. Supervisor Stec-A fundamental answer, if we cut No. Queensbury out by themselves their tax rate assuming they did not change their budget at all would go down twenty cents a thousand. Noted that there will be no decision tonight it will be a long process and agreed with Roger this is going to take months. Councilman Sanford-The fixed inventory I received is in need of additional work, there is no cost figures on the inventory, we do not have replacement costs, and in some cases the equipment is not identified, I would want a handle on all the capital costs associated with all the fire companies. Budget Officer Switzer-The memo sent there is additional information that is available in my office, it is voluminous if you wanted a copy I can make you a copy. I sent out to all fire companies an in depth request for each piece of inventory that outlines a lot of the information that you will be looking for. Councilman Sanford-What I understand about districts once a district always a district, I had discussions last year with some of the fire people, fire chiefs and what have you and my thinking was, would it make sense to look at the whole Town of Queensbury look at consolidation, look at ways in which we can maybe end up with instead of five fire companies three fire companies that redraw some boundary lines as a pre cursor to Special Town Board Meeting 05-08-2006 Mtg. #17 136 districting. I have not received an explanation as to why that is not a good idea. To me it would make sense for North Q to merge with Bay Ridge and then you would have the whole geographical area covered you would have scale economy going for you, you eliminate duplications of services, you would have homogeneous traits up there not a lot of hydrants, maybe none in those service areas. I think it would make sense for So. Q to talk with Central and then you would have the whole corridor from West Mountain down to Hudson Falls covered in one large district you would have three stations serving that area. Then West Glens Falls with its population density could be a district unto itself. None of that even the consolidation suggests that it is a good idea financially those numbers have not been done yet as far as I can see. I would like to hear before we move forward with further dialog on districting why consolidation as I laid out doesn’t make sense, financially why it doesn’t make sense? Councilman Strough-Over two years ago we toyed over the idea of making one company instead of five and I have talked to some firemen about that, we talked about forming an emergency services committee that would look at each apparatus and major purchase requested and look at it as a sectional need but as a town wide need. The only thing that kind of provides for that is the Town Board. Having a district, five different districts you are adding a level of bureaucracy, you would be adding twenty five new commissioners. Supervisor Stec-I have not heard anyone advocate five districts? Councilman Strough-I think we have a duty to look at all possible combinations. Supervisor Stec-Note that twenty five commissions is ridiculous, it is safe that we can throw that one off. Councilman Sanford-The other combination is combining some of the districts resetting some of the district lines, the Town has changed since the district lines were made. We currently have one fire protection district we could become one fire district have five commissioners that will be elected and it will be out of the Town Boards hands. If we had one district, they would hand the budget to us and we just make sure the taxes are collected for that budget and returned to the fire district. I will remain open minded about all of this, I want to hear what the public has to say. There is a lot of investigation that needs to be done, at this point in time, lets see what the firemen have to say about it, lets have a public meeting about it. Supervisor Stec-Asked if the Town Counsel had anything to say from a legal perspective. Town Counsel Hafner-There are a lot of options before the Town Board and when the five of you decide what you would like to do we can fine tune more than what we have provided. Supervisor Stec-Noted at this time South Queensbury and Queensbury Central are not contiguous. Town Counsel Hafner-They do not need to be contiguous, there is nothing that requires a district to be contiguous. Councilman Boor-I want to make sure that the protection is optimum. Supervisor Stec-Looking at the layout, certainly a North Queensburyish district makes some sense geographically speaking, West would be relatively easy to carve out geographically, with the Central Dist. a key question that we would need to answer would be before we head in the direction of forming any district that would involve Central or Bay Ridge is the relationship going forward in the future with a protection district that is triple the average cost of any other district in town per capita or assessed value that protects seven hundred people granted every single sole is just as important as anyone else in town but when you start looking at the nuts and bolts it should not cost three times as much to protect somebody in South Queensbury as it does anywhere else in town. The purpose would be to find out if there are three people tonight that are ready to say forget Special Town Board Meeting 05-08-2006 Mtg. #17 137 it absolutely not then we can move on, I have not heard that yet. To get a direction or for the fire company guys to hear what we are thinking as far as what to do with the middle three Bay Ridge, Central and South, two years ago when I called for the closure of So. Queensbury and Tim Brewer supported that and we did not get the votes to pursue that, that we did start looking at what would you do with South Queensbury’s coverage area. Certainly either pushing it to one or the other or dividing it North and South is an option, there is a lot of institutional resistance to that level of change in So. Queensbury. We are talking about a two million dollar annual budget that I think we can cut without impacting anyone’s safety. Mr. Dan Davies-North Queensbury Presented seven copies to the Board from the Association of Fire Districts on how you would form a fire district. We need to gather more information, we have done some of that gathering, it is important that the Town Board see all the figures and facts. With the formation of fire districts you will see all the departments become more fiscally responsible. There is a lot of infighting because of the way the money is divided up. If there are thirty, twenty whatever commissioners, the difference between them and you is that typically they are in and live within the district, currently we have no one within our district. They become more familiar with the day by day operations of each fire department. It is difficult for the four or five Town Board Members to sit up here and determine what one fire department needs compared to another department. If you do the analysis comparing us to Kingsbury, Pilot Knob, Fort Ann, Lake George, Bolton we are substantially higher as far as tax rates we are sixty seven or sixty nine cents per thousand that is with reserve funds being used. In Bolton and Lake George it is twenty three cents a thousand a third of what we are paying on the same assessed values. All five fire departments will have to agree hopefully we will come out where everybody in the Town will benefit. It is going to make each of us more fiscally responsible, it will not punish the ones that are fiscally responsible and I think the fire commissioners that sit on this will have a better grasp on what each department needs. This works around the State we are a rarity here the way the Town of Queensbury is run and it is something that needs serious consideration. Supervisor Stec-Certain debt, new debt that would be incurred, what are the requirements to go into a referendum. Mr. Davies-The difference between a fire district and the way we currently do it is if you incur debt to buy fire apparatus it technically goes to a referendum within each district, right now you make that decision and the public does not have the opportunity to vote on it. It makes each fire department prepare better financially they are going to forecast long term so that they do not have to go to the public and ask for votes every time. They will have truck funds and sinking funds and things like that, that they plan for. Councilman Boor-Wouldn’t December be the only month that referendum could occur? Town Counsel Hafner-We represent a few fire districts and most times you schedule it so it is in December just like you schedule for November so you do not have to pay for the cost more than once, but you can have them, a special referendum it is just more hassles for the fire district. Town Councilman Boor-Who incurs the costs on a special referendum. Town Counsel Hafner-The fire district. Mr. Davis-The big advantages to a fire districts there are State Caps, up until last year four of the fire departments were actually spending more than the State would have allowed them to spend. The only one that would have been able to technically have a budget would have been Queensbury Central. We need to put all the options on the table and come up with a conclusion. Councilman Sanford-As the fire companies stand now the demographics are all over the board, Queensbury has as of this worksheet twenty five thousand four hundred and forty one people as population, North Q’s district is one thousand two hundred and thirty. Approximately five percent of the population is in North Q, but the assessed value is Special Town Board Meeting 05-08-2006 Mtg. #17 138 