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2002-07-22 SP SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING JULY 22, 2002 MTG#34 RES#304 7:00 P.M. B.H. 47-48 BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT SUPERVISOR DENNIS BROWER COUNCILMAN ROGER BOOR COUNCILMAN THEODORE TURNER COUNCILMAN DANIEL STEC BOARD MEMBERS ABSENT COUNCILMAN TIM BREWER Supervisor Brower-Opened meeting. TOWN OFFICIALS WATER SUPERINTENDENT, RALPH VAN DUSEN DEPUTY W ASTEW ATER DIRECTOR, MIKE SHAW COMPTROLLER, HENRY HESS EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT, CHRIS ROUND RESOLUTION ENTERING QUEENSBURY BOARD OF HEALTH RESOLUTION NO. 304, 2002 INTROUCED BY: Mr. Daniel Stec WHO MOVED FOR ITS ADOPTION SECONDED BY: Mr. Theodore Turner RESOLVED, that the Town Board of the Town of Queensbury hereby adjourns from Regular Session and enters into the Queensbury Board of Health. Duly adopted this 22nd day of July, 2002, by the following vote: Ayes: Mr. Boor, Mr. Turner, Mr. Stec, Mr. Brower Noes: None Absent:Mr. Brewer RESOLUTION SETTING PUBLIC HEARING ON SEWAGE DISPOSAL VARIANCE APPLICATION OF JOHN SALVADOR BOARD OF HEALTH RES. NO.: 47,2002 INTRODUCED BY: Mr. Theodore Turner WHO MOVED ITS ADOPTION SECONDED BY: Mr. Daniel Stec WHEREAS, the Queensbury Town Board serves as the Town's Local Board of Health and is authorized by Town Code Chapter 136 to issue variances from the Town's On-Site Sewage Disposal Ordinance, and WHEREAS, John Salvador has applied to the Local Board of Health for variances from Chapter 136 to install a wastewater disposal system four feet (4') from the property line instead of the required ten feet (10') setback and to install his well ten feet (10') from the property line instead of the required fifteen feet (15') setback on property located on Alexy Road, Queensbury, NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the Local Board of Health for the Town of Queensbury will hold a public hearing on August 5th, 2002 at 7:00 p.m. at the Queensbury Activities Center, 742 Bay Road, Queensbury, to consider John Salvador's sewage disposal variance application concerning property located on Alexy Road, Queensbury (Tax Map No.: 10-2-8) and at that time all interested persons will be heard, and BE IT FURTHER, RESOLVED, that the Local Board of Health authorizes and directs the Queensbury Town Clerk to publish the Notice of Public Hearing presented at this meeting and send a copy of the Notice to neighbors located within 500 feet ofMr. Salvador's property as required by law. Duly adopted this 22nd day of July, 2002, by the following vote: AYES Mr. Stec, Mr. Turner, Mr. Boor, Mr. Brower NOES None ABSENT: Mr. Brewer RESOLUTION ADJOURNING QUEENSBURY BOARD OF HEALTH RESOLUTION NO. BOH 48, 2002 INTRODUCED BY: Mr. Roger Boor WHO MOVED FOR ITS ADOPTION SECONDED BY: Mr. Daniel Stec RESOLVED, that the Town Board of the Town of Queensbury hereby adjourns as the Queensbury Board of Health and moves back into the Town Board of the Town of Queensbury. Duly adopted this 22nd, day of July, 2002, by the following vote: Ayes: Mr. Turner, Mr. Stec, Mr. Brower, Mr. Boor Noes: None Absent:Mr. Brewer BAY ROAD SEWER MAP, PLAN & REPORT - TOM NACE PRESENT ATTORNEY JOHN LAPPER, REPRESENTING MR. SCHERMERHORN, RICH SCHERMERHORN, DOUG AUER ATTORNEY LAPPER-Requested that the process get started with the Map, Plan, and Report that has been submitted in draft, hope to have it accepted by the Town Board at the August 5th meeting. The district is different than it was proposed the last time it includes approximately 80 acres that Mr. Schermerhorn is developing for office in the front and residential in the rear. As a result of this the location of the pump station has changed to the location on his property because is the lowest grade the natural place for the pump station to be. Have been working with Greg and the Baybridge Homeowners to accommodate their needs the system is sized to accommodate the Valente property as well as the excess capacity that the Town is looking for to go up Bay Road in the future. MR. NACE-The district as it is proposed includes the front half or west portion of the 80 acres that Rich Schermerhorn has between Bay and Meadowbrook Roads. Divided the property based on where the present subdivision ends with the property the business office park subdivision that was approved. Also it coincides with a natural drainage divide where the east half of that property drains towards Meadowbrook Road and would eventually be served through the Hiland Park Sewer District pump station. The district as it is proposed is outlined on Exhibit A, it includes Schermerhorn's Subdivision the western half of it. It includes also Rich's Townhouse Apartments up on Walker Lane. It includes the existing Baybridge Homeowner's Association property and it includes three parcels that are presently vacant owned by Valente two of which have an office park and subdivision being proposed on them now. Also at the request of the homeowners includes lower property down on Bay Road at the high point