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1998-07-07 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING JULY 7,1998 7:00 P.M. MTG.#34 TOWN BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT SUPERVISOR FRED CHAMPAGNE COUNCILMAN RICHARD MERRILL COUNCILMAN THEODORE TURNER COUNCILMAN DOUGLAS IRISH-Absent COUNCILMAN PLINEY TUCKER TOWN OFFICIALS CHRIS ROUND-DIRECTOR OF COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT LAKE GEORGE PARK COMMISSION MIKE WHITE JOAN ROBERTSON CARL DESANTIS, CHAIRMAN MAGGIE STEWART SUPERVISOR CHAMPAGNE-Welcome to the North Queensbury Fire House, certainly we have a very interesting evening for us planned and we hope that you will leave here with the kind of information that you came here to seek. Before I start, I would like to introduce our Board that joined us this evening to my immediate right here is Dick Merrill, and certainly Dick does a great job representing Ward I and basically that is what we will be dealing with here tonight. Next is Ted Turner Ward II and our far right is Pliney Tucker Ward IV, Mr. Irish is on vacation this week and unable to be with us. Chris Round over here on the right hand side Chris, want to raise your hand, Chris serves as our Director of Community Development and has a great deal of responsibility in terms of doing the kinds of things that cause some people some concern mainly codes and things of that sort. Also, with us is Chairman Carl DeSantis from the Lake George Park Commission along with Mike White, Joan Robertson and Maggie Stewart and if there is anyone else that I missed please call it to my attention and we will get you on the roister. One of the things that we would like to try and do tonight and I realize that this may be a bit of an inconvenience, we are taping the meeting but unfortunately it is going to mean that when we ask you to come forward we would like to have you come up here speak into the mic for us so that we can get it on tape and we can record so that we can have some minutes of the meeting. It is my opinion that the Town Board is very anxious in using this input in terms of the kinds of decisions that we will be making in the future relative to the Lake George Park Commission and its role and function. So, it is my belief that our real reason for meeting with you this evening is to hear from you, so it is my hope that if we can keep the board here quiet while we sit and listen while you come forth and make your presentation it is going to be an opportunity for some exchange certainly the Commission is here to answer questions and possibly even have some type of response to your concerns. So, we are going to limit it to a five minute go around if we can ask you to keep your comments to approximately five minutes and then after everyone has had the first chance to go through the first round we will open it up again for the second round and we will be here for as long as you choose to be here but I think we want to have the opportunity for everybody to speak their piece. So, with that in mind what have I left out, does anyone have anything more to add before we start? UNKNOWN-What is your focus? SUPERVISOR CHAMPAGNE-I think our focus is to hear from you relative to you know your thoughts and ideas on the Lake George Park Commission its role, its function, its duties, how it serves us or doesn't serve us. I think the important issue here tonight is there have been some Town Boards that have passed some resolutions to abandon the Park Commission lets be realistic before this Queensbury Town Board choose to take any type of action, pro, con or inbetween we want to hear from the general public and get some opinions to kind of guide us through this. We believe that there are some things the Park Commission is doing that is great, we believe that there are some things that may need some improvement. So, that is where I will speak from, Dick you may want to add to that. COUNCILMAN MERRILL-I think that pretty well sums it up, it is a chance to hear from you tonight and the Park Commission is here and I think they will be taking part in the discussion too. SUPERVISOR CHAMPAGNE-Ok. Any further more from the gentlemen to my right? Ok. It is open. Who wants to start off here? ..ifthe Park Commission wishes to make a statement they are more than welcome to do that. MR. MIKE WHITE-My name is Mike White I am the Executive Director of the Park Commission staff and I did take the time to prepare just a few comments I guess. Maybe I am the strong man to get things moving and kick it off a little bit. I thought I would start a little bit of history about the Commission and some basic details I guess. Hopefully that will help remind us what the Commission is about and what we are supposed to be doing. I know the members asked me to express appreciation to the Board for holding this forum, I thank you for the opportunity to speak about this issue. I start out with just a little bit of background. The Commission was established in 1961 by act of the New York State Legislature. Even at that time I guess, the legislature understood the relationship between activities and land drainage basin, and their impact upon the water quality of the lake. They made the Lake George Park consist of the Lake and the surrounding country side. The park is now defined as the drainage basin and comprises about three hundred square miles of land and water surface area. The Commission members are citizens volunteers and serve without any compensation what so ever. They are appointed by the Governor by and with the advise and consent of the Senate. They are appointed on a County basis two from Warren, two from Washington and two from Essex and three are at large citizens and the New York State Environmental Conservation Commission is an ex-official member of the Commission. The Commission meets monthly at various locations around the lake. When I first got.. . Fresh Water Institute involved with the Board back in the early 80's I attended along with about a thousand other people a series of meetings around the lake and public comment at those meetings are focused on what was a lack of government action to address what people were complaining about and perceiving of problems with the Lake. They were up to three hundred boats anchored at any given time in Sandy Bay there was complaints about excessive speeding on the lake there were boats and a number of boats with strayed exhaust pipes. And there had not been a noise enforcement case taken on the Lake in years. RPI through your contribution to the LGA and the funds for lake George would sample water but no body would follow up on land to find out where a dirty ... was coming from or coordinate any action to find the source and fix it. There was new information about non point source pollution. A recognized decline in water quality and I am understanding that non point source problems is very complex but there wasn't any program to really try and do anything about that. Even the Commission had a lake patrol due to a demotion in their legal status and due to many years of limited lack of good funding had become in effective. And that was pretty well recognized and there was a lack of effective dock enforcement, a system that candidly seemed to reward the non compliant and punish the innocent with an endless burrocacy of permits. And above all there was a concern about water quality a feeling among people of helplessness to reverse the trends that were so evident to them. Well, when you get a thousand people turning out for such a meeting people take notice and the New York State Legislature took notice and they also took notice of the report of a task force called the Task Force for the Future of the Lake George Park. It worked for over three years and involved over sixty representatives of State Agencies, oflocal governments of the public and whatnot and the Task Force findings were significant. It could be summarized down and boiled down to a single conclusion that despite a long list of involved agencies many of the lakes problems were falling through the cracks because of a lack of directed effort and coordination and management foresight. So, in 1987 the State legislature re-affirmed through legislation the importance of Lake George as a State resource, too important to allow it to be diminished. Through special legislation they re-vitalized the role of Lake George Park Commission and gave it specific authority and instructions and created the Lake George Park Trust Fund and dock registration as a means to finance these new efforts and new responsibilities. So, what has been done since then? Well, the Lake George Park marine patrol their peace officer status restored has been revitalized, there has been an renewed commitment to equipment to training to staffing and supervision. The patrol is lake wide we serve all the way to the outlet, assist thousands of boaters, campers and hikers annually. We work closely with the Warren County Sheriffs Office in fact we are dispatched through the Warren County Sheriffs dispatch. Frankly, we go much further up the lake and we cover the entire area, six patrol zones. There are overall Lake speed limits day and night, special PWC regulations, five hundred feet, Sandy Bay regulations, anchoring prohibitions along private property. There is fair enforcement of dock and mooring standards lake wide. Enforce limits on marina expansions, prohibitions against new quick launching facilities. The LGPC took really an abandoned milfoil control program, took it over in 1995, we have worked to expand it, we think the program is containing the spread of mil foil around the lake and controlling its expansion at specific locations. We have progressive storm water program including nation wide standards for development and grants for local governments for storm water planning. We have instituted a follow up program for high bacterial count and we have a pollution hot line if called we go and inspect and hunt down sources of pollution. These services have been added at really what I would think is modest additional expenses for homeowners. Forty five dollars per year as an example if you own a dock and boat about the same if you are a marina boater. Sixty five dollars lets say if you have a dock and two boats. We have a system of registration and boat and dock registrations that we run at the office and we