second only to Central. If I was in North Q, the incentive is obvious, for the people living in North Q, we could really lower the tax rate and provide high quality service. But, again, if five percent of the population has twenty percent of the assessed value then in terms of equity you carve that out a tiny district serving a population of one thousand two hundred and thirty people and what you have done in essence if you do not have districting or even if you do have districting in the other four companies is you have given them a corresponding hike. Mr. Davies-There are twelve thousand nine hundred and fifty nine parcels in the Town, of them, six thousand five hundred and seventy eight which is five thousand eighty in Queensbury Central and fourteen hundred an ninety eight in North Queensbury their taxes would go down, a majority of the town would go down. It would be a close break even depending on how the demographics are broken out that West’s taxes would be fairly close to break even. Nine out of the twelve thousand people more than likely would benefit or twelve thousand parcels. Which is a substantial amount of the population of the Town. Councilman Sanford-Why wouldn’t you want to entertain taking the population of North Q with one thousand two hundred and thirty and combining it with Bay Ridge’s of four thousand two hundred and thirty and coming up with about five thousand five hundred population based that you would be serving of the total of twenty five thousand constituting a material critical mass with contiguous service areas and what is the information for why that doesn’t make sense to you. Mr. Davies-It may, all those things need to be thrown out on the table. I think the preferred choices you have right now two separate companies with basically seventy or eighty or ninety different people that have been run in different manner over the last forty five or fifty years, we have duplication of services now, and there is a lot of logistic issues as far as how things would operate, two different stations, do we need both stations, it becomes a complex issue, where I do not think you need to make it like that. We run things different than Bay Ridge does and I think you would have some personality conflicts and some real administrative problems within. Councilman Sanford-I think you might, but I guess what I am saying is that to me is not that compelling. What is compelling to me is to carve out a company that represents five percent of the population does not make a whole lot of sense to me. I understood that maybe the cultures are a little bit different Mr. Davies-And the spending, if you look historically you probably talking about maybe, we have spent since 94’ three million one hundred and thirty two thousand, I bet dollars and cents you are talking two and a half million dollar difference on the way the departments have been spending. Councilman Sanford-You can use numbers in a lot of different ways, in 2006 contract, Bay Ridge has over three times the population of North Q, you have one thousand two hundred and thirty they have four thousand two hundred and sixty. Mr. Davies-That is voting population, we have a lot of summer residents. Councilman Sanford-The approved contract rates is North Q, three hundred thousand, Bay Ridge, three hundred and sixty two thousand, if you were to just use a comparison of those two sets of numbers one could argue that Bay Ridge is the more efficient fire company, more efficient than North Q using just that. Mr. Davies-Correct Councilman Sanford-There are other ways to slice and dice things. Mr. Davies-If we took out historical analysis of what they have spent and what we have spent, what has gone in and out of their check books it is another slice that looks differently. Special Town Board Meeting 05-08-2006 Mtg. #17 139 Councilman Sanford-I want to approach this in a logical financial manner and what I see here, I see North Q, pushing the argument or issue because clearly if it was to happen as you are suggesting it would be great for the people in North Queensbury. It would be a significant reduction in what they pay for fire protection with a corresponding increase to the others. The philosophical argument but the same argument that you have here could be made for the re-val that took place where the assessments went up in North Q, made a lot of people mad ended up subsidizing the less affluent areas within Queensbury in terms of just property taxes, so it is not unique to fire but to property taxes as well. Councilman Boor-Anything that is based on assessment, and all our taxes unfortunately are based on assessment. Mr. Davies-The big thing in the State there are very few that are done like this. Nobody locally does it like the Town of Queensbury does and that needs to be said. There is a problem in the system that creates great inequity. It is not only North Richard I feel and I think you will hear Central who represents a majority of the population within the Town feels very strongly for fire districts. I feel it will benefit the entire town. I think it is a very complex issue for you five to come up here and say ok, does that company need that type of pump to service this house or do you guys even know what. Councilman Sanford-There are other solutions to that and that is we go somewhere distant from the Town of Queensbury and we have an independent person come in who as the expertise, who does an objective assessment of what the needs are what the replacement schedule should be and we remove it from the politics. Supervisor Stec-I have had a moment to cram a couple of these numbers together, right now town wide the average for contact factor out workmens comp and retirement program which total one point eight million dollars, the town wide average is sixty cents per thousand. If they were their own, North Queensbury is thirty nine cents, Bay Ridge is eighty five cents, Central is forty five and a half cents, South Queensbury is a dollar forty nine cents, and West Glens Falls is eighty three cents. What would happen if you put Bay Ridge and South together, that district would be ninety nine cents. Two other scenarios, North and Bay Ridge together would be fifty five point six cents, and then Queensbury Central and South Q would also be fifty five cents. So. Four out of five would be fifty five cents but that would also mean that West at that point would be eighty three cents, West isn’t going to like the cut of that number. You can put any permutation of these five together and you are going to be able to show where three or four are happy and one or two are completely not happy or subsidizing, right now as it stands you do have two that are subsidizing the other three and if we start putting them together you will get in the situation where somebody is going to be carrying more of the load. In the sense if you stop the argument right there and you say that is where logic ends you are going to say that all we are doing is we are just finding a new way to split up one point eight million dollars instead of you guys up north paying it we are going to have Joe Smow in this part of Town paying it. But, if you go beyond that because what sells it for me is what I think is the winner here where I think everyone in Town not just the couple that will benefit just by taking their dollars and cents and dividing them by a different tax base, where the Town as a whole will save money is the idea of referendum and planning and somebody say it is real easy for five guys to sit here and buy a piece of apparatus that you know what, pennies on a dollar people won’t necessarily feel the pinch and won’t see it. They will read an article on X hundreds and thousand of dollars that the Town just authorized and then it catches up later and on a Town it might be a two or three pennies whereas if it is a referendum and now people get an opportunity to vote their pocketbook and they get to say you know what that piece of apparatus to me in this district is a dime a thousand if it is needed it will pass if it is not needed it will not pass. I think what you will see is less apparatus you will see less equipment voted by the taxpayers that are there saying we want this or don’t. I knocked on a lot of doors around here every year and I hear a lot of people that say we love the fire companies they do a great job and I am one of them I would say the same thing but a lot of people point out we think that we are spending too much. When you start comparing us to other towns in Warren County we are on the high side depending on, there are three ways to do it, assessed value, per capita or per call. You cannot compare Bay Ridge to Warrensburg, well actually I think you can they are similar size population, lets look for a Town more like Queensbury. There is Special Town Board Meeting 05-08-2006 Mtg. #17 140 no town nearly as nice as Queensbury, but if you look for ones that are kind of similar to us in some demographics you look at a Wilton, and a Saratoga and a Clifton Park and we are on the high side of those as well. So, I think that we would save I do not want to put a percent on it five percent, ten percent I do not know. I think at the end of the day if done well and fairly the Town will spend less on fire protection without impacting in a negative way fire protection. Councilman Sanford-Almost like school districts, you have a school board and they manage the finances of the school district and yet I do not think you were too pleased with all the plasma televisions. Every year they have budget and every year the budget is presented that is greater than the cost of living and there may be good reasons for it but in a lot of ways