of Bay Road across fom the old Lupo Boat Service Area. It includes the property in front of the Dance Center on Bay Road. At the request of the Town Sewer Department it includes two properties which are presently served as contract users one of them is Bay Meadows Golf Course Club House the other is the Dance Center. Our service contract users this would bring them into the district presently connect both of those to the sewer. In designing the facilities to serve those same map and scale there is an existing gravity sewer down in front of the Dance Center on Bay Road that we would tie into would run by gravity sewer up to the high point in front of the Moeller house. From there a force main would connect from a pump station which is in the low point of the drainage basin for this whole area down along Old Maids Brook within Rich's subdivision that is proposed as a five inch force main. The pump station would be connected to a gravity sewer which is currently proposed running along Walker Lane from approximately the high poit on Walker Lane out crossing Bay Road going through Rich's subdivision down along the stream and to the pump station. The design of those facilities has been optimized to do two things. One is obviously to serve the properties currently included in this Proposed Sewer District Extension 7. The other is to provide future capacity for the rest of the Bay Road Corridor. This is roughly sized so that the remainder of the Bay Road Corridor all the way up to Cedar Court including the Town Offices, including the Hunter Brook area, including the approved subdivision over in the other corner all the way down through Bay Road could be served through that facility. The only limiting factor is an existing section of eight-inch sewer on Cronin Road, which limits us to approximately a hundred and twenty thousand gallons a day total capacity. As a comparison the proposed properties to be included in the district at full build out that's with a fairly conservative estimates of what full build out would be is about sixy thousands a day. This would allow a doubling of the proposed flows from Extension 7 to eventually be connected to the system. If the one short section of eight-inch gravity was ever increased it could even go a little beyond that. Included in the report all of the typical things required by State Law in forming a special service district. There is a legal description of the boundaries there is an estimated cost of construction of the sewer force main pump station and a description of flows be connected and the users cost associated with connecting to the system and with the operation and maintenance of the entire Central Queensbury Sewer District. UNKNOWN-What is the budgeted cost? MR. NACE-Approximately $380,000 that includes construction costs of approximately $255,000 a contingency because we're still at the planning stage. Contingency of approximately $40,000, Engineering and legal fees of approximately $26,000, and buy-in of the capacity that the Town has already purchased from the City of Glens Falls which is about $64,000. That number will depend on the participants in the district how much flow they want to purchase for the future build out. COUNCILMAN BOOR-Is the buy-in fee going to remain consistent as people come on to this? Mr. NACE-The Town may have already made a determination that it should be a fixed rate for what they have already purchased. If they end up in the future having to purchase more from the City or if they see the costs increasing for that that's a Town Board determination. COMPTROLLER, MR. HESS-Received copy late today haven't had a chance to review numbers compared against costs we were dealing with under a previous agreement with another party noting it is a step that they need to take. Probably within the next several days will be able to put something together and distribute it to the board. At this point there is no way that he can assess the value to the Town or to the district users themselves. MR. NACE-Noted when they are trying to compare, that you are comparing two different systems. The previous system did not include service or any of the Baybrook professional park property or Walker Lane Townhouses also doesn't think you'll find the actual buy-in to the City cost that was handled outside the budget as a separate number. SUPERVISOR BROWER-Questioned what kind of construction window are they anticipating? MR. NACE-Like to be in the ground ready to turn the switch on the pump station sometime late next spring the goal is to start construction the middle off all given the time frame required for DEC approvals etc. thinks its doable. ATTORNEY LAPPER-Noted that Mr. Schermerhorn is about to start a thirty four thousand square foot medical office building that has already been approved by the Planning Board that he wants to open up in the Spring which will be serviced by this. COUNCILMAN BOOR-Questioned the contingency on the office building? MR. NACE-The contingency is that the Town Board accepts this, this is the