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2000-08-29 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 8/29/00) QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MEETING SPECIAL MEETING AUGUST 29, 2000 7:00 P.M. MEMBERS PRESENT CRAIG MAC EWAN, CHAIRMAN CATHERINE LA BOMBARD, SECRETARY ROBERT VOLLARO ANTHONY METIVIER CHRIS HUNSINGER JOHN STROUGH LARRY RINGER EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR-CHRIS ROUND SENIOR PLANNER-MARILYN RYBA PLANNER-LAURA MOORE TOWN COUNSEL-MILLER, MANNIX & PRATT-MARK SCHACHNER STENOGRAPHER-MARIA GAGLIARDI PUBLIC HEARING ON THE GREAT ESCAPE DGEIS MR. MAC EWAN-On behalf of the Town’s Planning Board, thank you, everyone, for attending tonight. We’ve got an excellent crowd here. This is your opportunity to speak regarding the Great Escape’s Environmental Impact Statement. Before we begin, we’re going to allow the applicant to make a brief 10 minute presentation, and before we do that, Chris wants a couple of words with you on how we’re going to format things tonight, then we’ll get right into it. Chris? MR. ROUND-Can everybody hear the Chairman okay? My name’s Chris Round. I’m the Director of Community Development for the Town of Queensbury. We have Mark Schachner as Town Counsel, and Stu Messinger is from Chazen Companies, the consultant hired to review the EIS for the Town. Tonight’s meeting is to receive public comment. It is not a dialogue. It’s not a question and answer period between the applicant and the public. It’s your opportunity to provide comment on the Environmental Impact Statement. The Impact Statement was accepted as complete at the beginning of the month. Public notices were filed, as required in the Environmental Notice Bulletin. Legal notices were placed in the Post Star. You’ve seen advertisements in our local media. The applicant will, we will keep a written record of all public comments received tonight. You can also provide written comments. They will weigh equally, as well as oral comments. Those comments will be summarized and will be included in the proposed FEIS, the Final Environmental Impact Statement. The applicant will prepare responses to those comments. The Town Planning Board, as Lead Agency, will make judgements about those responses, and will either ask for revisions, provide our judgement. It’s the Town’s Environmental Impact Statement. So it has to be to the Town’s satisfaction, in this case the Planning Board. I don’t know if there’s anything else. The close of public comment is September 12. I believe that’s a Tuesday. You can receive written comments th right up until the end of business, 4:30 on that day, and I think I will turn it back over to the Planning Board Chairman. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. MR. ROUND-I did forget one item. There is no smoking in the auditorium. There are emergency exits at the rear and the front of the auditorium, and if you have any other questions about the process right now, we’d answer those questions about the process, and then we’ll let the applicant make his presentation. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Thank you, Chris. Our procedure tonight, we’re going to let the applicant make a 10 minute presentation. Then we’re going to open up the floor, and calling individuals who wish to address the Planning Board, that we did on a first come, first serve basis. We’ll call you by number. We’ll ask you to please use this podium over here. We’ll also ask you to please speak clearly and directly, because we’re recording it in two different forms, and if you have written presentation that you want to make part of your presentation, we ask you to leave it with Staff before you leave here tonight. With that, we’ll get underway. JOHN COLLINS 1 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 8/29/00) MR. COLLINS-Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good evening, everybody, Planning Board members, interested members of the community, my name’s John Collins. I’m the Vice President and General Manager here at The Great Escape, and I’m going to talk to you a little bit about our project, and then our Draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement. As you, the Planning Board, requested, I’ll try to keep this short, but I also want to go through as much as I can, so that people understand what went into the project, as well as what went into the EIS. What The Great Escape is proposing is the expansion of visitor support facilities, including a pedestrian bridge over Route 9, new parking lots, with an integrated ring road, a 200 room hotel, just north of our existing Coach House Restaurant, which the restaurant will remain. We’re proposing to replace our existing septic systems with a new, state of the art, tertiary, wastewater treatment plant. Now we’re doing this, even in spite of the fact that we’ve spent over a quarter million dollars the past several years in upgrading those systems, including a brand new wastewater septic system, if you will, at the Coach House Restaurant, which was just completed this year. We’re also going to upgrade the electrical systems within the Park, so that we will have the electrical capacity, so the Park can grow, and then we’re going to set some guidelines, hopefully guidelines that we can all agree to, where we can add and change attractions, so the Park can grow. Attractions are the life blood of a theme park. We’re in an entertainment venue that always is striving to add something new for its guests. People don’t go to watch the same movie over and over. You do have your hard core movie watcher that might watch the same movie over and over again. The same with theme park goers, but you need to have something new, and that’s what we’re trying to do with our Generic Impact Statement, is set thresholds where we can get ride approvals and attraction approvals, and address the major impacts ahead of time. The overall purpose of the project is obviously to grow attendance at the Park, while reducing or mitigating any environmental impacts, whether they be from present levels or from anticipated levels. I’m going to show a quick slide here of the