a fire district is similar model in a sense then school districts. I never really saw you as the champion for the school district model. Supervisor Stec-I think they are over funded too. Councilman Strough-Going with your logic Dan and I am not disputing your logic, we are going along with your logic, then one district gives you all the benefits you just mentioned and keeps everything at an even keel, sixty cents per thousand. Supervisor Stec-That is the one question that I didn’t get to ask, I do not know the answer, I know that we can have one district ie we can say this part of town is a fire district and the rest of the town would remain a fire protection district ie if we said North go forth and be your own district but I think what you are referring to is lets make the entire town which is now a town wide fire protection district a town wide fire district and I have been by some but I haven’t heard it from Bob, that, that exact situation is not allowed, where the Town is a fire district, the whole town. Councilman Boor-I do not think it is recommended, there was an attorney that we met with at North, I think you probably could but it is not a good idea. Town Counsel Hafner-I think it is legally allowed. Councilman Strough-Whether it is a good idea or not it is probably varies and based on what point of view you are coming from. Supervisor Stec-Two years ago five Town Board Members myself included were opposed to fire districts what has changed my mind over the last two years, a couple dozen fire contracts, a couple of different pointing the finger we are fiscally responsible we are not, you are right, I looked and I found inefficiencies and the Board did not find the will to say no to some fire companies. I do not know if a Town wide fire district is going to improve on that situation. I know that some of the folks in the audience are saying if you made everyone accountable, spend within you means then I know that those pressures would drive down how much is spent on fire. I did not know the answer to that question, apparently it is legal. Councilman Boor-It is legal, then you would have five commissioners and you would hope one would be from everyone of the current protection districts otherwise somebody could really be in a bad way. Mr. Davies-That is the problem it would be based on population and it is going to come out of Central’s district. Supervisor Stec-The other advantages are still there, you have the protections under law for the comptroller’s office as far as transparency and more direct control over the finances that is in place the referendum that is in place I would agree that one fire district and the rules that go with it is better than what we have got now, but I am not sure it would be as good as it should or could or ought to be. Councilman Boor-If they were the unfortunate one that didn’t have a representative in their actual what currently exists they wouldn’t get a hose. Special Town Board Meeting 05-08-2006 Mtg. #17 141 Supervisor Stec-The law allows us to draw the lines anyway we want. Perhaps it would be easier you are going to need three votes up here to make a change and that means that it is going to be a give and take in order to convince people that this is a scenario that we can live with that might mean that a North needs to talk to Bay Ridge about where that line is or Bay Ridge needs to talk to Central and South what to do there, and West might want to talk to Central what is going to happen is everyone is going to want to get into that larger assessed pocket but that is something to some extent for those of you that are interested there are advantages for districts even for the little guy but certainly the little guy has financially a lot at stake compared to the guy that would benefit financially. But if this is a scenario that you want to pursue you guys are going to need to talk amongst yourselves and come up with a plan. I am not in fan of one I am not a fan or five, I might be able to go for a scenario of two, three or even four or maybe one or two and the rest of the Town a Fire Protection District. I think what will happen when you start looking at the numbers is if the ones that stand to gain the most ie North and Central financially if they are allowed to leave then at that point it would become desirous in my opinion West will probably see that as, you know what, now at this point we are in a position where we are the deep pocket carrying the others and so I think that if North and Central are allowed to go, West will want to go. That leaves Bay Ridge and South saying well what do we do and I think that would not be fair to Bay Ridge or South and in fact I think we need to address the South situation right up front before we act on Central. Central might not want to hear that but I think that is going to need to be answered before we can go forward. North could say you can leave us alone and cut us loose and we do not impact anyone else except for the dollars and cents and maybe we will go for that. Likewise West although certainly the number as not as clear cut for you but you are also in a position where you kind of cut geographically where you could easily sever from the others. But, I think that the other three that I did not mention, Central, Bay Ridge and South, something is going to have to happen there because I do not see five as currently constituted I really think it is a struggle for Bay Ridge and I think it is impossible for South to pull that off. So, I really think that Bay Ridge and South have got to be doing a little sole searching and a little politicking with their two larger neighbors that are pushing for this to come up with a scenario that they say you know what we did not get everything we want but we can live with this and North and Central have got to be prepared to do the same thing. I do think that the checks and balances that the law provides with the Comptroller that mandatory referendum for certain purchases and the fact that if you do have a little competition there ie you do not have one big pot where the money gets lost that there is an incentive now because the whole town isn’t covering for the sins of the past that I do think that will make whatever the number two, three or four districts make them all more responsible make them all spend less money and so I think across the Board you will see the Town spending less money. Mr. Mike Grasso- Republican Ward Chair in Ward I, I am also a taxpayer in One and in Central. It is difficult to sit here and explain to you gentlemen because there is no Town Tax, how the people in Ward I feel about the recent re-assessment. You have touched on it five hundred registered voters not parcels pay twenty four percent of Queensbury’s share of the County’s taxes, that is patently terrible. It is the way the government is set up it is the way the State assessment is set up but it is patently unfair. We have people who live in small houses, albeit they have it some lake front they are paying ten to fifteen thousand dollars a year in taxes, they cannot afford it people are selling their homes. I want to talk about one thing, it is not politics, it is not how has more territory, it is not who has more trucks, and it is really, it hinges what is fair. What is fair is in North Queensbury the people that pay for service should pay what the service costs. It should not be subsidizing South I know no one wants to hear that but we are already doing that with our share of County taxes. The same thing with the school, we are already doing that with the school. I ask as fairness you consider this because North Queensbury is a very efficient fire company the taxes would be lowered, and anything that you could do now to help the people in Ward I especially the lake people would be greatly appreciated. Councilman Sanford-It is not unique to this which is property based. There is virtually no taxes are really fair it depends on who you are talking with. Maybe consumption taxes maybe is close as you get. Income taxes what is the basis for a person making more money is it costing the government more to provide services for a wealthy person than an Special Town Board Meeting 05-08-2006 Mtg. #17 142 indigent person, in fact the indigent person costs more and yet they pay less taxes. It is just the reality in the world in which we live in. Mr. Grasso-It begs to create a district in one one. I am agreeing with you but that just lends more credence to let the people pay for it and let them vote in referendums on what they want to spend for their fire protection. Councilman Strough-You want to talk about fairness you are going to take twenty five percent of the Town’s assessment, five percent of the population as Mr. Sanford pointed out, the population of the town is about twenty six thousand, men, women, children who do not vote so you cannot say voting, those are the listed number of people. In any event I can see why North Q wants to do it. It is a tremendous benefit for North Q, but it is going to be a hardship for the other four departments. I am going to listen to everything but I will tell you it has got to be done fairly. The people that live in Central are going to say listen we contribute most of the sales tax income to this town, Route 9, Million Dollar Mile, Quaker Road, lower Route 9 and the mall, probably generates most of the sales tax. Those people have to put up with the traffic, they have got to put up with the impacts and everyone, even people in North Queensbury are receiving the benefits of it, although you do not have to put up with the negative impacts as strongly as the people that live in that area do. Fairness is not exactly going to be