conduct about twenty five thousand transactions per year and a average about forty five dollars a transaction. I think there has been improvement in each of the areas where we have dedicated our programs I would note that these are complex social problems we are dealing with. You will note that I did not call them environmental problems because often they are not environmental problems. They are really relate to crowding, and congestion and they are derived from very powerful economic forces, at work stemming from what seems to be an almost unlimited demand for access to the beautiful lake that we have. To the degree that public education, reasonable regulations and concerted efforts by volunteer commission members and a small staff can be effective I think we have done the best possible job, we can in our area. We often hear complaints about the Commission, complaints that well, one agency should be in charge of everything. People do not seem to like it when they call the office and they get referred on to another group. But that is clearly is not our mission, our mission is rather to fill gaps between existing government functions, as a self sufficient agency we note that our responsibilities are very large and our budget is limited. We have addressed each of those areas of our responsibilities in the best possible way we can. We hear complaints about over regulation and we hear complaints that there is not enough regulations or enforcement of the current rules. And we hear frankly in about equal measure. So, what in the final analysis is the strength and benefits of the Commission, well it has unique authority in New York State to establish educational and regulatory programs to address lake recreation problems and to feel a lake wide public safety and enforcement effort which is supported not by local property taxes but by fees from the boats and dock owners who directly benefit from this service. To place docks and moorings on a State owned lake you need a State permit. The LGPC has eliminated duplication of other State agencies such as DEC and it runs a fair program of dock limits with good enforcement. I might note that in a recent survey over all basin wide those responding about a thousand people reported, seventy three percent were familiar with our dock and mooring regulations and eighty nine percent felt that they were appropriate. Dock limits are the same in Putnam and Dresdon as they are in Queensbury. And frankly we do more dock business in that area then we do down here. We are supported in our efforts on mil foil by the fund and we are partners with Fresh Water Institute but as a State Agency we provide for the permits and anchor the program in ways that neither one of those groups can or wants to be involved. We can equalize efforts in such areas as storm water management, among towns such as Queensbury, and ones that are not so capable of carrying out these program areas. That ensures that efforts in one area of the lake are not diminished by a lack of progress in other areas. LGPC can follow up on community investment and water sampling and track down sources and see to the correction of pollution sources. We can over see lake levels, plan environmental initiatives, provide grants to community groups, educate boaters and lake users, not at the expense of local taxes but shared among thousand of lake users. Over all the Commission has been effective with limited resources in creating a most effective and efficient program possible. Members are active members active managers of the Commission and decision makers who welcome your suggestions, we are ready, willing and able to work with any local government or groups toward improving coordination, communications and provide the best possible programs for the lake and its users. SUPERVISOR CHAMPAGNE-Thank you Mike. Now we will open it up to the floor, please, yes, Sir, John. MR. JOHN SALVADOR - I would just like to pick up on a couple of things that Mike mentioned. He referred to the 1961 legislation that put the Park Commission in place. He mentioned the three at large Commissioners, more specifically that legislation states that these, and it does not use the term three at large it uses the term three from local lake protective associations. I know of only one local lake protective association that existed in 1961 and I do not know of any other in addition to that today. He did mention that all are appointed by the Governor. Of grave concern to me of course is how these Commissioners names are put into nomination before the Governor? And these concerns arise because these Commissioners are unelected officials and if you study the legislation carefully they have been given powers of taxation and zoning. And these are powers that are reserved for our local government and of course these are elected officials. The Commissioners are not accountable to anyone, are not accountable. Our elected officials are. These are the reasons the other three towns have passed resolutions of non- support of the Commission because the Commission is treading on their terf, taxation and zoning. That is all I have to say right now but I ..comments for later. SUPERVISOR CHAMPAGNE-Thank you, John. Anyone else? Yes, Sir. Ted.. MR. TED ARNSTEIN-My name is Ted Arnstein, I am hear representing the East Side Property Owners, three hundred property owners along the shores of this Lake who are vitally involved. Gentleman, you are facing again I think what happened at least twice before when questions were raised about the Park Commission and it is very difficult for you it is difficult for us because the concept of the Park Commission is a good one. Many of the Towns in the other Counties particularly you are well aware of this, are not as strongly regulated and do not have the people who are as efficient as Queensbury but the same problems exist. Unfortunately, John, touched on several of the very important problems. The people are not responsible to the voters, you know only too well in recent memory people who were shoo-ins for re- election did not get in because they did not do what the electorate wanted. These people are here they just appointed one from our Town a very fine lady to nine more years. I do not think anybody my age or even her age she is a young person comparatively should have nine more years on a board like that. Despite this business of the Governor appointing them we all are aware the Governor gets the names from a few people. Probably most orderly, Bartlett, Pontiff and Company. Now, lets talk particularly about what Mike said. He is correct, Sandy Bay they did a very good job, they solved that problem by putting forty I believe there was or fifty buoys there it seems to be working fine. He talked about speed and noise enforcement, not too, good Mike, don't brag about it. Docks, not good, I really begin to think you believe you keep putting out this stuff about milfoillike you people invented it. The LGA fought for that for years, years and suddenly it becomes your idea. Stop dreaming with this stuff. You have the police authority they do not do a good job. The five hundred foot limits never enforced. You talk about the docks within walking distance here I can take you to twenty, walking distance, Class B Marinas that you people are well aware of and you do not enforce your own laws. Change the laws to something that you can enforce. Don't brag about what you haven't done, I think you believed it. You talk about eighty-nine percent of the people approved the dock regulations, I do not know where you got these answers but this is not what happened. You talked about ninety seven percent approved the noise regulations at the LGA meeting, you were there, Carl, almost one hundred percent including yourself, raised your hand and said they are not working, you want need more noise regulations. Come on get with it, you are needed, we need you we need your help. But, don't dream this stuff up. I can take you to places here and sometimes Queensbury involved in this too, who get a permit to change a dock, enlarge a dock, nothing is done about it. You are not enforcing your own laws. Either enforce them or change thern. I do not think you listen to the public. I really do not think you do. I have more to say but I will wait until the end. SUPERVISOR CHAMPAGNE-I have a letter here from Jennifer Cline, I would like to read it into the minutes. They have asked me to do this, this was sent to me back on May 15, 1998. Dear Supervisor Champagne, The Bolton Town Board deserves a commendation for their recent resolution, copy attached, that condenm the LGPC and asks for their disbainment. The key point Bolton makes as their resolution, in their resolution is the elitist LGPC a Commission that is in no way accountable to our area residents. Threatens the freedoms we should enjoy as Americans. The State Legislature has empowered the LGPC with the ability to adopt laws, enforce policy and tax our local citizens without any accountability to the citizens nor any action from local or State Elected Officials. This is taxation with out representation something aour fore fathers fought and died for and the foundation of our constitution. In the summer of 1997 at the invitation of the LGPC I attend a public forum after listening to the LGPC presentation for about one hour they reluctinently allowed the public to comment. They had advertised they would. I spoke out about the over regulations of residents and visitors of Lake George are subject to and some of the burdensome regulations and enforcement policies being implemented by the LGPC. Specifically, boarding of boats for sanitary inspection and harassing visitors slash boats at Glen Island and other popular family recreation areas without cause or reason. Not allowing children to learn to swim or other families activities at Sandy Bay. Requiring a marina permit to have a visitors boat at your private dock. I also made some suggestions regarding pollution sources that I felt they should focus on such as outboard motor oil in the lake which is a source of drinking water for my family as well as many others. Evidently the LGPC took offense to my comments. One week later a plain cloths officer with no identification in an unmarked car turned up at our home and insisted on an investigation an anonymous report of a failing septic system that was polluting the