pedestrian bridge. This is actually the bike bridge that goes across Quaker Road. It’s a very standard type of bridge. This is located, or will be located, we will locate a pedestrian bridge, and/or underpass, we’re still looking at the engineering of both, at our southernmost crosswalk. You’re going to find that a pedestrian bridge or underpass will do more to alleviate traffic than the ring road that we’re proposing. The next picture we’re going to show is the proposed ring road and parking lot layout. There’s colored photos of this out in the lobby area. If you didn’t get a chance to see it, this has got a little more detail, but I’ve got a laser pointer here. This is Martha’s, right there. This is the Samoset, over there, and we’re proposing to keep the Coach House, to keep Martha’s, to add the hotel approximately right there, and then create a parking lot with a ring road, so that we can get people off the roads, and thus alleviate traffic congestion. The purpose of our Draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement is both the Planning Board and The Great Escape realize that our ultimate goal is not simply to build parking lots and other support facilities, but to grow our business, and thus the number of visitors to the Park. That is why we have reviewed the cumulative and indirect impacts that our growth has on the environment. We have taken the hard look that SEQRA requires, when we drafted the Draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement that is before you tonight. To understand what we’ve done in preparing this EIS, it would be very helpful to get familiar with the areas that we’re talking about in the study. We’re talking about three distinct areas. One area that we’re calling Park Area C, which is the green area. Now that area is all the property that’s on the west side of Route 9, up to I- 87. The Samoset would be at the north end of that picture, and where that picture, and where that project area, the red thing with the arrow, that would be the zoo property, the former Lake George Zoo property that we have now as well. Park Area B, which is land we owned, but it undevelopable, it’s the, Rush Pond I believe is the name of it, wetlands area, we just want to show you that we have that land over there, and then Park Area A is where the existing Park is, and where all attractions will be added, or, you know, replacement of attractions will occur. Now the majority of that is wetlands, or the Glen Lake Fen, so that I think it’s roughly 257 acres. We have approximately 100 acres that we will use and have been developing for the Park. Okay. Some of the potential impacts that we’ve studied, or we’ve tried to do to the best of our ability, is to assess all the direct and indirect and cumulative impacts of the Park expansion on things such as surface and groundwater quality, visual impacts, traffic, audible noise, archeological and historical resources, terrestrial and aquatic ecology, stormwater management, land use and zoning, public service, and then economic and physical impacts. We’ve put a lot of people to work on this job. We had a public meeting in June of last year, where people were concerned about what we were doing with the land we just bought. Well, we’re coming to you today saying we’re doing exactly what that land, what we said we were. We’re going to put parking in there. We are proposing a potential hotel in that location, but there’s a lot of people that have worked very hard on this, ever since that meeting, and I’d like to introduce who’s worked on this project. The LA Group has been the primary consultant, impact consultant, and we have Jeff Anthony and Dean Long, from the LA Group. Now these people were answering questions, and will answer questions, if you have any of them, either after or down the road. From Creighton Manning we have Shelley Johnston. Shelley did our traffic study. From Hartkin Archeological Consultants, we have Karen Hartkin, Matt Kirk, and Walter Wheeler. They did all of our archeological work. We’ve got Dick Linebach, who studied our electrical needs, and proposed the mitigation factors and the additions to that. From Delaware Engineering, we have Bill Bright, who worked on the wastewater issue, and also proposed the treatments building. We have Scott Manchester from ENSR, who worked on our sound and audible, the noise issue, and it’s Mark Connic from Ryan and Biggs. His firm designed the pedestrian bridge and worked on that. We also 2 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 8/29/00) have our legal representation, which is John Lemery and Jack Lebowitz, who have coordinated the whole effort. These people put a lot of hard work into this project. It’s been a year long project. I think if you, and you have to read the document. There’s a lot of information, a lot of technical data that if you’ve got any questions, we’ll be here to help answer those. Have I got a couple of quick minutes? MRS. LA BOMBARD-You have one minute. MR. COLLINS-Okay. I can’t go through all the mitigation factors that are in the document, but a couple of things that I really want to quickly point out is we have heard the concerns. We’ve worked very hard on addressing issues that have come up. Our Sound Study’s going to reveal that attendance doesn’t have anything to do with noise. We’ve isolated the noise to one specific attraction, which I believe we all know about, which is the Bobsled. We’ve spent over $100,000 to try to mitigate that this year, and it’s an ongoing process. We thought we had it with softer wheels, in combination with the foam we put on, but operationally, we could not allow it to run. It’s just, it changed it too much. So we had to go back to the drawing board. So that’s an issue that we’re going to work on, but I hope it shows that we didn’t have to do this, but we heard what was being said, obviously, and we’re trying to do the things to mitigate either existing problems or potential problems, but we’re going to run through some of the benefits of the Park expansion. We have over $5.2 million in payroll, and we look to double that by 2004. We have approximately 1400 seasonal employees, and we expect that to almost double as well. Is that it? MR. MAC EWAN-Yes. MR. COLLINS-Okay. Please read that Section. It’s very important, and thank you for your time. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you, Mr. Collins. Okay. We’ll start calling your names, as you signed in tonight. We’d ask you, when you come up to the podium, please identify yourself for the record, and give us your address, if you would, and I’ll turn it right over to Mrs. LaBombard. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Okay. Don Sipp from Courthouse Drive in Lake George. MR. MAC EWAN-Maybe what we can do, to help move things along, is what we’ll do is we’ll call three people at a time, and then you can come up here and have a seat right up here in front, so you can stand right up. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Roger Boor is next, and third is Joanne Bramley. DON SIPP MR. SIPP-Good evening. Before I start, I want to get everybody on the same page, because I am doing a survey of the Sound Study for this EIS. Sound is measured by decibels, and a decibel scale is not linear, but logarithmic. So that a small increase in decibels makes a big change in the amount of sound. To give you some idea of what decibels are, a whisper is 20 decibels. A normal living room is 40. A vacuum cleaner, though, is 80. A semi-tractor trailer at 10 feet is 100, and a chain saw may be as high as 110. So that sound increases rather dramatically, as the number of decibels increase, but the ear does not perceive loudness in this way, and therefore, a three percent increase in a decibel, in decibel sounds, is only barely perceptible, even though it is a doubling of the amount of sound, but at five decibels, you get quite a noticeable difference. At 10, it is a dramatic difference, and the ear perceives it, and this is the important part, the ear perceives this as twice as loud. For tonight’s presentation, I’d like to call this the 5-10 Rule. Five decibels is quite noticeable. Ten is a dramatic increase in the amount of sound. To begin with, let me start with the method of sampling. Samples were taken in four places, three of them which were done in 1990, and another one was added this year, which would be on the west side of Route 9. The three that were taken in 1990 were at Glen Lake, Courthouse Estates, and Twicwood. The problem is the Glen Lake sampling was taken behind a hill, and admittedly, in this EIS, it says that the sound is mitigated by this reading being taken behind the hill. The others are in a line of sight, that is if there were no trees in the way, you could see the source of the sound, but at Glen Lake you can see it. Why were not these sounds at Glen Lake taken in a line of sight, much as they were at Twicwood and Courthouse? You all have received, or picked up on the way in, I think, a little fact sheet. I call your attention to the Noise section, which says no significant impact in audible noise. If we go back to the 1990 studies and compare them with 1999, we find that there is a difference in Courthouse of 8.2 decibels, in Twicwood, 5.7. Remember the 5-10 Rule, five being a noticeable increase, ten being a dramatic increase. There are readings in here which are taken to show that the ambient noise level is not that much different, and if you take some on the August 29 reading, we find that there is no footnote to th show that although the Park is open, the Bobsled is not operating. Therefore, these numbers are less. On the same chart, we find a reading which is supposed to be what is the level of noise when the Park is closed, on November 12, and which it gives a reading of 55 decibels, where the actual th reading from the field data is now at 41 decibels, a little different, a significant difference, shall we 3 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 8/29/00) say, 12.5 decibels. Remember the 5/10 Rule. Twelve decibels is a lot of difference. If you go through the document, you will find a study done by PMK, a noise specialist, in order to determine the effect of the Bobsled. In the summary of this report from PMK, it says that because of the Bobsled, Courthouse suffers a 9.1 decibel increase over the background noise. Twicwood suffers a 12.2 above the background noise. Again, apply the 5/10 Rule, five being noticeable, ten being dramatic. Here we are talking nine and twelve increase, due to the Bobsled. Mitigation measures. Obviously, as Mr. Collins says, they didn’t work. So we are still suffering with this noise. On this fact sheet, we find that they say that all of the residential neighborhoods are within Federal Guidelines. Up there, they had them in quotation marks. In here, they do not. There are no Federal Guidelines. There is no Federal regulatory system for noise, and yet they choose to use this. Well, if they choose to use Federal Guidelines, let’s get a more recent one than the 1980 one that they’re using, and this comes from the Code of Federal Regulations, Title 24, Volume I, Part’s 0-188, Section 51, 103 says “Exterior Noise Levels, it is HUD’s goal that the exterior noise level should not exceed a day/night average of 55 decibels.” It goes on to say, “Interior Noise Levels, HUD has a goal that interior auditory environment shall not exceed a day/night average of 45”, but again, none of these are regulatory agencies. They are just as they are, in quotation marks, guidelines. The conclusions reached by the EIS, on Page 3-44, while occasionally detectable from the two neighborhoods, there is no difference in the noise level. Then why all the telephone calls to The Great Escape complaining about the noise? Noise is not related to the attendance. It may not be related to the attendance, but it’s been related to the additional rides needed to use this additional attendance. Conclusion Number Three, the ambient noise levels have not changed. Again, we were not told that on October 29, th when they were measuring ambient noise levels, that the Bobsled was not running. In a letter from ENSR, on 10/14/99, regarding the sound measurements taken, it states that Courthouse, the roller coaster sound was six to eleven decibels above the