seen in the eyes of North Q, we have to look at this for the whole town and sometimes it is not going to go necessarily your way. You are going to cut the dice to make it look good for you but we have to look at it objectively, I hope you realize that. Mr. Grasso-Our taxes are far from fair in my district. Councilman Strough-My taxes are far from fair Mike. Supervisor Stec-John just said only one company would benefit and the other four would be a burden. Mr. Schonewolf Mr. Schonewolf –I think John when you were talking about one district you are talking about a town fire department and I believe Town Fire Departments are illegal Town Counsel Hafner-I did not say that I said you got one fire district. Mr. Schonewolf –that is correct and one fire district is often done in small towns like four thousand types, but there isn’t any place in the State where I have seen one of the biggest the Town of Queensbury. The measurement of a fire company is not the number of people that live in their district or the area that they serve it is the assessed valuation vs the fire loss, that is what the fire underwriters look at that is what they measure us on, along with the water system which we do not have one, they look at those two things. We have a pretty high assessed evaluation that we have to protect, that is the bottom line for what we do up there. I think that is much more meaningful than the number of people, and I can see your argument for the number of people. My recommendation is you have to make some adjustments you do not need five fire districts but I think you have to look at it and you have got to work that out with the fire companies that you think you need to work it out with. If you are worried about fair taxes you could go homestead non homestead too, a lot of towns have that. Of all the towns in the State 85-86% of them are fire districts and the rest are fire protection districts that is taking out the villages and independents. Fire Districts isn’t something that these guys are just coming up with or forcing on you it is the accepted practice in this State and it is really the accepted practice for a town this modern and this big. Councilman Sanford-You are pretty knowledgeable, what is the average population size of mean average for a fire district in the State of New York. Mr. Schonewolf–I can find that out for you. There are different types of departments Richard which impact that budget, some of them have combination departments where the budget would be twice as high as an all volunteer fire department and those types of things, the real budget number is not the driver. Special Town Board Meeting 05-08-2006 Mtg. #17 143 Councilman Sanford-If you have enough critical mass then you start to see some long term benefits in terms of eliminating some duplications and things of that nature that is why I feel as a pre cursor to going to districting the Town needs to consolidate and that is why I was putting the question to everybody here but particularly to North Queensbury is give me a compelling reason why North Queensbury shouldn’t consolidate or form a merger with and the most logical candidate in my mind would be Bay Ridge. Since you are here you are from North Q, what is the compelling reason why you wouldn’t think that would make sense in terms of long term scale economy benefits. Mr. Schonewolf-I do not think it is fair that people in North Queensbury to give them Bay Ridge’s debt. Councilman Sanford-I do not think it is fair to carve you out and basically give the kiss of death to South Q and maybe West. Mr. Schonewolf-I do not think you should do that either. I think you need to work on the boundaries, I do not think you have to split up the companies. Councilman Boor-Obviously it is undermined where we are going to leave this and I do not want anybody to leave thinking that ok, we have had our meeting and now we are just going to do our thing. Since all the departments are here, one of the things I would ask is that each department get a map of Queensbury and since the Town has grown so much in ways that we probably couldn’t have guessed as far as where the population is gone where the commercial corridors are, I would like to see what some companies would be willing to give up or what they feel should be in there. I just don’t what to see this should be ours, I would like to see some give and take here. One of the things, possibly going to three, that might work it might not. Certainly, we have got to get out of this mind set that those areas that are currently served by a protection district company are really the right boundary lines. I have to believe in many instances they’re antiquated is not the right word but they are not useful as far as providing you know the type of service that maybe could be better. I would ask that every company take a look and if they got to give a little something up that would help us as a Board as we sit down and try to make a determination on how do we carve this up. We certainly cannot just take the values and try to equal the values out because then somebody could be left out in the dark and an engine couldn’t get there. I am looking at it from the stand point of if your company is currently serving an area and its probably can be reached in a more quick fashion by another company I would ask that you consider giving it up. Mr. Schonewolf-If you want to take a look at that I think that a couple of you on the Board are going to have to be the driver in that project to get it done, it isn’t just going to happen. Councilman Boor-I think that is the point, certainly we can, people who have never ridden in a fire engine, only speaking for myself, don’t have a clue how long it takes you guys to get where you are going when you are going to a particular area. With the knowledge that you guys have I would like to think that you would give us some ideas as to how we might adjust these boundaries, with the full knowledge that we are not going to penalize somebody necessarily and if we can give a little bit here and take a little bit there, the protection is the ultimate thing that I think everybody that is why you guys are firemen. Mr. Schonewolf-I think there are three departments that would participate in that I am not so sure with one of them. Councilman Boor-If we could get maps from each company when we do sit down and go over all the permutations different ways this could be done it would certainly be a help to us. Supervisor Stec-Outside of this meeting it might not be a bad idea for whatever the appropriate leadership is whether it is the Chief’s or whether its directors or whatever that might be a conversation where, and I do not know to try and sit down all five at the same time or if you try to do pairs at a time, it is up to you. Some work in this area was done a Special Town Board Meeting 05-08-2006 Mtg. #17 144 couple of years ago, I sat down with Chip and with Joe to resolve some of the issues that they had between their existing lines, in those conversations I asked the questions what would you do if you needed to split South and they were very generous with how they would pull you guys apart. We made some good progress, I think the two chief’s because they are operational folks they were looking at it from that exact mind set Roger where they were saying hey, we need to focus on response time and not as much the assessed value. I think that was the most complicated one, I think the boundaries between Bay Ridge and North and are pretty straight forward and likewise between West and Central. The most problematic that would be the whole Central, Bay Ridge, South thing what are you going for a line there. Mr. Glen Gregory-West Glens Falls I wrote the resume for commissioner. Speaking for myself, I believe West Glens Falls can make it on their own providing make an agreement we get Broad Acres back which we had years ago, we take in District four that would give us enough money where we could survive and do the job necessary. We have direct access to all the housing in that area. I have been in the company forty six years and I am going to fight for the company. If we go in that direction, West Glens Falls has no problem. The only problem we could have is the retirement system the money for the points I have not figured that yet. Councilman Boor-Are you currently an officer? Mr. Gregory-Yes, I am a Director Again I am speaking not for West Glens Falls but for me. Mr. Joe DuPrey-Queensbury Central Fire It is a little disheartening when I listen to us talk about North Queensbury’s population, basically those people are nonexistent up there if they do not reside or vote there, really not true because if we are going to go that route then lets look at the tourist base that comes in here and lets not collect their tax money when they stop at the Great Escape spending on hotels. That is a foolish thought, we still have to consider these people. The same way I do in my district my population th from day time, December, January greatly differs 4 of July weekend. When I am providing emergency service for them they have to be considered, they can not be left out because they do not pay taxes in the Town of Queensbury or a registered voter they have to be considered. The proposal for our budget in 05’ we had figured in spending out of our own money additional monies, forty thousand dollars for an independent consultant to come in and tell the Town what they need, it was taken out with the assurance that the Town was going to do that themselves. We have asked for this repeatedly for ten years, I do not and don’t take any disrespect to this I do not have faith in the Town Board the way you operate the way you operate