lake. The office knew that we did not even have a septic system since he had a copy of the plans that were submitted to the LGPC when the holding tank was installed on the property years before. At the time my wife was expecting twenty one, sixteen year old children in forty five minutes for a private party. Vividly remembering the 1992 incident with the LGPC she was alone and intimidated by the LPGC officer, she asked the officer to re-schedule his investigation to a time when I could be present and then ask to leave. The officer offered all kinds of excuses why he could not re-scheduled and insisted on investigation immediately. At that time my wife ordered him off the property. After the officer left she went to the house and called me and our attorney while on the phone she observed the officer sneaking back through the woods across the private driveway leading to our property. At that point our Attorney raised the director of the LGPC, Michael who called the officer and directed him back to the office. We have been denied, we identified, we have been denied the identify of the so called anonymous accuser at every request we have made seems to be delayed as much as possible and then denied. It is our opinion that there is no anonymous accuser and the LGPC is using their powers to inteminadate us. The last time I checked I was not living in Nazi Germany, we have a constitutional right to quietly and freely enjoy our property without being harassed by a rouge agencies like the LGPC. Lack of accountability combined with unlimited and unchecked authority makes me believe the only course for the LGPC is to be dissolved. I hereby request your support in eliminating this agency and returning local control to our area. I urge the Town Board to pass a similar resolution endorsing the Town of Bolton's initiative. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or if you chose to discuss this matter further. I can be reached during business hours at 518 798-0125. Sincerely, David and Klein PE. Well, we will put that in the record. Ok. With that said now who is next? Yes. David. MR. DAVID KLEIN My name is Dave Klein the author of that letter. I appreciate you reading it into the minutes, Fred. Graduate Civil Engineer, I am a licensed Professional Engineer. . . a firm designed the waste water treatment plant that got the White House attention when Carroll Browner the head of EP A visited the site for a ground breaking. I sit on the State Board of Building Codes Review, so I know a little bit about storm water, I know a little bit about waste water. . . be dangerous. My problem is the Lake George Park Commission is not accountable to the area residents and threatens the freedom that we should enjoy as Americans. We are being taxes without representation, I am being denied to face by accuser, I have been refused to address of the Board of the Lake George Park Commission with regards to the incident that occurred at our house last summer. If the Lake George Park Commission wanted to work with area residents they would accommodate our request to address them. Our constitutional and civil rights are being eroded, the Lake George Park Commission is accountable to no one. Carl DeSantis will not do anything, the Court will not do anything the legislature will not do anything. Recently we sued a John and Jane Doe in the ..Lake George Park Commission for the identity of the person who supposedly accused us of having a failing septic system, and we were denied. Now, I have got to spend money to appeal it, otherwise the Lake George Park Commission has another notch in their belt and a court case proven that they have the ability to take anonymous complaints and come into your homes with no cause and harass your family. Lets examine the rules and policies adopted by the Lake George Park Commission. Storm water regulations that are impractical at best can do nothing to address the major sources of lake pollution, pollution of the lake. Wastewater regulations that needlessly make a good portion of property on Lake George un-usable and we are finally thrown out in court after causing many hardships. Dock regulations that require marina permit to have a visitors boat temporarily ties up to your private dock which you have already paid a dock permit for. And a boat boarding policy that has not resulted in detecting an improper toilet or sink in years yet offended users of the lake and infringes on our civil liberties. Even the Coast Guard cannot board a boat without cause. Personal water craft regulations that are out right dangerous, if you want to get rid of personal water craft get them off the lake don't make them go five hundred feet off shore and get run over. Mooring regulations, in an enforcement policy in Sandy Bay that inhibits young children from safetly utilizing the national resources that they have historically been entitled to. Now we are facing noise regulations that will force all the wooden boats with through hull exhaust off the lake. These boats have been on the lake for eons. I own one. The lake George Park Commission causes, cruses around on sunny afternoons in, with their outboard engines dumping oil into my drinking water, that is how they are protecting the lake by running around with an outboard motor on. Ask Mr. DeSantis you know can't you use outboard, or inboards that don't dump oil into the lake. Well, we have to buy them under state contract or you buy environmentally bio-degradable oil? No, we buy it on State contract the cheapest stuff we can get. In response to a recent article in the Post Star entitled Park Commission Officials respond to recent criticism the article starts out by stating, watch dogs can be ugly, in conclusion I contend that this watch dog, the Lake George Park Commission has distemper and should be put to sleep. Thank you. SUPERVISOR CHAMP AGNE- Thank you, Mike, Dave, sorry. Folks I am going to ask you to hold your applause, I think it has no purpose in this evenings meeting so I would ask you to do that. Ok, who is next. Yes, Mame MS. SHERRY KEARNS -I am a resident of Sandy Bay and from my limited perspective, life would be intolerable without the Lake George Park Commission and the good work that they have done enforcing the regulations that they have established in our bay. I know that life would be intolerable because before the regulations and before the enforcement it was intolerable. There are no restrictions upon children swimming in Sandy Bay, they do that all the time. There are no restrictions upon families enjoying Sandy Bay they do that all the time. There are laws that are enforced there are fifty five available bouys and that is not a small number. On any given afternoon you will find that they are occupied and they are occupied by families and they are occupied by people enjoying themselves. Previous to the Park Commission they were occupied by drunks, and people who carried on twenty four hours a day in a shameless fashion with no regard what so ever to the residents in that area. No good thing ever comes without some balancing loss of something. You know with government comes the reduction of private privilege it has always been that way. I thank the Lake George Park Commission for making life in our area so much better. SUPERVISOR CHAMPAGNE-Could I get your name please? -I beg your pardon? DEPUTY TOWN CLERK BARBER-Your name please? MS. SHERRY KEARNS-Sherry Kearns SUPERVISOR CHAMPAGNE-Ok. Anyone else. Yes. Sir. MR. NORM SYMES-From the Lake George Association. Just to put a little different spin on this maybe and a little different perspective. Many years ago when I was President of the Lake George Association, we had a general concept that in fact there should be one organization on the lake to make rules and regulations throughout the lake, this was before Carl DeSantis this was before Mike White this was before all the commissioners that are here tonight. It was our idea supported by our membership and I see many members here tonight that with the different towns and the different counties that surround the lake that if each one were to go out and develop the road speed limit their own septic tank rules their own ground water problems their own wall problems and you can imagine they have been talked about so much here tonight that we almost would have ... here tonight. People would not know especially the boaters as you go from one town in the lake to the other town in the lake what are the rules of this town? So, in general I certainly support the idea that there is one organization on the lake, obviously we have heard from some people who think there are problems within that organization. I do not think any organization who gets to be that big that controls a lake of thirty two miles and literally hundreds and hundreds of homes along that lake can do the job to everybody's satisfaction. I certainly sympathize with certain families that have particular problems with the Commission. From what I know the Commission these people are bright enough to step forward and listen to the type of problems that you have and find a remedy to those, I would recommend that. I have attended a lot of their meetings they have attended a lot of our meetings we support that all the way. But, the idea that there should not be a Commission I think takes us back into the stone age almost on this lake because we really do break it back up again and we lose that single concept of one power that governs the lake. Now, again a lake this big it is very difficult to keep everybody happy in all the bays and in all the shore sides homes and the homes on the other side of the lake and whatever, it is very difficult to do. I think it behooves all of us that live on the lake to take a more active part in what the Park Commission is doing. Go to more meetings, make yourself heard, go to the LGA use our power on the lake to do it, we probably have more members on this lake than any other organization that is here, We are more than willing to work with the Commission. On the good side of the Commission they have partnered with us over the last couple of years to bring literally, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars in the lake projects that the Lake George Association is overseeing right today. We have been very successful with a lot of storm water run off problems with education programs with our floating