existing sound levels, and Twicwood was four. Again, apply the 5/10 Rule, six to eleven decibels above the background noise caused by the Bobsled. On October 6, there’s a table showing that on October 6 they determined the day/night thth noise levels. October 6 was a Thursday. Was the Park open and running on that date? They plan th on removing 11.4 acres of trees, and 5.5 acres of lawn. Will this additional 16.9 acres of blacktop keep the sound from the Northway at the present levels? Have sound barriers ever been considered, if they will not put back the trees that they are removing? Removal of the hillside from the Samoset to the Coach House Restaurant. There is untold cubic yards of spoil which will be removed and be replaced by parking lots and ring road. Is there data or is there a computer model which will show that there will be no increase in sound from the Northway in the Twicwood and Courthouse Estates neighborhoods? There is removal of vegetation from Animal Land, and Martha’s Motel. Some 40 to 60 foot trees will be removed. Is there data to show that there is no increase in sound from the Northway in the Twicwood neighborhood? They will say that trees do not effectively block sound. On top of that knoll, that esker, where the Samoset sits, and from there on down to the Coach House Restaurant, there are 40 to 60 foot trees, besides the amount of fill that is to be removed. This EIS is about environmental issues. It’s not about economics. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Excuse me. Your 10 minutes is up. MR. SIPP-Therefore, I submit that the economic issues should be brought into this, and I believe that anybody who can say that the environmental issues in this thing are, will have no impact, is a laughable statement. Even the Post Star lampooned it with their editorial cartoon. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Thank you, Mr. Sipp. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Thank you very much. MR. MAC EWAN-Mr. Boor, what we think we’ll do, so that the speakers are aware of what’s going on, when we get to the one minute mark, we’ll let you know you’ve got a minute left, okay? ROGER BOOR MR. BOOR-Great. My name is Roger Boor, for those of you that don’t know. Although voluminous and raw data, this study, for the most part, relies on unstudied, unsubstantiated assertions, and the grossest of omissions. It is more an attempt to deceive than to enlighten, and many of the conclusions have little to do with the reality of what is being proposed, or the effects on the local public. The Great Escape, formerly Story Town, serves as a prime example of how recreational habits and their subsequent impacts can change over time. The theme park Story Town did not have the degree of negative impacts to the community that the current ride park now has. The Queensbury Planning Board experienced, and I hope learned a valuable lesson, when it innocently omitted or failed to secure a limit on the extended hours at the Park. Extending the hours of operation should be a notice to all of you that, in fact, the facility known as The Great Escape may, in the future, change, again, as a result of changing recreational trends, to something other than just a ride park or a giant ride park. Let’s be sure not to overlook all the uses of this property with its current zoning, realizing that say large festivals, concerts, or other uses may eventually become popular. In this study, the applicant states that patrons leave over a long period of time, so there will 4 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 8/29/00) be no negative impacts created by exiting vehicles, yet they are seeking festival parking. Did the traffic study look at festival situations or events where all patrons exit at once? The answer is, no. This one assumption alone, the assumption that exiting patrons will always leave the Park over a long period of time, deserves very serious scrutiny by this Board. What will occur when 30,000 patrons at The Great Escape experience one of our afternoon thunderstorms or prolonged downpours that starts, say, mid afternoon? Volume II of the Study, Traffic Impact, Page 6, during approximately 230 days of the year, The Great Escape generates essentially no traffic, and during approximately 250 days of the year, The Great Escape is closed during the AM Peak Hour. Concentrating the 1.5 million visiting patrons into 136 days is hardly a comfort to me or anyone else that has to travel by or near the Park during peak season. Page Seven of the Study, the last bullet states, approximately 80% of the peak hour traffic entering The Great Escape parking lots approach from the north, and approximately 20% approach from the south. The ambiguities of this statement are obvious. The 80% entering the Park from the north, what percentage is, in fact, coming from the south, exiting I- 87 at Exit 20, and backtracking to the Park? Current stacking problems on northbound 87 would seem to verify that perhaps points south are, in fact, a larger source of trip generation. Traffic counts for cars, exiting from the north onto the bridge, and cars using the bridge to go south on I-87 are conspicuously absent from all the traffic counts shown in Figures 3.1 through 3.30. They are, instead, left in Appendix A of this manifest, and disjoined from where their interpretation might be more meaningful and enlightening. The cornerstone of this traffic study is that you not look at the bridge traffic, and the opposing left hand turns that must be made across traffic to access or exit I- 87. This cornerstone, the two lane bridge, fails, by the sheer weight of even the most cursory of glances. In this study, and in reality, the Gurney Lane bridge and its intersection with Route 9 is but a house of cards. As you read this document, you will see that the name Gurney Lane is conspicuously absent from almost all commentary and analysis. Can a professional traffic engineering firm make any assertions about traffic in the area without looking at the Gurney Lane bridge, it’s intersection with Route 9, and its ultimate level of service capabilities? Is a two lane bridge going