with the emergency services contracts. If I am a good salesman I come up here throw a good pitch to you give you a line all three of you agree I get it do I need it, maybe, maybe not. But if I am a good salesman an I can convince three of you my district now is paying for something that may never be used in my district. Boat on Lake George for North Queensbury is my guys in my district ever going to see any benefit from that absolutely not. Is North Queensbury going to see any benefit from a tower not likely maybe an event once in a great while. A study, there was a study done now if we are talking about what really works as far as response areas lets look back at some of those studies. Some of the studies tell you that Queensbury Central needs a third station. If I erect a third station that is certainly going to change things, if we want to work by the studies. In order for us to sit down as the fire departments here in the Town we have to have some direction on where we are going with the Town Board. We could come up with fifty different scenarios on how we could make this work, unless we have some direction on how the Town Board is going to go we are going to be spinning our wheels. Are we going to sit down with South Queensbury and talk that is up to Chief Lettus and his members, I am certainly open to that. Are we going to have an outcome that will be favorable to the town I do not know, if that doesn’t work where do we go next? We spend enough time doing what we do to sit down and spend countless hours coming up with a scenario that you guys are never going to accept is really foolish. I think we need a direction on what the Town is looking for. Councilman Boor-You are doing a good job, I do not want to cut you off, but I think in a really strange way that hurts your case, what I am hearing is that you have a Town Board Special Town Board Meeting 05-08-2006 Mtg. #17 145 that knows nothing about fire protection and what is really involved and then at the same time you are saying you want us to come up with a plan. If we were really good at it we would have a plan and we are not good at it and that is why you are at the microphone. Mr. DuPrey-We do not have to convince our fire commissioners we have to convince you. Councilman Boor-I guess that is my point when I said about the maps and stuff, you guys are the pros you know what you can give us. Mr. DuPrey-We have chartered districts we do not follow them now so I do not know how good your maps are going to be. Councilman Sanford-I did not see an integrated budget process in my first time through, when I first came into office we started working on finalizing contracts and that whole process in my mind was a poor process. It was a situation where there was no coordinated effort among all the companies as you are suggesting which I would encourage and actually support and all the town did quite honestly was try to hold the line and not give you any money. That goes for all five of you, then it went back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. I would like to at least give a try at an integrated logical budgetary process where the companies are not acting unilaterally hoping to get more at the expense of the other person but some cooperative planning which capital budgeting put into place and realistic tax rates. What I suspect has happened here is over the last three years or so the fund balances have dried up, all of a sudden now we are looking at districting. Anyway you cut it there is going to have to be some increases. I am not sure that was the smartest thing that the Town did because certainly the costs haven’t dropped. Are the revenue streams realistic at this point in time, probably not. Has there been a cooperative integrated effort among the five companies to work together and then you know something that will flush out some of the very good reasons for consolidation. I would encourage it and I would certainly be willing to be a participant in that process speaking for myself as a Board member. Based on what I saw the first time around was merely a negotiation it was not a budgetary process so I was disappointed. One of my resistance to this is I do not think the Town has given it a try, in terms of trying to do as Roger said we do not do a very good job with it I do not know if the effort has really been made. That is my point. Councilman Strough-The other thing to Joe and you and I talked about this over two years ago setting up a committee that would be an emergency services committee that would give an assessment, a Town wide assessment for an apparatus need. It would look, mutual aid it would take a look at what other towns have near by that if you needed an apparatus it is maybe an infrequent need for an apparatus maybe the town near by had one and mutual aid maybe that company really didn’t need one. Another thing is can one fire district have more than one company, can you have a fire district with two companies? If that is the case that might solve a lot of our problems. There is a lot we do not know because this is relatively new. The third thing is yes, is very dependent on who is a good sales man and other people have told me you are very good a millon dollar ladder truck with an articulating ladder you did a good job. Mr. DuPrey-Then I will pat myself on the back. If you look at what Queensbury Central has given out of their district over the last four years we could have paid for that truck twice. Lets look at the total picture. Councilman Strough-That is another thing that we face, we talked to all five departments and all five departments have their good salesmen and make usually a pretty good case for what they need and if you look at it not too much of it is unreasonable. I mean South Q is asking for down the road they got some fire trucks I think are 83’ that is a twenty three year old fire truck by the time we get around to thinking about replacing that. Mr. DuPrey-I have a twenty five year old truck right now that we still use. Councilman Strough-And you are probably going to say listen that needs to be replaced. The demands on Queensbury Central, listen I have not argued with you. Special Town Board Meeting 05-08-2006 Mtg. #17 146 Mr. DuPrey-My point is I am here to tell you that Queensbury Central will do its part and we seem to be the Donald Trump of the districts here and realistically that is true we don’t mind taking and giving but we are not going to do something that is totally absurb, I can guarantee that. Councilman Strough-But to go back to the original question, what are we looking for I think from what I hear from the Board I think we are looking for equity in tax burden and equity in fire protection. Fire districting sounds like a good idea and matter of fact it takes the burden out of our hands it is not like we don’t have anything to do we are pretty busy. Mr. DuPrey-So, are we. Councilman Strough-There is real advantages to forming fire districts I can see those and I am open to it but just how we pursue this with some equity might not be to everybody’s liking. Mr. DuPrey-The only thing I ask lets not let this, kick to the curb lets make a commitment by the Town Board I know Dan has made the commitment but we need the commitment from the Town Board as well to pursue this. Councilman Boor-I do not know why you would say that, I mean, I think what I am asking is we cannot do this without information from the professionals that are seeking to have things changed. We have the law and the requirements but again I go back to boundaries. We could talk for months on this but unless delineate some boundaries and have an understanding of who is responsible for what we are not going to do anything. Mr. DuPrey-You as the Town Board have to be involved in that decision making. Councilman Boor-We are the only ones that can make that decision but it is based on the quality of the information we get and it is going to be very telling about how motivated and how much the fire departments want this by the effort they put in with what they are willing to give up because they truly believe that districting is the best idea. There isn’t any way you can redivide this where everybody comes out better financially. Mr. DuPrey-Well it can only get better for us in anything we do because we have given up enough over a number of years. Councilman Boor-I do not want to hear that. Mr. DuPrey-Well, that is a realistic statement. Councilman Boor-What does that say to the other fire companies, Joe, that you are not going to give anything up? Mr. DuPrey-No, no, I said we have given enough up over the years and we certainly are going to as I said earlier do what ever it takes and to take and give. Supervisor Stec-Let me build on the conversation that you just had and what I said before to make sure everyone is aware of the availability of the technology at the Town. I know Chip and Joe are aware of it and I know Chief Gordon is aware of it because you have all gotten some information from me before. I do not want to waste your time or my time if there is the kiss of death here and there is three secrete no votes on the Town Board then I am not going to waste anyone else’s time pursuing districts. That is why I felt it was important to revisit this because it has been kicked to the curb before. What is driving me is I think as a Town we are over funded this is a mechanism to bring some checks and balances in there to bring the Town spending down. Queensbury fire protection over funded, I do not need study to tell me that the study could tell how much over funded it is but the phone calls that I made just doing the bench marking against other similar size population communities