classrooms on the lake a lot of these are funded by the LGA and by outside sources but a lot of them with the support of the Park Commission. So, in general my recommendation is that we certainly not do away with this concept that has been around since the early 80's of one governing body but in fact if we have problems that we make those known. Certainly, Mr. Supervisor we are here tonight to say that and people have said that. Go to the meetings, participate be a part of what it is all about we will all come together on the lake somehow. Thank you. SUPERVISOR CHAMPAGNE-Thank you. MR. DAVE WILCOX-My name is Dave Wilcox, I summer on Assembly Point live in Albany, work in Albany so I am not up here year round as sum of you are. Because of that I have had somewhat limited contact with the Lake George Park Commission. My first experience was when the Lake George Park Commission took over the regulations of the water level. I worked with one of the staff members as an interested person in understanding the lake level and I thought was a very positive experience working with them. Other experiences that have happened to neighbors of mine, not to me personally have been what appears to be an uneven enforcement of regulations. In this particular instance a repair of a dock that had been damaged during a winter storm compare and contrasting that to another landowner who with slightly larger holdings seemed to be able to do what that landholder chose to do on his property perhaps using the it is easier to be forgiven then it is to ask permission approach to construction. If the Lake George Park Commission is truly uniformly enforcing its rules I think it needs to do a little bit better job of helping the public understand how it really is doing so. If it is not then as others have indicated I would request that they perhaps start being uniform in their enforcement of the rules. As to disillusion of the Lake George Park Commission I believe an organization is needed to help to be an umbrella over the lake that I too would not want to see an organization multi, management of the lake done by multiple organizations that were not working together in conjunction with each other. I do have a strong concern however about the issue of representation and accountability. I have not studied well enough nor do I understand well enough the what it would take to change the organization so that there were representation, that it were a representative organization where that would take a legislative action or not. My request and advice to the Town Board would be rather than disbanding the Lake George Park Commission but would be to move toward establishing it in a more representative fashion. If that takes getting our State wide legislators to modify whatever laws there are in effect then so do it. Thank you. SUPERVISOR CHAMP AGNE- Thank you. Anyone else for the first round? Yes, Sir. MR. JOHN BROCK- My name is John Brock, I have a home and business in Queensbury and some of the things being said here tonight are I agree with. There were used to be fifty five moorings in Sandy Bay, there are now forty. The Park Commission has made no effort to put the fifteen back, ok. In otherwords if we keep those boats out of the Bay lets keep them out. I have three hundred feet of frontage on a Town Road, the Town told me I have permission to go on and off my property from that road. However the Park Commission tells me I do not have that privilege. I can pay taxes but I cannot go on and off my property. So, I ask the Town and it is ok and I asked the Park Commission and it says it is not ok. Now I do not know who controls the roads is it the Town or is it the Park Commission. SUPERVISOR CHAMPAGNE-You would have to ask Mr. Naylor. MR. BROCK-Mr. Naylor says there is no problem at all. SUPERVISOR CHAMPAGNE-So, that is your answer. MR. BROCK-However... ok. However the Park Commission says there is. Now the Town of Queensbury gave me a letter saying I can stack boats on my property, the Park Commission says you cannot do that. Ok. Another thing I have a business to sell boats. When I sell a boat, lets say a sixty thousand dollar boat the sales tax goes to a good portion of it to the Town of Queensbury. The Park Commission comes along and says wait we are going to limit the boats he can have for sale so we are going to put a limit on the number of boats I have on my property for sale. I may have all kinds of space available but we are going to limit how many boats I can sell. Then lets say you want to buy a new tractor to put your boat in and out of the water. Everybody else's goes and and buys a tractor, no you cannot do that you have got to get permission from the Park Commission to buy a new tractor. To buy a tractor? How would you like to get permission to buy a tractor to mow your lawn? Ok. What to mow your lawn, you have got to go and get permission, well I think the regulations are getting too far it is time for the Town to come along and take control of the land and I agree the Park Commission has a function they should be from the water line out and the town should be from the water line in. Ok. Yes. Patrol the lake, take care of the boaters, take care of the problems with the lake ok, lets take care of the patrol and the milfoil if that is what they want to do that is great, but when they come in and start taking control of the land I think that is the towns job. I believe if we go to the town and get permission to do something with our land we should be able to do it. We are paying the town taxes. And the septic system, if the Town has septic system regulations we should have to conform to that, let Bolton have theirs, if they have theirs everybody has their own, if you live in that town you pay taxes in that town the town should regulate your land not the Park Commission. Thank you. SUPERVISOR CHAMP AGNE- Thank you. First round, we are still on the first round, anyone else? MR. JOHN SALVADOR-Back to my first round comments. SUPERVISOR CHAMPAGNE-John Salvador, right, for the record. MR. JOHN SALVADOR -Yes. I have a couple of comments, I overlooked in my first round. Mike White referred to the 1961 legislation, that legislation created the body, called the Lake George Park Commission it did not create a park. A park has never been created by the legislature. A park has simply been defined and it wasn't in 1961 it was in 1962. In 1961 they could just as easily called the body they created the Lake George Commission, but they dumped park in there. But at that time we had some very careful and conscientious bill drafters I guess, they took the trouble to spell the work park with a lower case p they knew what they were talking about, there was no park. I maintain to this day there has never been a legislative enactment creating the Lake George park, it is phantom park. Again, the subject of zoning and I think this is where the Town of Queensbury has to comes to grips with this problem. People have so far talked about some of the encounters they have had with the Commission, by biggest complaint with the Commission is they are not uniform in their enforcement with their own regulations. Mike said something about if you have a dock on State land you should pay a fee, I do not disagree with that at all but why do I have to pay fees on my docks that are not on State land? My wife and I returned from vacation once in 1977 to find a summons attached to our front door. I guess most of you know that we operate Dunhams Bay Lodge. This is a uniform appearance ticket written by the Department of Environmental Conservation and our charge, we had to answer the charge the maintaining within the boundaries of the Lake George Park an advertising sign without a permit from the lake George Park Commission. No exceptions apply, seven counts. Now, I do not know how many of you were around here in 1977 but I just do not think you could ever tag us with a property that had, that could possibly have seven counts of violation of the sign ordinance. But, anyway it was written and we answered this and we had to go to court, Queensbury Town Court, Mr. Champagne, John Carusone presiding. We went to this courtroom the second or third of January, you could imagine what that court room was filled with after the New Years weekend. We sat and waited our turn, when we got to the bench, John Carusone, the charge was read, John Carusone leaned over the bench and he said to me Mr. Salvador, do you understand the seriousness of these charges? I thought he was kidding? I really thought he was kidding, but we had to clean up such things as a Coke Machine out doors, because you know the lake George Park Commission sign ordinance says you are only allowed two signs if you have a certain frontage. Two advertising signs, and an advertising sign is something that is defined as a sign that advertises a product or a service, a product or a service. As a result of this summons we had to remove three decals from the front door of our business, that said American Express, Visa, Master Card, we had to take the Coke machine and put it inside because signs are signs if you can see them from the road or the lake. That is their sign ordinance. Ok. Now, we cleaned all of this up you do not see any of this around our place but our neighbors you will see ice machines outdoors you will see Coke machines out doors, you see banner signs allover we do not have any of that. We had to remove four on premises directional signs something that just on the door said cocktail lounge but you could see it from the road and that was an advertising sign. Then we had a little sign that said reception, just out in front of our, it said reception, we had to get a permit for that, two square feet, white on brown, two feet, three feet off the ground we paid five dollars for it. Ok. I do not know if others do this, I do not know how uniformly these regulations are enforced, but we had to do this, this was in 1977. Mr. Turner, in 1981 you were on the Zoning Board of Appeals when the Dunhams Bay Boat Company applied for their variance for their show room addition. The Town of Queensbury at that time did not have a sign ordinance. (tape turned) ..says signs are not allowed higher than twenty feet off grade, where is grade, I know. But, take a look at the Dunhams Bay Boat Company today there must be twenty violations. I go to the Town and I ask what about this, it