to be able to handle the future demands of our growing community, and also provide safe and timely egress and ingress to The Great Escape? Of the three ways to access Interstate 87, in the Town of Queensbury, are we asking too much of this two lane structure? Page 27, the fourth sentence under Item One, Traffic impacts on local collector roads states, tourists will not use local collector roads to access the Park, because they will not know about them, and local collector roads would generally not provide direct access to their destinations when they leave the Park. This statement begs the question, what are the destinations of people leaving the Park? It goes on to say the increased traffic on local collector roads, such as Glen Lake Road, West Mountain Road, Round Pond Road, and Sweet Road, will be negligible. Local mobility, except on the Route 9 corridor, will not be effected by The Great Escape expansion. The capabilities of local collector roads are adequate to accommodate the vehicular demands of local circulation. The last sentence states, as a result, there will be no impact on local collector roads in the area. I would ask, isn’t Gurney Lane a local collector road? How did the preparers of this document determine that people using the Park don’t know about local collector roads? I would assume the Park encourages and experiences repeat customers. Where are the 2300 Great Escape employees going to go when not at work? Will they all stay on site? How did the applicant determine that the increase in traffic on local collector roads would be negligible? This in light of the statement, Page 75 under Conclusions, second to last sentence, that states, trip generation during the afternoon peak hour of adjacent street traffic is less than the morning peak hour trips, and therefore was not analyzed at all study locations. Here, again, likes much ambiguity. I have to believe that people who go to work also return home. Who determined what locations would be studied and which would be ignored? Isn’t it reasonable to assume that the morning commuters, familiar with traffic snarls created by the morning arrivals to Great Escape, commuters who did not use the collector roads on the way to work, might, indeed, use them on the way home? Apparently, the study did not include this use of collector roads by local residents. Again, are we to believe that Gurney Lane will not experience greater numbers of cars as a direct result of the proposed expansion? How is safe pedestrian and bicycle traffic across the bridge going to be ensured? Given that the US Census predicted a 22% growth in population for Queensbury over the 10 year period, 1990 to 2000, given that through June of this year, building permits are on a record pace, given that towns use a conservative 2% rate of traffic increase per year as a standard, given that Warren and Washington Counties showed the lowest rates of unemployment in the entire State, given all this and more, how can the applicant state the capabilities of local collector roads are adequate to accommodate the vehicular demands of local circulation? I would pose this question to this Board. Are you taking home more paperwork now than you did last year or the year before that? Do you believe that the collector roads will be able to handle the traffic adequately if growth stays at its current pace? Where, in this report, is there any kind of detailed study of the local traffic on collector roads, other than counts? Have large senior housing facilities and multiple dwelling projects currently underway east of The Great Escape, been accounted for with regard to their access to Interstate 87 and the Route 9 corridor? And what about pending developments that are likely to receive approval? Has the applicant addressed the real growth rate of the area and the associated traffic implications? In that the applicant has suggested building an on site sewage treatment plant or hooking up to a line provided by the Town, I’d pose these questions. Has sewering in an area ever hurt or lessened the development of an area? Has sewering ever caused population decrease? Has sewering an area ever hurt business start ups or discouraged upgrades in 5 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 8/29/00) expansion of existing businesses? In reality, wouldn’t sewering any area of the Town promote development and its associated traffic? Where has the applicant addressed these scenarios? Although the pedestrian walkway will provide a safer and more convenient way to enter the Park, how will the effect of aligning Route 9 northbound traffic to more quickly reach the troublesome bottleneck at 9N/Glen Lake Road intersection, and the Gurney Lane/Route 9 intersection, how will this be addressed? Will traffic be stacked between Glen Lake Road light, Gurney Lane light, and Exit 20 light, to the point where westbound travelers on Glen Lake Road will be unable to turn right, regardless of a green light? Why was the nameless road that currently circumnavigates the Warren County Municipal Center not recognized as a legitimate, legal means, used by many locals to avoid the traffic of exiting patrons of The Great Escape? As one of the four legs that make up the Gurney Lane/9N intersection, and also the headquarters for the Warren County Sheriff’s Office, shouldn’t at least some consideration be given to this used and viable route? How will Warren County officials feel about increased use of this 15 mile per hour road? Will everything that’s being proposed by the applicant create situation where emergency vehicles may not be able to respond in a timely and necessary way? Will improvements to the 149 corridor lessen or cause greater numbers of cars and trucks to enter the study area, and well known bottleneck at the exit and entrance ramps that make up the entire Exit 20 interchanges? The applicant’s abbreviated solutions to all the traffic problems in the study area boils down to mostly on-site changes, and does not address adequately the negative impacts that locals who must travel the roads in and around The Great Escape, will experience. Simply adding an additional turning lane into