we are on the high side so there is room for improvement. How that is where that is to me it is important but it is secondary it is not my area of expertise. Special Town Board Meeting 05-08-2006 Mtg. #17 147 But, as you go forward and as I have encouraged before the five of you to talk to each other and some of the conversation happened before as you do that when you get to a situation you say operationally this make senses to us that we have reasonable response times, operationally splitting it up this way is good protection, the flip side of that coin we also have to worry about what does that do to the dollars and cents. The Town through our GIS capability has the ability that if you come to us with a line that our guy down stairs can draw the line and crunch the numbers give us a few days to get back to us. If you said how much is this assessed value and again I do not want everyone going out there saying we have got to draw an assessed value circles I want you guys first to work on response circles but at some point you are going to need to also answer the question does this work financially. I know that some of you know we have that capability but I want everyone to know that but at the same time I am not volunteering our guy to do a hundred of these. If you come to some scenarios where you say think operationally this works we think that politically within our organizations this might work but we need to check the numbers to make sure that we can write that check. The Town has the capability if you give us the line we can crunch the numbers, this is the assessed value for this district, this is the assessed value for this district and then you will know exactly what the tax rate implication is. Mr. DuPrey-Just to touch base on what you said, Dan, the emergency services being over funded in the Town I am not so sure that is the truth but I can tell you the Town of Queensbury gets an excellent service by all five fire departments. Supervisor Stec-No argument at all. Councilman Strough-I agree with you Joe, I think comparing us to other towns is unfair and I have explained this to Mr. Stec before, our town is vibrant it is alive we have many, many challenges that I cannot think of any other town maybe Clifton Park has these kinds of challenges that we have. The costs are going to be higher, but you know what we do not have any town tax where does that come from it is because we do have the greater challenges so to say that our expenses such as our Fire and Emergency Services a little bit higher than normal is probably that is the way it probably has to be given the dynamics of the Town. Mr. John Hodgkins-I live in North Queensbury I was invited in by North Queensbury and Central I just wanted to go on why this has come about in the long term and first off we get into the assessed value issues, assessed value is a snap shot in time if we did this meeting two years ago there would be no benefit for North Queensbury and there would be a larger benefit for somewhere else. Right now if you look at the change in value of homes in this town North Queensbury would probably taxes would go down and the Pines would go up, because the values of sales of houses are thirty percent high in North Queensbury they are selling for their assessed value. One of the things we get to look at is why we are here and I think one of the reasons we are here there is no continuity as far as what we are doing. Dan, you said it was a couple years ago we talked about this everybody said we had meetings on this we have already had studies put together, but if we go back into the late 80’s under the Borgos administration at that time it was decided that the Town was going to fully fund our fire departments. Great idea because we are on a volunteer system I think that is the one thing that makes it different than school district. When somebody brought up how school boards works we are talking about unions and paid personnel these are volunteers that put their own time in spend their Thursday nights out or Wednesday nights out training and put it together and they do a great job. In the late 80’s we went out and decided that we were going to fully fund it and the Town of Queensbury said great. The first company came up and said we need a new fire house, we built it the next one that is pretty nice, lets get another new fire house. We have got the nicest new fire houses in the area, there is no question about it right now. Some people that are outside of the fire companies and pardon me for saying this Bill they built the Taj Mahal of fire houses. The next thing comes up is some of the equipment comes up there is some departments that like to run differently replacement of equipment faster than others but that is the wrong choice. That is the choice within the fire department and I think we have to give them the leeway to manage their fire departments and some of the ways they like to. Now we are into fire trucks, fire ladder trucks we have got one coming, I understand that there are going to be two more requested. Now, maybe that is Special Town Board Meeting 05-08-2006 Mtg. #17 148 right, maybe that is wrong I am speaking from what I have heard. Lets ask this, in March you took on the budgets and you signed off on the budgets, how many meetings and how many requests from fire departments have you had for more money since then. Supervisor Stec-A few. Mr. Hodgkins-It is an endless process. If you went into fire districts system with five commissioners a commissioner serves for five years and they rotate every year you are electing a new commissioner. So, there is a continuity of thought that continues on. As they replace the next one or he is voted in again. That is something that this Town Board cannot offer, you have two years here, you have got a lot of budgets to deal with you are into recreation budgets you are into plowing the streets you have got everything going on here. You cannot be handling all of these. That means if you were putting three districts together one a month you need to do thirty six more meetings, are you prepared to go for thirty six more meetings as a Town Board, I do not think so, you guys are out to the edge right now. Richard you discussed what could be the difference, why would one district not want to do with another? Have you had an opportunity to look at the audits over the last ten years and compare them to what the budget were? I read minutes the other night you were complaining because the recreation department some project was twenty five percent out of budget. Have you counted how many times they were off budget in the last ten years? I think that is important I think fire commissioners will look at those items. Councilman Sanford-I am looking at consolidation as a way not to repeat the mistakes of history, so consolidation would be a solution to that problem. Mr. Hodgkins-Eighty five percent of the fire departments or fire districts, fire operations in the State have chosen fire districts because it is a solution. You are trying to make up a new solution, how much time do you have to put to figuring that out. I do not know that if you have any more time to do it. Councilman Sanford-I think what I said was pretty clear and straight forward. I feel that there are a few steps, prerequisites that need to happen in order for this to be a well thought out logical process. I do not think we have done hardly any of them at this particular point in time but sense we did get into this discussion in addition to getting the scenario analysis that I mentioned opening up. I certainly think that consolidation into equal critical mass types of entities I suggested three vs the five that we now have with boundary line adjustments needs to take place and then once there is normality there you then look to districting. That to me is my own opinion it seems logical to me and nothing that you said suggests otherwise. If there is two companies that consolidate and one is very prudent in handling their finances and the other as you are suggesting is less so then that is an opportunity to improve the model. Mr. Hodgkins-I want to go one step further, this is volunteer companies there is a lot of comorority, there is a lot of history if you go into any of the fire companies we have existed since this point in time. I think there is a lot to be said with that and how they operate. You are not going to take one of the groups and go force the issue on another. On the other hand if you were are ask, South has been bantered around a lot here, it is a small company I think that is why and it has it weakness in being small, but on the other hand if there were five people that were willing to come forward and try to put a business plan together that made it work would it be worth looking at maybe? You have to look at it, but there has to be those individuals. You had one individual from West who said I will be a commissioner, I have offered from North Queensbury, I would be a commissioner and there would be other people from North Queensbury already offered to do that to give some guidance. If any of the other districts all of a sudden if Bay Ridge had commissioners would there be a difference in how things are run, over time there would be. That would probably be a positive change. I am not going to say any of these places are being operated poorly, I am going to say they are making choices to provide the best fire protection as they can see. To make a long term effort in making fire departments here for the next hundred and fifty years you need some kind of continuity. I do not think a Town Board can offer it I think eighty five percent of the State fire departments is going