way the resolution reads. MR. SCHMERHORN-Noted he would like to get this done as soon as possible for everyone involved. SUPERVISOR BROWER-Thanked everyone for coming. RETIREMENT INCENTIVE PROGRAM - HENRY HESS COMPTROLLER HESS-Made a presentation for this part of the meeting because we have to do two things. One is to inform the board and the members of the public that are interested in hearing what's available then we need to talk about specifics noting it would be Executive Session material because we're talking about individual employees and how you might deal with that. The State adopted two retirement systems incentives this year. One we refer to as Part B, twenty-five, fifty-five this was an incentive that the State CSEA lobbied for it was included in the budget this year and passed by the Legislature. Even though it was lobbied by the CSEA it is available to any employee that's eligible State and Municipality the Town Board does not have to make a determination. If the employee elects it and are eligible for it a very minor cost to the Town if somebody does elect it. Any employee who has twenty-five years of service and is age fifty-five can retire at full benefit without penalty for pre sixty-two. Wehave several employees in the Town that are eligible for that they have been notified by the State some of them are considering it I don't know what they are doing we don't have to take action on that. This was lobbied for by CSEA because typically the retirement incentives that the State passes are really applicable to CSEA and Union members its because of the salary schedules most of them around the State are very much like the Town where we have a salary or an hourly wage per job whether you just came on the job or whether you've been in it for years that's what you make. There is a deferential for longevity, but the maximum longevity difference is like eighteen hundred dollars. So if you retire somebody with twenty-five years of service and hire somebody green off the street you are going to save eighteen hundred dollars in salary cost. You are going to offset that by the fact that when somebody retires you are paying his or her health insurance and you are paying health insurance for somebody new. ES does have a significant surcharge for those people it depends on what tier that are in because that type of retirement incentive which the State has been offering for a number of years now generally is not applicable to union membership it is usually applicable to...union salary schedule and management employees that they lobbied for the twenty-five, fifty-five. Prepared an analysis noting it is confidential will distribute when they go into Executive Session. Prepared an analysis that shows what the cost would be to the Town if you were to offer it to CSEA and they all took it. Whether one takes it or whether they all take it the cost is significant. It makes it prohibited because one of the things although in prior years the State has put a caveat in the retirement incentive that says you really need to save fifty percent of the salary of the retiring person over a five year period. This year they said you don't have to meet that standard but you have to be able to demonstrate that you are saving mony. In our blue collar and CSEA positions means you would have to restructure you would have to combine jobs have to down size them hasn't seen a plan on the table that says we're ready to do that. There are some part -timers that could be eligible but by the nature of their employment and the fact that there wage and we can control their hours they are not permanent part -timers you don't have to hire them for any specific hours you can down size without offering a retirement incentive so that sort of dilutes the effect of that. The group that it really becomes effective for is the full time non-union employees noting what he's done on the schedule is detailed each of those employees what their salaries are, what it would cost you, what the benefit would be for offering each of those in all cases it is a cost unless there is a restructuring of a position. Not in a position to offer restructuring for other departments we did offer one for the Controller Department that would work very well save the Town som money. There are other restructuring's have had various discussions with people about that we can talk about a little later that you mayor may not wish to entertain. Thinks the Town has done a lot of growing has added to staff and its individual departments. Thinks they are ready to do some looking at the way we provide internal services and do some restructuring to become more efficient would like to talk to the Town on how this would fit in with this retirement incentive noting doesn't think it's a great opportunity this year to do that whether you would like to do that for one reason or another is another thing aside from talking about individual positions and individual staff members that about the extent of the report. SUPERVISOR BROWER-Can the Town Board target