says here the Lake George Park, we do not enforce the lake George Park Commission sign ordinance, go to the lake George park Commission we did not make that requirement in the variance, so that is what you see down there today. The rules and regulations what ever they are they are not uniformly enforced and that is the problem we all have. Now Mr. ... said that it is not realistic that all towns have their own regulations, that is exactly right and they are not supposed to. We have State agencies that have preempted local government in their, in writing rules and regulations and that is what we are supposed to follow. The DEC has all the regulations in the world we need for Lake George we are just not paying attention to thern. The Office of General Services has all the regulations we need. We do not pay any attention to them. Because we like our private pond controlled by our insider group. We like that. It suits our purpose. Mike White mentioned the plan for the future of the Lake George Park Mr. Champagne, our Planning Board chairman at the time participated in this blue ribbon panel. In any case in this plan and this was not a legislative produced plan this was a plan that was put together by the Lake George Association they had some help from the DEC because they ran out of money. But in this plan it stated this plan is a strategic document for a strategy plan for accomplishing specific objectives it is not a comprehensive land use plan. Nor, is it a detailed lake management or watershed management plan. But, this plan led to the Park Commission getting into waste water regulation, storm water regulations, stream corridor management, a sign ordinance, what else have we, all land uses that infringe upon the rights of our town to develop ordinances in that regard. A hot topic in the Town of Queensbury now is waste water management, and I would like to know from the Commission what their plans are for the future. You have an obligation a legislative mandate if you will to develop wastewater regulations. The first go around they were nullified don't know where we are going with the waste water management plan for the Town of Queensbury or any place else in the lake George basin but, it is a very, very important thing no one will ever convince me that you do not need a plan to collect and treatment wastewater in North Queensbury. You cannot go on this way. Our Town has been illegally granting holding tank permits, they are not allowed for year around residences. Simply not allowed by the public health code and we are granting them. And we are granting them as a result of your waste water regulations that allow this. Total disregard for the Public Health Code when you promulgated your waste water regulations. Total disregard for the DEC developed waste water treatment specifications for waste water treatment works in the Lake George Basin, total disregard for what they said. And that was part of the legislative mandate that put you in this business was that manual. You could have simply adopted it and ran, you did not have to waste all that time and money developing waste water regs. You did not have to do it. Our Town had a sanitary ordinance in place was better than the one you came up with and you allowed them to go ahead and grant these holding tank permits contrary to the Public Health Policy. This issue of land use that the Commission has gotten into is counterproductive and its, there is going to be no peace in this valley until this issue is settled and it deals with storm water and it deals with waste water, it deals with all of these things. Someone previously said you want to regulate the use of the water from the shore out if you will, fine, everyone should also know that the Lake George Park Commission as it hands out these permits, marinas, docks whatever it is, everything is coded to the tax parcel. Everything is coded to the tax parcel. We own and operate a recreation resort south of 9L the Park Commission calls that a marina we are being regulated as a marina there. The Town calls us a resort different rules apply. So, it is upsetting to us, it really is upsetting to us there was a lot of talk about needing one agency that was going to settle everything and do this we do not have that at all, we have another layer of government and it is not doing the job, it is not doing the job simply because it is a square peg in a round hole. Get off the land and you will have more success in this endeavor. That is all I have now. SUPERVISOR CHAMPAGNE-Thanks John. MR. TED -I never thought when I came here tonight that I would be in the position of having to defend the Park Commission. But, there has been some things said here that are stretching the truth. Mr. Brock particularly you talked about not having access to the road, you are referring to the back road the Nason road where you infringe on your neighbors and the Park Commission with a great deal of pressure I might add and a lot of thought and planning made you put up some foliage there which is growing up and will eventually make that livable. You have all the access in the world on the Cleverdale road and as a matter of fact many, many times when I go to my mail I have to wait for your man to pull the boats across, which is all right you have got to make a living. Then you talked the limit, the number of boats you have, they are talking about the number of boats that you can have on the property at anyone time. If you could sell enough of them you could sell a thousand, don't make this muddier than it is. Please. What they did there is the bear limit to what you should have, when you talk John Salvador about strictly the water I wish it was that simple. The land makes the water bad they have to be involved in that. I wish the hell, they were involved more. You say you do not have a marina I think there are sixty, seventy slips there I call that a manna. MR. SALVADOR-South of 9L MR. TED -South of 9L MR. SALVADOR-..Any slips... MR. TED -Well they are all tied up on the SUPERVISOR CHAMPAGNE-Folks I do not want to get into a debate here really I think, we gave you the right to speak, Ted you do ahead and do your thing. MR. TED -The point is we all got by there everyone should make their own decision on that. So, what is right is right here lets not ... these people. I would like to submit, perhaps you have all seen this, a copy of the lake George Mirror there is an article in here about the Bolton feeling, a letter, very, very good letter it might be of interest to those of you who have not read it. SUPERVISOR CHAMPAGNE-I appreciate that, I have heard about that but have not read it. Ok. Yes. MRS. KATHLEEN SALVADOR-Just a couple of things, one thing my husband forgot to mention when the Forest Ranger came with the seven violations, actually there were more than seven there were thirteen. We ask him why did you come to us, you are the biggest business on the east side and I drive by you every day. Ok. MR. SALVADOR-In Court he said that. MRS. SALVADOR-In court he said that, John mentioned the Visa, Master Card sign we had, we had three little decals on our front door, three little decals on the side, where it said cocktail lounge a directional sign we have a water sports building that we close in the fall, we .. a little Pepsi sign in that says sorry we are closed, yes we are open that was a sign. This man took the time to draw a picture of each of these signs, now you paid for him to do this, this is ridiculous. We were complimented again this evening by Mrs. Robertson just how lovely our sign is, how beautiful our property is, yes, and we are very proud of it, we have worked very hard over five or six years to make it a beautiful property. To abide by the rules, but we would like to be treated equally. If any of you took the time to look over all the marina permits this commission has written, uniformity? Each one is designed for each individual marina there is no uniformity to any of them. We have copies of all of them. This Commission is doing nothing for the lake except, extracting eight hundred thousand dollars from this Community every year. Mr. White says they are self sufficient, sure self sufficient they get the money from us, from the boaters, they are not self sufficient they do not generate one penny it all comes from the boating industry. And I think you all should be aware of that. We all love this lake it is a beautiful lake we all want to enjoy it. ... we are doing fine before this. The lake is going down everyone said, if you anything about lakes they are born to die. This lake will die, maybe a little bit after lake Luzeme will die or Saratoga Lake but it will die and nothing you are going to do will help it. It may just prolong its death but it is not going to stop it. SUPERVISOR CHAMPAGNE-Thank you. Anyone else? Yes, sir? Gil? MR. GILBERT BOEHM-I have questions? In order for the Lake George Park Commission to do a good job it seems to me that they need good data, the question I have what data are they personally collecting, codifying, analyzing etc. either for the future of the sewage system or whatever? Can you answer that? Are you collecting data and what data are you collecting? SUPERVISOR CHAMPAGNE-Mike it is entirely up to you to try to answer that fine, if not, you just don't answer it, it is up to you. MR. MIKE WHITE-We as was mentioned earlier, are charged under our legislation to have a waste water management program and I would also mention that those regulations were in existence for a few years. One thing that they called for is the regular inspection of system and we feel the crews that went around and knocked on doors and mapped systems trying to locate them in relationship to the lake and streams and whatever.. The Town of Queensbury, lake George, Bolton, very soon after the regulations were effective we entered into agreements with those communities to reduce the duplication that would create. This was a balancing again as I mentioned so that the standards of waster water in Dreden and Putnam and Essex county those areas would be equlivant to those or nearly equlivant to the other areas in the Towns such as Queensbury and Bolton, who over the years increased their. . . MR. BOEHM-... MR. WHITE-I can be long winded I know but I want to lay a little foundation for this and explain that one thing that we have done is to retain a company that regularly