in a different direction I think you need to think about that. Special Town Board Meeting 05-08-2006 Mtg. #17 149 Supervisor Stec-Well, to round out your thoughts and to frankly defend the actions of the last three years. These charges about rashness and need more study and need to be well thought out they were laid at the table when we did the rebate they were laid on the table when we did the EMS bill for service. History has shown you know what, we knew enough to move in the right direction and it is good thing that somebody had the gums ion to push. Councilman Sanford-How long have you been involved with working with North Queensbury on related issues, budgets. Mr. Hodgkins-I have been a property owner resident for years and I have been involved in looking over budgets of this town since I have been living in this town. I do not work with their budget they form the budget, I have come in because I was looking at tax rates, I was involved because we going back to what was happening up in Lake George, I put a perspective here but you are looking at the average home up there, the average home will pay four hundred and forty dollars in taxes compared to a hundred and thirty in the rest of the town and the average home in North Queensbury is thirteen hundred square feet with a sixty five hundred square foot lot with no garage and no basement. Now that is very simple fire protection compared to John, your house, your house is a hundred and eighty dollars per year and you have a twenty eight hundred square feet with an eight hundred square foot. Councilman Sanford-I was just wondering how many years that you have been involved with working with the fire company? Mr. Hodgkins-I am not a fireman. Councilman Sanford-In terms of working with them, like I have met with you a few times. M.r Hodgkins-Just this last year. Councilman Sanford-Have you had the opportunity to sit down and talk to Bay Ridge? Mr. Hodgkins-No. I am only talking with North Queensbury, I am not speaking for Bay Ridge, that is why I say they have their own choices to make. I think North Queensbury obviously, Central I worked with Central a little bit and they are looking at it and they are very encouraged by some operation like this. It is simpler, I think it is a more organized process, financially there is definite, there is more accountability, I think that is a plus right here and I think that is where I am coming from. I am looking at the financial side how do we get accountability in the Town. Councilman Boor-When I first pushed for consolidation and third party billing that was something that obviously was on the revenue side and part of it was the consolidation aspect and although we did not formally consolidate we obviously run it all through West when you do third party billing you have to run it through a single entity, that is the revenue side. Here we are looking at spending and I am not convinced that there isn’t some amount of consolidation that could further help spending, I am not saying how it is done, who it is but sometimes those things do help. Mr. Hodgkins-I am not denying it, I am not arguing with your point, my point is and I think it is has not been brought up this is a volunteer system and a long history and it is important that they retain that because frankly if you went to one organization with a big bureaucracy on top and you start having some paid for services the guy that is not, all of a sudden says why am I here and all of sudden we are going to go from a two million dollar budget to a six million dollar budget mighty quickly because of paid services. We have a good thing going here with our volunteer system. How do we strengthen it, and how do we make sure that our costs are under control. I think that is what we are looking at here what is the system that can work for the long term. Special Town Board Meeting 05-08-2006 Mtg. #17 150 Councilman Strough-I think that is what your argument is, is districting or going to a fire district may help that reduce the cost and the tax burden and we are all for that. I think what we have to do as a Board is we have talked to North Q and North Q did a nice job and I think we have to talk some more, we talked to South and Bay Ridge and West and Central gets some input, you know what I think it is going to be our burden then once we get an idea where everyone stands and where we want to go we are going to have to make a proposal that at least three of us can live with and throw that proposal out there. That does not mean that proposal is written in concrete but at least it will be someplace where, now lets go from here. I do not know what the product is going to be just yet, I got a feeling we are looking at three districts but I don’t know. We have got to get input from all five fire districts then we as a Town Board because this is where the bucks stops we cannot depend on you to come to us we have got to come to you with a proposal. It seems that the talk from four members up here has been positive toward forming fire districts, it has not been so positive in separating any one district and letting them become a fire district lets take a look at the Town and do a town wide analysis. Mr. Hodgkins-I think that is a positive way to go. Supervisor Stec-Again, critical to that would be outside of us having thirty six meetings to get there is I think I would like to ask for at least a third time for the five companies outside of the Town Board presence to sit down and start formulating what, because I got a plan and I could tell you what it is and you know what it may not get three votes on the Town Board and it might not make a lot of people out there happy and rather than waste my time and anyone elses time it would be much easier if we had a starting off point where we had an idea of what might float out there amongst the five, and bring that to the Town in the very near future. Mr. Chip Mellon-Bay Ridge Fire Chief- I would just like to start by saying that I know that there is some misinformation, miscommunication, a lot of people think that Bay Ridge Fire Company is opposed to fire district. Actually on the contrary we have scheduled a meeting will Bill Young which is the Association of Fire Districts Attorney, he will meet with us to discuss the whole concept. We have people in the district who have volunteered to be Commissioners if it goes that way. We look at fire districts as a solution rather than a burden to the taxpayers. Bay Ridge is open to meeting with North Queensbury, South Queensbury, Queensbury Central primarily regarding our boundary lines whatever adjustments have to be made to make this concept work. We only ask that all the fire companies including ourselves remain open and optimistic to change whatever may happen. It is not in the best interest of the fire service to have animosity toward each other. Some of that is going on right now. Hopefully changing the fire district will eliminate some of that. We need to work together to make the fire service in Queensbury the best that it can be while remaining fiscally responsible we all have that obligation whether it is a fire district or fire protection district. If this means changing the fire districts than we are all for it. We will do all we can to make the concept work. Supervisor Stec-Sometime in the near future it would be appropriate to come back to a workshop between now and then, I would like your input on the lines to the Town Board hopefully with an endorsement of all five but some direction what some companies might be willing to do and live with as far as these line. I think it makes a lot of sense to go to either three or possibly four district, I also think that makes the most sense to do the entire town districts and not leave a portion of it over as a fire protection district, frankly because if two of them leave the dynamic will be that the numbers will work that it will the rest of your advantage to also go to districts. I would like you to do that and on the Town Board’s end with Jennifer and Bob I want the Town Board to full utilize Jennifer and Bob as a resource as far as number crunching that they would like done and legal questions. Budget Officer Switzer-If any of the Town Board Members have questions I would like something in writing from you of what information that you are looking for before we meet again, so we can be prepared. Councilman Boor-The first thing I want to see is boundaries, what people think they could live with, what changes they think should be made. They do not even have to be Special Town Board Meeting 05-08-2006 Mtg. #17 151 with their fire company if they, I do not want to open the flood gates of discontent but it is very obvious that one company is protecting an area that they shouldn’t and I think it is important that the Board be apprised of it. Budget Office Switzer-I just want to be able to answer questions that come up and be prepared for that questions. Councilman Strough-In going along with what Roger is saying that goes back to what I am saying we could just not set anything or do anything or we can set a meeting with each fire department lets say Wednesday the next five Wednesdays we will meet with North, we will meet with Bay Road, we will meet with Central, we will meet with South we will meet with West, we will meet with all five and that way then we will get together as a Board take a look at the fire districts and maps. We have now spoken to all five, gotten their input and I think we will have a better idea on where we can go from there. We have got to meet with these people and now it is your burden to set a time table to meet with these departments that is where I think we ought to go. Supervisor