specific union positions? COMPTROLLER HESS-The law says you can, thinks Counsel will tell you it's subject to negotiations. If you offer it to a CSEA member when you spend money on CSEA the CSEA has to get involved in negotiations. Thinks the easy way is you either offer it to all or offer it to none unless you want to go into the bargaining table. You wouldn't get to resolution you would have to pass a law by September 2nd; the State will acknowledge that this incentive isn't really designed for that type of staff members it's designed for the professional staff. The twenty-five, fifty-five is a one-year window there is no certainty that it will come back year-to-year. COUNCILMAN STEC-How many would be eligible? COMPTROLLER HESS-There was a list of thirty-six, four of which are electives, electives are not eligible by definitions we can take them offleaves thirty-two, seventeen of those are CSEA members leaves fifteen, two of those are part -timers brings you down to thirteen. SUPERVISOR BROWER-Noted will go into Executive Session to discuss personnel. DISCUSSIONS HELD WATER SUPERINTENDENT, MR. VAN DUSEN-Updated the Board on Shore Colony. Noted he received several phone calls from people that were inappropriately using water. Spoke to one person and got names of two others of people that would be interested in performing daily inspections for us there at a substantial cost of what it is costing us right now. Noted one of them is a retired engineer retired from DEC noting he is very much interested in being very actively involved in the daily inspections. Noted you would not put him on as an hourly employee we would develop a very simple contract. Councilman Boor- he would have to be bonded or insured even as sub-contractor wouldn't he? Comptroller Hess-noted they really didn't talk about the insurance requirement. Chances are that could happen you would have to bill it into your cost. Councilman Boor-could that be something we just pay for as part of the contract? Comptroller Hess-you would add it in. Water Superintendent, Mr. Van Dusen- talked to him in general thoght I would run the concept by the board decide if the board was in favor or against, Town Board in favor. Talked to Henry today just from an informal consensus the board supports in general the concept will work together with Henry to work out something we think is appropriate to bring back to the board for their approval. Mr. Van Dusen recommended going there one day on a weekday have him go the other six days. When he is there he would call the reading in as long as they looked reasonable and everything seemed fine then its an indication that he really was there. When they go there the one-day a week you will see a chart of everything that he called in. Noted he is optimistic that they can reduce the labor cost to a point that it will be very close to what we were paying before for the three day inspection Comptroller Mr. Hess, to contact insurance company. Mr. Van Dusen spoke to the board noting forty years ago there was a PCB spill in the section of the river upstream from the Water Treatment Plant The property is owned by Niagara Mohawk they lowered the river as far as they could they cleaned up everything from the water to the road it was completely removed. A remedial action plan was approved by DEC, which involved a bunch offish sampling looking for PCB's in the fish and soils samples in that area to see if things were moving. Earlier this year over a hundred samples were selected significantly downstream in the project area, but also all the way down to the dam and also some upstream. What has happened since the first round of samples have gone the technology has evolved to the point where instead of measuring things in the parts per million range we're in the parts per trillion. They have found levels of PCB's in the soil upstream in the parts per trillion. They have found PCB's in the downstream area near the dam in very low levels. Niagara Mohawk will go out of their way to say they don't feel it's migrated they just feel it's technology that's being able to find it. On the 13th ofthi month there is a group called the Citizens Action Committee it's a group developed by Niagara Mohawk and is made up of people in the region it's been active since the spill was first noticed they will be meeting to receive the data they will basically be getting the version from Niagara Mohawk as to what has happened. Included in that group are representatives from the Health Department, representative from DEC, and ultimately it's DEC that has the authority to say this is what you are going to do. DEC won't act until the Health Department gives their input. They have been monitoring all along for PCB's in the water in the finish drinking water and also in the raw water. Have never found any PCB's in the water itself nor has Niagara Mohawk. We made the determination about six months ago that we wanted to increase the frequency the State says you have to do this every eighteen months we weren't comfortable with that