designs these on site systems, the LA Group. Kind of take a look at that information and to evaluate well what can be done if anything to improve these systems. They are going to prepare more or less and economic analysis what is out there in terms of technology, what can people due what will it cost. We do not really know where necessarily where that is going to lead at this point but they are going to do some kind of written report that we are then going to release to the public for comments. At the same time we received a grant from fund for lake George Inc. and we did kind of a Nationwide search of firms and retained a company called Stearns and Wheeler to conduct some specific studies on site systems and soil conditions around the lake over a two year period at least to evaluate what contribution of key nutrients especially phosphrous and nitrogen come from the soil. We are particularly interested I guess in trying to see if we can finally come to some public consensus as to what the relative contribution of waster water systems are to the over all nutrient budget of the lake. We are not really talking about systems that are full fail they are broken they are leaky then need to be found and fixed. What we are talking about is an otherwise functioning system and they are going to conduct a kind of all out review of all the information we have of look at some of these systems, measure them specifically and produce a report. It is going to take some time they are going to measure these systems over as we said a couple of years, but that is going on. We are also involved, that is in the area of wastewater, we track and count milfoil in colonies, we do an annual count of plants that are removed through our contract with ... water institute. We also have just completed an environmental impact statement for our storm water management program so those are a few areas I guess I will mention in terms of data collection. Trying to stay abreast of scientific information and promote examination of these issues. They are basically again trying to get the public involved in understanding and build some kind of consensus of what direction we should be heading. SUPERVISOR CHAMPAGNE-Thank you. MR. GILBERT BOEHM-Are you doing any subsurface analysis TO? MR. WHITE-Yes. MR. BOEHM-As part of this? MR. WHITE-Yes, that is right. MR. BOEHM-Thank you. SUPERVISOR CHAMPAGNE-Ok. Thanks, Gil. Wait, John... MR. SAL V ADOR-I am just getting warmed up. SUPERVISOR CHAMPAGNE-I know you are that is why I want to cool you off. Go ahead, Carl. MR. CARL DESANTIS-I am Carl DeSantis, presently the Chairman of the lake George Park Commission, resident of Lake George. I am not going to debate anyone here of what has been said. A number of things have been said that if you examine them a little further probably would not hold up. But, let me just say, that I moved here in 1940 I am looking at Paul Hillman, I think he was here a little bit before me, and maybe a few others, but I can tell you that when we swam off the Lake George dock, if there was a soda bottle thirty feet down you could tell, you could read the brand. This lake is going down hill, there is no question about it. Maybe it is not going down as fast as some of the people think it is or maybe it is going faster but it is going down. Our mission is to protect and preserve the lake and you have heard tonight a number of ways that we do it. I know that waste water is a problem, we had waster water regs. certain citizen groups went to court and threw them out on a technicality. I do not believe there was anything about the designs and so forth is was a technicality. The very people who have property on the lake who assets we are trying to protect, took us to court, that doesn't make sense to me. But, it happened. This time when we put them in effect they are going to be right. They will withstand the court case and I am sure there will be a court case. For what reason I do not know, it is neither here nor there. Representation I know since I have been Chairman I have had the privilege of appointing two members and I went to the Town Supervisors and asked their advice on who they would like to have on the Board and we were successful in getting thern. Now, we have had some re-appointments, one Mrs. Robertson, I did not appoint her, she represents Queensbury very well and I was instrumental in getting her reappointed. But, our role, no let me just back up a little bit. We get accused of not having enough patrol in this bay or that bay or that bay. Now, we only have six to seven boats on the lake at one time and that is a thirty two mile lake. You cannot be everywhere, not with that number, the Sheriff department has three. It still is not enough. We could probably have three or four times as many, we will be critized for stopping people for enforcing our rules. I do not know anyone who has been arrested for speeding who sent a Christmas card to the arresting officer it does not happen you get criticized. But I can assure you that with our limited resources that eight hundred thousand dollars is not a lot of money to run an organization and control try to help a lake this size. But we have dedicated people they are courteous they are well trained and we are doing a myriad of things with limited resources. We do not have taxing powers, we can not raise fees, it is impossible. We did get, there is a royalty if you will on electricity that is generated north on the lake. DEC turned that over to us a couple of years ago it sounded like a pretty good deal because we collect anywhere between seventy to one hundred and ten thousand dollars depending on the .. and so forth. After they gave us this job and said here is the money then they started to bill us for services maintenance to the boats, Lieutenant Snyder and so forth. So, it was not exactly a net for us. So, if you want to change the Park Commission the only way you are going to be able to do it is by the same body that put us in there, that is the legislature in Albany. If you would like to have elected representatives they are the ones that have to do it. We do not control that, but as long as I am on the Commission and if they keep electing me Chairman and replacements come due we will consult with local government as I have done. That is all I wanted to say. SUPERVISOR CHAMPAGNE-Thanks, Carl. Ok. Now anyone else, first go around, second go around, third go around. Go ahead John. MR. JOHN SALVADOR - Wasn't it Mr. Arnstein that mentioned this Lake George Mirror, I have copies of that article for you, I do not know how many folks have read this, it was written by Mr. DeSantis's predecessor Bill Hennessy in a letter to the Editor talking about the Lake George Park Commission and his role in the initial re-constitution of the Commission. This letter to the editor I recognize as nothing more than Republican bashing this Mr. Hennessy is a Democrat. It is significant that in this letter he does not mention the role that Bob Placke played in all of this, because Bob Placke's name isn't mentioned. But, I am glad to see that he did not mention Fran Walter name. Fran Walter our Town Supervisor at the time the Commission was re-constituted was not supportive of the concept that Mr. ..talked about. She was dead against it for the same reasons that you are hearing here tonight. She knew it was just another level of bureaucracy it was going to cost the people money. I think the thing that we all tend to over look is that Lake George is a public body of water it is a nagavitable water way of the State. It is a mode of transportation a method of transportation it is just as important to us and the public as Route 9 or the Northway. The traveling public has a right to use the waters of Lake George, obey the rules and use it. Now, what we tend to do is we have a toil gate across the road and you cannot come in and play unless you can lift the gate, you got to have the money to come in and play. This has become a private pond and its just reserved for the people that can afford it and that cannot last, that cannot last the people of this State have a right to use their assets and the DEC has been put in place by the State Legislature to protect those assets and make them available, that is who should be doing this and we have this, we have this conflict. But, anyway here are copies of that letter to the editor, I have a couple of extras, you have a copy ... But Fran Walter is not mentioned here and you should know that she. I have a copy of a letter here I would like to read that Fred Walter wrote to ... there is a connection here of this Park Commission with waste water management that was going on in the middle nineteen eighties. If you folks remember there was a first sewer project, came to town around 1978 and it was being further by the interests of the Lake George Association. Everyone was scrambling around getting the lake George law changed to accommodate this project. Bob Placke was a big player in this, he was Commissioner of the DEC at the time, Jack Mannix was writing the legislation and it took just a matter of days to get things changed, just the way it went. But anyway, they put the legislation in place that would prohibit, prohibit the construction of any new municipal waste water treatment facilities in the Lake George Basin. And just allow the two existing plants, Bolton and Lake George Village to continue to operate or be expanded. Now, what this was going to do was force the big pipe, it was going to force the big pipe to Glens Falls with twenty two pumping stations. That is the project that went down because they (tape turned.) Seqra was a new then seqra was a relatively new law people didn't really understand it I guess and they decided that well, gee, what could be the negative impact of the sewer project and so they neg. dec'd it and that went to court and so the project was struck down. Immediately after that Court of Appeals decision the EP A Commission consultant to do an environmental impact statement on this project and the results of that came out in 1984. And that environmental impact statement said in so many words that it is probably not right to sewer the whole basin because it is going to exacerbate development but there is no reason why you cannot go ahead with small individual cluster community kinds of treatment system and discharge in the basin, and