Stec-I do not want to waste any of their time and I especially do not want to waste my time if it is already rigged that there will never be three votes to go in this direction. Councilman Boor-There is nothing rigged I take exception to that kind of comment. I think we should have meetings with each fire department I think that they will bring with them relevant material whether it be boundary adjustments other things. Supervisor Stec-I think there is more value in the five companies talking together, if you want to talk individually that is fine if we want to have a couple additional I led the discussion that this will be a long process, there will be a lot more meetings then just setting a public hearing and having a public hearing. Hopefully we have all been talking to these guys on and off over the last two year. Councilman Strough-I think we should meet with each department one on one to get their kind of feelings on districting and what kind of district they would like to see, it doesn’t mean we will go in their direction but I think we should sit down with them one on one. We are also going to need more group meetings. Councilman Sanford-Jennifer one of the things that I would like would be a model set up in Excel that you could have the current configuration of the fire companies with columns representing various data fields that is interactive. So, that if I was to go in and change fields the whole model would change. I will work with you if you want in terms of some of the outcome columns but I think that would be helpful so that if we fore instance moved a boundary line and we knew the assessment differential we could plug that in and then get the new tax rates that kind of thing. Not a paper copy but a computer program. Supervisor Stec-Will also provide the Board with the work that has been done. Thanked everyone for coming, regarding this topic. 2.0SOLID WASTE COLLECTION DISTRICTS Supervisor Stec-The Town Board received from the State Comptrollers Office a report that stated that based on some assumptions and data checking as to what an average collection cost might be if we went to a residential solid waste collection district, they estimated that we could save the taxpayer just under a million dollars annually, the residential homeowner if we considered going to solid waste collection districts. This is a new concept in New York State there are only a handful out there. There were three options, one allowing us to only focus on a residential user as opposed to town wide, a residential garbage district, the main concern was what do you do if somebody said you know what I do not have a lot of garbage and we are going to transfer station and we are getting by on ten dollars a month so if you give me a bid for twelve dollars a month I am not saving any money I am actually losing money. This would allow us to provide an option out possibility for someone who wants out. The transfer station will need to be maintained and operated for the indefinite future because we have a caped landfill to Special Town Board Meeting 05-08-2006 Mtg. #17 152 monitory and maintain. Noted we also collect brush and metal at the site…in the future we might reduce the transfer station hours, or maybe consolidate by going to one transfer station as opposed to maintaining two. For the foreseeable future we would need them both open. In order to set this bid where it costs twelve or fourteen dollars a month that as far as haulers they would an exclusivity they would be getting all the residential household waste and they would not have someone else come in after that and jump their bid so to speak. This would not affect restaurants or commercial uses, or apartment complexes… we need to make a decision on duplexes or three or four units places, where to draw the line. Councilman Boor-You are very pro moving in this direction and I couldn’t be any further from that philosophy. 1. Take exception to big government and this is big government. You are creating a monopoly very bad, you are eliminating competition, there is somebody that is going to win this bid and every other company that competes now is going to divest their equipment so when they no longer have the amount of equipment to service a fair significant portion of this town this hauler can jack the prices up and no body will be able to compete because they will not have the capital asset to compete. I see it as a really bad move, counter to logic. Competition create lower pricing, this is creating a government monopoly. I do not want to be a government entity that is awarding a singular contract to a hauler. Councilman Sanford-What happens over time you put something like this in place then there is an interest on the town and the vendors part to get as many people participating because it is in the best interest of the vendor to do that, then all of a sudden you do exactly what you just said Dan, you start to look less favorably on people carry their own trash, because you have to have additional staff there and why wouldn’t it be nice and not have it and you cut back hours and next thing you know it becomes almost a mandatory type of thing, we have a wide cross section of people, we have elderly people who live alone that may need to take their one garbage bag to the dump twice a month if that and you have other families who produce garbage like crazy. I do not like the town getting involved with private businesses. I just do not think it is something we want to do. Councilman Strough-The other thing maybe it might save us a million but I have no idea who made that analysis I have never seen that analysis I have not seen the figures. Supervisor Stec-It was in a report Budget Officer Switzer-It came from the State Comptrollers Office early 2005. Supervisor Stec-Requested that the Budget Officer get a copy to the Board Members. Councilman Strough-What are the long term impacts? You may save the taxpayer up front for the first couple of years, once you get the monopoly set in they are pretty set in and I think we have talked about monopoly with the Cable TV and we talked about why don’t other companies come in and bid on cable TV and the answer was they do not want to get involved with competition, another persons turf. Five or ten years from now are we going to be paying more for garbage because we have a monopoly because nobody else will bid on it. Supervisor Stec-I bring it up again because the State Comptrollers Office felt that we could cut the average homeowners solid waste disposal cost in half. I understand the points that were made, I would think that certainly the cost for entry for starters retail and commercial would still be collected by private haulers, if we put the bid out and somebody wanted the work that you are not talking about building buildings or laying cable or pipe in the ground you are talking about buying trucks. Councilman Sanford-You are putting people out of work to. Supervisor Stec-A million dollars per year is attractive to me. Special Town Board Meeting 05-08-2006 Mtg. #17 153 Councilman Strough-That may not be the long term solution and in the mean time you are knocking out all the competition you are knocking out all the little guys that are in business. Supervisor Stec-We have all the information on the table I am hearing that three of you feel strongly that the risks outweigh the reward and so enough said, unless we get new information I can leave this, we have semi closure on this now. 3.0Pilot Knob Volunteer Fire Company Request Supervisor Stec-Received a letter from Jeff Lensey Chief of the Pilot Knob Volunteer Fire Company they purchased a six wheel ATV to use in their own district and others as needed, they would like to request from the Town to use the flat sandy area on the Town of Queensbury Property adjacent to the Ridge Rd. Transfer Station for basic driver training as we have lack of this training in Pilot Knob. The Town would be named as an insured party on our insurance policy. Councilman Boor-I do not want it over the cover. Councilman Strough-It has to be grass and maintained. Councilman Boor-Also speak to Keith Sheerer and make sure there aren’t things we need to know prior to granting any kind of approval. Supervisor Stec-Will ask for additional information and speak to Keith. 4.0Jolley Associates Supervisor Stec-The mobile gas station on Route 9 and 254 there is a parcel of land adjacent to them between them and Burger King, formerly known as Peters Road. Back in 1972 the Town abandoned Peters Road it is town owned property about a tenth of an acre, they would like to purchase it. They are looking to redevelop that corner that would improve their setbacks and sight if they could acquire the property. There is a process to go through we need to have fair market value. Board requested time to look at the site. Town Counsel Hafner-Peters Road was abandoned, it was divided into four pieces the Town has given away three pieces of it one to Bank, one with the grocery store and one to Mobil, it is a small piece of what was the whole thing. I would recommend if it is decided to sell it that they provide a survey of it. RESOLUTION ADJOURNING TOWN BOARD SPECIAL MEETING RESOLUTION NO. 251. 2006 INTRODUCED BY: Mr. Roger Boor WHO MOVED FOR ITS ADOPTION SECONDED BY: Mr. Richard Sanford RESOLVED, that the Town Board of the Town of Queensbury hereby adjourns its Special Town Board Meeting. th Duly adopted this 8 day of May, 2006 by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Boor, Mr. Sanford, Mr. Strough, Mr. Stec Special Town Board Meeting 05-08-2006 Mtg. #17 154 NOES: None ABSENT: Mr. Brewer Respectfully submitted, Miss Darleen M. Dougher Town Clerk-Queensbury