the Park and optimizing lights is not going to produce any long term or short term solution to the massive growth this area of our Town is experiencing. The infrastructure simply does not exist, and I see nothing in this draft document that comes close to addressing the changes that would have to take place. In closing, I would like to say that the proposed new lane from Northbound I-87 through Route 9/Gurney Lane intersection has a high probability of creating a worse situation than already exists. It will reduce stacking capabilities of the Gurney Lane bridge. It will create another lane change for big rigs and automobiles heading south on Route 9 from 149, and attempting to use the bridge for points south on Interstate 87, and require more time for all vehicles that either turn from or to the bridge from Route 9, thereby increasing the likelihood that cars entering on a yellow or God forbid red light, may in fact be trapped, and thus impede the flow of cars that have now got a green light. Thank you very much. MR. MAC EWAN-In the interest of getting through this process tonight, I realize that this is a very emotionally charged evening for most everyone here, I would ask you to please refrain from the applause or the boos or hisses, whatever the case may be, so that we can continue on, because there are 46 speakers who want to speak tonight, and we certainly want to give everyone their opportunity to speak. Will you call two more, please? MRS. LA BOMBARD-All right. Joanne Bramley’s going to speak now, and then we’ll have Karen Engleston and Linda McNulty can come up. In the back there, did you have a comment? MR. MAC EWAN-No, no. I’m going to ask you, if you want to speak, you’re going to have to come up. That’s the fair way to do it. People have signed in here to be heard tonight. That’s the process. MR. MAC EWAN-Go ahead, Mrs. Bramley JOANNE BRAMLEY MRS. BRAMLEY-Good evening. Page Two, Volume I of The Great Escape’s DGEIS states, and I quote “In order to protect its already considerable investment in the Park, Great Escape is prepared to expend $15 to $20 million over the next few years on additional rides and attractions. Therefore, in order to remain competitive, Great Escape must continually add to and improve upon the attractions within the Park. The purpose of the project, as outlined in Section 1.1, is to provide the infrastructure necessary to support the anticipated growth in Park attendance that is likely to result from Great Escape’s continued investment in new rides and attractions.” There is no request for specific ride approval contained in this study. However, in as much as the applicant addresses the commitment to become competitive within the industry, I will direct my initial comments to outlining what will be involved for the Park and our community. The amusement park trend, and that of Great Escape specifically, is to update the parks with what is referred to in the industry as extreme rides or scream machines. The following information was provided by Discovery.com, and is entitled “Extreme Ride 2000”, as well as from the documentary, “Amusement Parks: The Pursuit of Fun”. Six Flags, Magic Mountain, in Valentia California, ushered in the millennium with a new ride called Goliath. It is the tallest, fastest continuous roller coaster in the western world, reaching 255 feet high, and runs at 85 miles an hour. Designed by the Swiss firm Intimen, its president states, the limits are almost endless, because we just started with linear induction motors five years ago, and there’s a long way to go. I’m looking forward to working with the Park to pass the 100 mile per hour mark. Also, at Six Flags Magic Mountain is the ride Superman the Escape. Jim Blackey, Vice President of Facilities Management says, and I quote, “The most difficult element of the ride was the power system, getting a 12,000 pound car to ascend 40 stories in seven seconds, at 100 miles an hour. A lot more is involved in these parks than people imagine. The technology is quite state of the art. 6 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 8/29/00) When it comes to thrills, too much is never enough”. From the moment you enter the Park, designers are directing your natural, psychological and physical reactions to draw you to a ride. The distinctive roar of the Six Flags Magic Mountain Superman ride is heard throughout the Park. The 40 story ride is designed to be big, and loud and grab your attention. Jim Blackey of Magic Mountain says, and I quote “You can’t miss it. Irregardless of where we would have placed it, you would have seen it”. Another strategy used to attract riders is to extend a portion of the track over walkways. With 80% of Americans being within three hours of a major ride park, The Great Escape must follow other parks by installing these new rides, or risk the threat of losing its patrons to neighboring parks. SNS Power, another thrill ride manufacturer, has just launched Air Thrust 2000. Billed as the thrill ride of the new millennium. Park World Magazine describes the ride as one that initially catapults riders horizontally from 0 to 80 miles an hour in 1.5 seconds. At The Park Magazine says, and I quote “It is very fast, and you feel like the skin is going to rip off your face. It’s very intent”, end quote. As amazing as this prototype is, it’s nothing compared to what SNS has in store for the full scale model. They hope to double its height to 350 feet, add more hills, twists, turns and break a coaster speed record. At The Park Magazine publisher states, “The millennium is forcing a lot of people to want to knock your socks off. There are a lot of record breakers coming out in the next couple of years”. I would like to know how these rides compare to the Alpine Bobsled noise, as noise generators. We really have no indication that the new rides will be any better. The mitigation mentioned in this study for the Bobsled has proved to be ineffective, and the ride has been generating the same level of noise as it previously did. How is this going to be addressed? Can decibel readings for the new scream machine rides be provided so the Planning Board is aware of