they even gave us maps as to where we could do this and where some soil pockets were available. Upon the issuance of that EIS Fran Walter went to work to try to get a waste water management plan in place in this North Queensbury. I was instrumental in helping her do this, accomplish this as I was a Member of the Lake George Association. And what she did she was she was trying to get changes to the lake George law that would allow another municipal treatment plant in the basin because they were prohibited by the 1979 legislation that was passed to prohibit thern. When we wrote this, drafted this legislation our Town Board passed the resolution supporting the changes to the Lake George law and went to Warren County Board of Supervisors to be passed on to the State Legislature where it had to be enacted. Well, it ran into a little bit of trouble because Mr. Placke and Mr. Hennssey thought maybe it was not the right thing to do. You see it would let Queensbury off the hook, if we were be able to do that then we were off the hook. And how would they justify the big pipe to Glens Falls it was their life long dream the big pipe the big... commission, another commission more patronage jobs you know how it works. SUPERVISOR CHAMPAGNE-John you have got to move this along for us. MR. SALVADOR-Yes, I am trying to. It is a hell ofa story Mr. Champagne SUPERVISOR CHAMP AGNE-I spent half a day up on John's living room listening to that story back five years ago. It is a good story, but MR. SALVADOR-It is a danm good story because we are still involved in it today, we are still involved. SUPERVISOR CHAMPAGNE-We are here to discuss the Lake George Park Commission however. MR. SALVADOR -Yes, I am getting to that. SUPERVISOR CHAMPAGNE-Tonight. Lets get at it tonight. MR. SALVADOR -. . . you will see. She tried to get this legislation passed and it went to Albany and it was stopped, Mr. Hensche, had his foot on the hose Mr. Hensche and Mr. Placke are political allies. Foot on the hose it did not go any place. But, Joe Rhoda, grabed this legislation and he got it passed up in the Town of Dresdon to get the ... built, system in, he garbed it and used it up there. Joe Rhode did ok. In any case that legislation hung around and the Park Commission bill was moving along and the Warren County Board of Supervisors became the instrument that was going to get the whole thing rolling. In January of 1986 the Warren County Board of Supervisors formed a new committee and what they did was they elevated a subcommittee to full committee status. They had a subcommittee called the Lake George Water Levels Committee, was a three member committee and they met once in a while and talked about water levels, I guess. What they did was promoted that committee to full committee status and called it the Lake George Affairs Committee. That was organized as of January 1, 1986. The purpose of that committee was to get this Park Commission bill moving. They stacked that Committee with Frank Leonbruno from Bolton and Dick Bolton from Hague and Fran Walter from Queensbury, Lou Tessier, and Lloyd Demboski. Ok. And Ham Robertson was our Chairman at that time, and this was all mentioned in that editorial there. Ok. Well they worked a year and it, they did not make much progress so in 1987 the SUPERVISOR CHAMPAGNE-John you have two minutes to finish. MR. SALVADOR-Thank you. In 1987 they started to move and they were able to by late June they were able to get things in a condition where they would move it to Albany. Now, what they did in the very last week of this whole affair they joined the Park Commission bill with the changes to the Lake George law. In Chapter 617 we have the changes to the lake George law that allows for in basin discharge. They joined them in one bill. And that was the only way to get it through. And that is in there in section 10 I think it is you will see it. So, anyway in all of this Fran Walter was not in favor of the Park Commission she was very much in favor of a waste water management plan for North Queensbury. Do you remember the meetings we had in the Old Fire House on the Second Floor. MRS. LILLIAN ADAMSON-No. She and Dick Roberts wrote a letter I saw it we had a copy of it, against it. MR. SALVADOR-No, She took town, SUPERVISOR CHAMPAGNE-Folks we are not here to debate we are have him. One more minute, John. We have to move forward. MR. SALVADOR-Tom Nace, yes.ok. SUPERVISOR CHAMPAGNE-We are going to lose these people. MR. SALVADOR-Lillian, Tom Nace was working for Rist Frost at the time he was the engineer. We met on the second floor of the fire house next door and initiated the whole project. I do not have any more to say. SUPERVISOR CHAMPAGNE-Thanks Anything else? Yes, Dave. MR. DAVID KLEIN-To debate a few things that were said this evening also. I moved here because of the quality of life. I enjoy the environment here good healthy environment, great school system, we should have some more freedoms. I define the quality of life with freedom. Free from prosecution, and good economic conditions and I think the last two points the Lake George Park Commission have spoiled my quality of life. In the at least back in the early 70's New York State Health Dept. had waste water regulations that the rest of the State has to comply with. They have a hundred foot set back from a body of water. They have depending on what type of system you put in, as little as a foot ground cover. Lake George Park Commission comes in with their own regulations that require two hundred foot set back a hundred foot from a well, six, five, six feet of soil for.. . all property along the lake George Basin is rock very shallow lots. Take a look at Sandy Bay, in this picture here, here is Rockhurst in Cleverdale there is not six hundred feet across Cleverdale, there is not that much distance across Rockhurst. I doubt there is any property in those two peninsula's that would meet the Lake George Park Commission regulations they push you into a holding tank. I have..before I bought my property I had holding tanks installed on our property because we could not meet the Lake George Park Commission regulations. They are unsanitary, they are unhealthy, when the lake George Park Commission regulations got booted out of court all of a sudden my property could conform to the new, the health department regulations. So, I went one step further I bought a waste water treatment plant. I treat my waste water before it goes into the leach field. They also brag about their survey. How they get this ninety eight percent approval rating, well I responded to the survey I do not think my response has got .. the results but reading through it you could see the questions and answers were developed to get a specific response. The one thing that they do not mention, twenty eight percent of the respondents were local residents. Fifty five buoys in Sandy Bay last year there was like the low thirties? This year they put a few more in. All those buoys are way out in the middle of the lake how is a six year old that does not swim get into the shallow water? There is like four buoys that are reasonably close for kids to go swimming. That is all, thank you. SUPERVISOR CHAMP AGNE- Thanks, Dave. Anyone else? Anything from the Board I guess we have saturated the audience. Unless Mr. Salvador has something more to say. Yes, Sir, Paul. MR. PAUL HILLMAN-I am Paul Hillman from Cleverdale, New York Just up a little piece here. I have been around Lake George for quite a few years, so I think what I first ..was around 1918. Well, 1918 the water was cold as the devil then and it is still cold. I am not missing. . . I can tell you that. You have got a big problem here, before these gentlemen. It has been a problem for a long while, I happen to know a little bit about it I know certain things John has been talking about and I agree with a lot of them because we threw seventy nine million dollars into it but that is over the bank now that is only money. But what I think what we will have to do is to support Mr. DeSantis here and his group and I think some of the things that they could do, to set meetings like we are doing here with all the towns surrounding the lake and then get together with one program if you have duplicate programs just do away with them. Have one program for each town whether it is the State or County or the Park Commission so everybody knows what John is complaining about eliminate some of that. I think if you do that because you have got to have the Commission because when I came up here back even in twenty three there wasn't very many people here. You had a horse and buggy out through here then, some of you fellows know that. But, I think you are going to have to take and get your group together all over and have one body to do it and have the regulations for all the towns be the same because you have thousands of people come here. Back in twenty three and eighteen there was not that many people here you know. A lot of people do not know all the places in moving that we had here. I think if you can get together, I am not repeating myself and have a committee maybe from each one of the towns where you got duplicate regulations get rid of the whole danm thing, and then I think you could notify the people the property owners anyway with the regulations they have to live by around the lake. We have had them piece meal but I think we should have a book written up so we all know what they are. We have got, I have seen a lot of new comers since I lived here since 1950, well there are a lot of new comers, coming in all the while. On my road I was alone for years now I cannnot even back out of my garage there are so many people. A guy almost hit met the other day he was looking at the lake and I was looking at one of the girls going down to the bathing beaches, we had a problem that's all. It was a good thing my wife was not watching me that is a sure thing. She would probably said why didn't move quicker you know. But that is it, but I think that is what you ought to do you have got a big problem, people is your big problem you do not have the people you do not have the problem. I think you have got a big job. . doing it . . get out, I think everybody in here taxpayers, non taxpayers if you pay rent you pay your taxes. People say if they pay rent you do not pay taxes well they do not know what they are talking about. I