because of the concern and the fact we're supplying more municipalities so we have increaed the frequency to once per quarter on the raw water everything has been zero. The Health Department has indicated they would like us to increase the frequency from once every eighteen months to once every quarter, which we have already done. The Health Department has indicated if we do get a hit in the raw water at any level it will probably be attached to a piece of soil. The technology that is used in our treatment plant will remove that particle. They are concerned but mildly concerned at this point. The big concern all along is if you dredged this you are going to rile this up no matter how careful you are and you are going to drastically increase the chances of finding these PCB's. Councilman Boor-do we have any control of dredging above us? Mr. Van Dusen, we have input into the CAC the last time when the remedial action plan was developed the Town of Queensbury had the single largest input at that point Queensbury was comfortable to leave it there to monitored it make sure its not coming in andthat's exactly what happened. Thinks the same thing will happen again doesn't know what the conclusion will be as to whether we think it should stay or be cleaned out. It will be a relatively lengthily process maybe six months maybe even a year of meeting and going through that. The meetings are opened to the public we have notified the Mayor of Hudson Falls the Supervisor from the Town of Moreau. Councilman Boor-is there an acceptable level of PCB's in drinking water? Mr. Van Dusen-ifyou were doing a cleanup right now if they were to start dredging the levels that you see around anywhere near a half a mile of our intake would not be cleaned up they would stay right there even if they dredged they wouldn't clean that up. A preliminary meeting has been set up with DEC the Health Department, Niagara Mohawk and himself to go over the facts develop a game plan prior to this meeting. Niagara Mohawk has agreed to pay for all the testing of the water for PCB's we're opting to increase from four per year to ix per year. We will test the raw water, treated water, and will test the sludge. Mr. Van Dusen noted the fish studies that have been taken are indicating they are getting cleaner. The people that were there from the Health Department are very comfortable with our treatment plants ability to remove the PCB's if it happens. When they did the cleanup before there was an arrangement made that Niagara Mohawk paid for some additional activated carbon fee just as a measure if something happened. At this point is not in favor of it but the option is to feed power carbon off everyday its over kill a tremendous expense, but that's an option we may have to look at. EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, MR. ROUND-Spoke to the board regarding the Empire Opportunity Fund noting he informed the board about this two weeks ago it's a hundred million dollars of State funding being made available attended an informational session last Wednesday noting it is a very competitive program. The inside word is that many of the projects have already been pre-selected. Three or four projects came to mind for funding one of them was Route 9 Sewers, South Queensbury Sewer District, Main Street underground utilities or Main Street connector. It has to tied to job creation noting South Queensbury looks like a very strong application do to Angio Dynamics, the Empire Zone, commitment of other State and Federal Funds. Learned last week that State Agencies are eligible for this funding this funding noted there is a $250.00 fee there is an August 12th deadline. Spoke to the board about Main Street noting it is not a strong application but it is a strategic application. Noted he would need a resolution from te board on August 5th to go along with the application. RESOLUTION ENTERING EXECUTIVE SESSION RESOLUTION NO. 305, 2002 INTRODUCED BY: Mr. Daniel Stec WHO MOVED FOR ITS ADOPTION SECONDED BY: Mr. Theodore Turner RESOLVED, that the Town Board of the Town of Queensbury hereby adjourns from Regular Session and enters into Executive Session. Duly adopted this 22nd day of July, 2002, by the following vote: Ayes: Mr. Boor, Mr. Turner, Mr. Stec, Mr. Brower Noes: None Absent:Mr. Brewer RESOLUTION ADJOURNING EXECUTIVE SESSION AND SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING RESOLUTION NO. 306, 2002 INTRODUCED BY: Mr. Daniel Stec WHO MOVED FOR ITS ADOPTION SECONDED BY: Mr. Roger Boor RESOLVED, that the Town Board of the Town of Queensbury hereby adjourns from Executive Session and moves back into Regular Session, and BE IT FURTHER, RESOLVED, that the Town Board of the Town of Queensbury hereby adjourns its Special Town Board Meeting. Duly adopted this 22nd, day of July 2002, by the following vote: Ayes: Mr. Turner, Mr. Stec, Mr. Brower, Mr. Boor Noes: None Absent:Mr. Brewer No further action taken. On motion, the meeting was adjourned. Respectfully Submitted, Darleen M. Dougher Town Clerk Town of Queensbury