think you have to get at it and get this work done so it will eliminate some of the problems you have heard here already tonight, or you are going to hear the same thing allover. Try to get it down and get it cleared up and keep at it. Myoid friend General George Patton used to say ... givem the hell boys and keep them going. So, that is what we have got to do, we have to give the hell and keep them going and get the problem solved and then I think you will never going to have everybody happy but to get the majority happy why then you will be doing a darn good job. That is all I have got to say. SUPERVISOR CHAMPAGNE-Thanks Paul. COUNCILMAN MERRILL-Paul I do not think anybody could summarize better than you do summarize. It is clearly a complex issue that we are dealing with here I think open discussion and open debate is healthy and thats what we have had a lot of tonight. I really appreciate all the inputs that we received and have made notes here and I will certainly take it to heart. I am sure Fred and the rest of the board will. We want to drive ahead, thank you Paul we will give them hell. SUPERVISOR CHAMPAGNE-One of the items I think that is critical certainly in reference to some of the comments that Paul made is this whole storm water issue. I want to compliment my good friend Dick here for doing all that he has done working diligently with the Lake George Park Commission and maybe Mike you might want to add a couple of comments relative to where we are to that and where we see ourselves going and how we can fit this all together. I got to tell you in all honesty when the Park Commission first put together the Storm Water Regs. I was not very pleased and I made that very well known that I felt again that it was coming from the elitist group, you know if you got the pocket book you can join the storm water crowd. I felt very strongly that we need to take a second look at that and we did and through Dick's efforts I really believe that we are on course of action now that is going to do precisely what Mr. Hillman related to, and that is get all of the communities together, lets buy into this program that we believe, and it is mostly an educational program based plan. I do not know Mike whether you want to just give us an update on that so that we can all understand where we are? MR. MIKE WHITE-We have been working, I guess to promote the best side of a program that encourages public education and provides for standards and is consistent across the water. These are a local progrative, we will see these programs we think in place in the towns such as Queensbury and Bolton ahead. We think lake George and Hague that had landuse programs and are active in this and we will try to balance that with similar standards throughout the water shed for communities who do not have a land use program, that because of they are remote, major or other choices do not want to get involved in that. We think these are workable, they are achievable, affordable ways to prevent some of the problems that we see now manifest in the lake from development that happened years ago. Then we need to now go back and find ways to correct as well. So, it is an important area for water fowl they have real impacts on people that live along the lake. It is very important as the basin increasing has settle the areas around there are settled that we not repeat the mistakes of the past, especially because it seems unnecessary, when through education, solid standards and coordination and cooperation we can achieve much better results. Thank you. COUNCILMAN MERRILL-Just to follow up on that there has been a very active ad hoc storm water committee made up of representatives from all the communities around the lake. Chris Round from the Town of Queensbury and I have been active on that. Our intent from the Town of Queensbury is to establish a set of best practices and to incorporate them in to our town code so it could be administrator through our Code Enforcement Officer, so that would be Chris Round. So, we are trying to retain control of that within the Town. SUPERVISOR CHAMPAGNE-Ok. Unless someone else has some finishing remarks, Yes. Dave. MR. DAVID KLEIN -Yes, the current storm water regulations if I am not mistaken had a five hundred square foot garage you would have to put catch basins and dry wells in to collect all the water coming off the roof. . five hundred feet. A small garage is going to do very little to pocket a lot of run off into the lake. Your major sources of pollution caused by runoff are from roads, the sand that goes onto the roads. State and Towns are the major source of your run off. ..why are we addressing garages? That is not a problem a significant problem. SUPERVISOR CHAMP AGNE-I think that was my point in the original regs or best practices whatever you want to call them I think that is what we are trying to modify and to better establish in terms of you know where are the major contributors for the seriousness of the problem. Is it the guy MR. KLEIN- Why... to begin with Fred? SUPERVISOR CHAMPAGNE-Well you got to get to the towns we have got to get to the villages we have got to get to the State it all trickles down and maybe, and I guess my argument back then and I do not mean to repeat myself here but you know I live just south of 149 and when I first read those storm water regs back then and this goes back a good couple of years ago I guess it was it was hard for me to believe that the guy, Fred Champagne or Dave or whom ever owns a piece of property on the north side of 149 had to follow the same regs the same standards as the same guy, another guy who is building a house right up on the shore of the lake. By the time my water got to the lake I would have to believe it would be a little more pure than what just came out of your septic tank, so if that was a problem I had with it you know they listened they heard what I had to say. We put the brakes on it the Board of Supervisors said whoa wait a minute, time out, yea we need more time to really analyze this and I think through Dick's efforts and others that have sat down put our heads together we are working that through. I think we are going to find something out there we can all live with. Yes. MR. CHARLES ADAMSON-What is the status of the storm water study you did two years ago, the last I heard I asked somebody about it, it was pretty much dead. SUPERVISOR CHAMPAGNE-Is this the one at Clev MR. ADAMSON-At Cleverdale, Assembly Point and this area, COUNCILMAN MERRILL-It is very active as a resource document and if you recall we identified ten key areas that needed remediation and MR. ADAMSON -Yea, I don't know all ten but I know the number one, one. COUNCILMAN MERRILL-Cleverdale road. MR. ADAMSON-No, I think Assembly Point Road, as I recall it. UNKNOWN-Cleverdale Road you have the money way, you are trying to get away with the fear of some of these people here, your Attorney is holding up we have the money for you the LGA, please, when can we get that work done? UNKNOWN-We will take about it Thursday, we have a grant request in. UNKNOWN-An environmental grant for the Cleverdale road... UNKNOWN-We have requested two hundred thousand ... COUNCILMAN MERRILL-It is targeted for next year. SUPERVISOR CHAMP AGNE- That is going to happen. COUNCILMAN MERRILL-It is going to happen. UNKNOWN-As Charlie said probably the worst pollutant MR. ADAMSON-Assembly Point Road. UNKNOWN-Assembly Point Road here again the .. . foundation with the LGA' s direction will make money available the State will make money this can be done if we all get together. But, please ..their Attorney don't dot the I's. The LGA has gotten from the ... around six hundred thousand dollars and we hope to get considerably more this year. I say over half of that maybe ... better over half of that has been gone to the Town of Lake George they say cooperate since ..bring this up and vote they are getting the money why isn't our Town getting the money? I will kill myself trying to get it written in. But why should Mary Arthur and the rest of the people there fight to put it before the . . and say approve it and the money is still sitting there year, after year. It does not make sense. SUPERVISOR CHAMP AGNE- There is a fifty MR. SALVADOR-Those towns have real problems with run off, going in the lake. UNKNOWN-We do too. SUPERVISOR CHAMP AGNE- Time out, this gentlemen here in the back... UNKNOWN-A couple of things ..Park Commission was thought about back in 87' and ...it is amazing to me that you know, people talk about the guy on Ridge Road the guy on Dunhams Bay about you know where you eliminated the sewer system which ninety percent federal funding for... (new tape )..five days a year and there is piles of salt on the Pilot Knob road going right in the lake. I have paid my dues. We have LGA members dumping tons of fertilizer on our lawns and right into the Lake every day and it is ok and we have tons of people that have five year old septic systems but I am a member I am one of the old guys and my system doesn't leak. My system doesn't run to lake George unfortunately four hundred feet from the lake phosphate still run to Lake George and my ..will say that. If you live in a ..lawn you eliminate soil erosion you get these people to get off their ass and build, the millionaires ..build a decent septic system. My system is four hundred feet from the lake it is a sealed system it cost me ten thousand dollars to put it in when I could barely even eat. Lets get our act together quit this character here he bores people to death the guy Ridge Road he ties up the whole court system and we are not acting on the issues. SUPERVISOR CHAMPAGNE-We are still in court unfortunately, you are right, you are absolutely right. MRS. CHARLES ADAMSON-The salt issue, the salt issue really can be resolved in the winter time because there is another salt that is less damaging it cost more.. UNKNOWN-You do not need any salt in Colorado, Wyoming, I lived in Colorado for several years, they do not salt their roads, it is nuts to salt the roads, they sand them, you slow down a little bit, you know what if you don't slow down you crash it is as simple as that. SUPERVISOR CHAMP AGNE- I guess we can say, good evening, good job, and thank you so much for being with us and I am sure we will take this under consideration. Respectfully submitted, Miss Darleen M. Dougher Town Clerk