the magnitude of the intended development of these rides at this Park? Is the Park going to address the noise emitted by patrons screaming? Is this a visual scene that we want to create for our community? All visitors to this area are not park enthusiasts. Many residents and tourists appreciate the present topography. Page 4-24 of Volume I states, and I quote “A 200 foot tall structure was selected for analysis since that height is required for a modern roller coaster to reach speeds of 60 miles an hour, which is the current design standard for most significant coasters”. As documented above, the current trends far exceed the standard. Page 4 and 5 of the Executive Summary discuss the simulated views of the 200 foot structure to create a benchmark for visual impact. “The visual simulation documents that such a high structure would have a negligible visual impact because of the limited areas of view in the visual context, which would make such a structure a relative small element in the mid or foreground for a few locations from which such a structure would be visual”. Create a visual reference for yourself of this height, by picturing the CNA building in Glens Falls. Now imagine two of them stacked on top of each other, and add 20 feet. How can this study refer to this as a negligible visual impact for this community? How can this be deemed a relatively small element? The few locations its visible from, as shown on the map, are 90% of Glen Lake, various areas of the Glens Falls Country Club, the bike path and the north and southbound lanes of I-87. I would like to see the applicant quantify the number of effected persons for each receptor area. This will undoubtedly put a different perspective on the use of the word “few”. Why was no data included regarding the construction of noise barriers as possible mitigation? The Great Escape’s conclusion on visual effects is not one that installs confidence in the public that our concerns are being addressed. The Planning Board must project what this Park has the potential to become in 20 years. Ten years ago, the Planning Board did not project what the consequences would be when the owners sought approval for the Comet. The Park changed from a children’s theme park to a night time ride park, and has proceeded in that direction ever since. Expanded hours were addressed by the neighbors 10 years ago, and we were told by the owners that no change was planned. We all know that because restrictions were not included in the resolution for that ride, the Park was free to extend its hours. There’s no mention of hours of operation in this study. Why is that not included? Other Six Flags operate until midnight and on some occasions until one a.m. How is this going to be addressed? Are the residents of the bordering neighborhoods expected to welcome an increase in the amount of time we have to listen to the noise generators at Great Escape? We ask the Board to be specific in restricting the hours of operation to not exceed current hours. Page Two of the Executive Summary states, and I quote “As documented from this Impact Statement, the support facilities which the Park proposes in this Project, are intended to support and accommodate growth in patronage while providing for improved levels of environmental quality for potential impacts on traffic congestion, water quality, wetlands protection, stormwater management, cultural resources and visual impacts, community character, and audible noise.” Nowhere in this study is there any documentation that audible noise will improve, that visual impact will improve, that the character of the adjacent neighborhoods will improve. We are already experiencing negative impacts as a result of the current operation of The Great Escape. How could a conclusion be drawn that conditions will improve, and where is the data to support it? Page 7-3, Volume I states, “Development of a parking garage would be cost prohibitive”. Page 4-6 of Volume I indicates that approximately 11.58 acres of woods and 5.4 acres of lawn will be disturbed by the project to provide for parking. SEQRA requires “The applicant provide an evaluation of the range of alternatives at a level of detail sufficient to permit a comparative assessment of the alternatives discussed”. The heavily wooded area in question is the last substantial noise and visual buffer from Route 9 and I-87 for the neighbors. Preservation of the existing topography should be addressed as an alternative to decreasing the current elevation and the removal of trees from the Animal Land property to the Samoset to provide for parking. As stated in this document, the Planning Board approval of the infrastructure expansion 7 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 8/29/00) requested is to do so with the implied intent to then approve the rides necessary to support that growth at The Great Escape. The compromised environmental setting that the Park resides within, accompanied by the adjacent residential neighborhoods, makes this type of expansion undesirable. The various mitigation measures offered in this study do not begin to give a truly effective solution to current or future issues. I believe the Planning Board will give strong consideration to requiring The Great Escape to provide a more thoroughly documented examination of this project. The implications for our community are too vast in scope to only give it a cursory study of the involved impacts. Thank you for the opportunity to address the Board. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. KAREN ANGELSON MRS. ANGELSON-Karen Angelson, 1 Greenwood Lane, Queensbury. I’d like to thank the Planning Board for the opportunity to present comments tonight. The Great Escape’s Draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement contains much data that needs to be carefully reviewed. This review needs to be done, allowing for comments both verbally and in writing. The comment time needs to be extended for at least six months, in my opinion. To not do this would be a disservice to our community and to the area as a whole. We are adjacent to the Lake George Watershed, and the Adirondack Park. We are at the Foothills of the Adirondacks, and need to carefully review what is being proposed and act accordingly. We need to plan something that we can be proud of, not just for the present, but for future generations. Were noise barriers never considered? If not, why not? These could be attractive and very effective. There is, as addressed in 4.8.2, on Page 4-21, discussion of increased noise procreation which might possibly arise from changes in topography, from clearing and grading activities for the new project construction, and installation of new and particularly noisy rides like the Alpine Bobsled, with the potential for off site, audible noise impact, does this mean that the Bobsled stays as is? On Page 4-21, the document states that the hill within the US Route 9 corridor, which protects the receptor neighborhoods from major noise, will not be eliminated, but the cross sectional illustrations of Figure 4.10, 4.11, and 4.12 show removal of land and trees to these areas, and I quote “Any changes in landscaping for the Project, such as the landscaping of the parking lots along the US Route 9 corridor, will have no effect on noise propagation from the Northway”. Has this been substantiated? Please provide the Board the data. These changes occur in the Samoset Motel area and in the Animal Land/Martha’s Motel area. The document further states that vegetation must be 20 to 100 feet wide, with shrub growth and a height of 15 feet or more to be effective for a two to six decibel sound change. How will removing land and trees and replacing them with plantings, landscape clusters and blacktop accomplish this? On Page 2-10, the document further states that a variety of plantings will be used, and that the parking lot will not be the typical layout, but a festival style. This festival style would have to be approved, yet the document considers it a fact and proceeds to describe the plantings. The document further states there will not be significant, long term, or cumulative audible noise impacts from the project on the neighborhood studied in the DGEIS. The document goes on to say there is no causal relationship between growth in visitor attendance, the corresponding level of park operations, and no increase in audible noise impacts in the neighborhood. The Park has committed to mitigate baseline cumulative impacts by retrofitting noise abatement measures on the Bobsled ride, as stated in 4.8.2. This has not been accomplished. The Bobsled is still very loud, as the Park management is well aware. As mentioned above, the Bobsled provides off site, audible noise impacts. I also question the statement there is no causal relationship between growth in visitor attendance and the increase in audible noise. I ask the Board, and anyone here present, to tell me that there is no increase in audible noise, if you have even two or three more people in your yard or your house, especially if these people are doing such activities as one does in an amusement park. The document says that the purpose and need for expansion is to allow the Park to build needed infrastructure and support facilities to improve its customer access and generally to accommodate growth in attendance over a period of several years from its current level. The projected project will strengthen the local tourist industry. The benefits will grow and expand the area visitors. See Page Two of the Executive Study. Have these additional issues been discussed, such as how will the Park additional traffic move, provide plans for handling traffic that will leave the Park and not go on to the Northway. Will it go into neighborhoods and cause congestion and noise? Please provide plans that address the traffic, noise, wastewater and environmental factors that this additional traffic will cause on the secondary roads. There is a lot of growth in the Town of Queensbury, with an increase in housing plan for the Hiland area, as an example. This traffic will also be utilizing the same secondary roads that come from Route 9. Where is this discussed as potential issue and how has it been addressed? Noise and environmental level calculations should include these projected increases in population growth and traffic, when projecting the increased anticipation by the Park. The document states that no continuous noise from the Park was discernable during the monitoring periods. It goes on to say intrusive noise in the Twicwood site was primarily due to vehicular traffic on Greenwood Lane. Other noises were from children, air craft, and a mail truck. During the entirety of the monitoring process, no intrusive noises were heard coming from the direction of the Park, except for a big bang. This was quoted from 4.0, monitoring results and observations, 4.1.1. The document also goes on to say, on Page 4-21, there will not be significant long term or 8 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 8/29/00) cumulative audible effects. I would just like to point out to the Planning Board some interesting information on the effects of noise on health and well being. The following is quoted from effects on noise on health and well being, taken from www., a web site, conscious choice. Because noise often does not produce visible effects, and because there is usually not a distinct cause and effect relationship between a single noise event, and a clear adverse health effect, some people believe noise does not pose a serious risk to human health, but evidence from a number of recent studies, especially on children, provides ample proof that noise harms human health and decreases quality of life. While noise usually will not kill us, it can certainly make our lives miserable. On Page 423, the document states that the 1990 sound levels at the monitoring sites have remained unchanged over the past 10 years, despite increased attendance, and the addition of rides and attractions. Table 3-9 states there would be increase of 8.2 decibels in Courthouse and 5.7 in Twicwood. Six Flags is proud of their scream machines and if you go to their web site, wwwSix Flags.com, you can find the sites of the United States and world wide that they own. Their advertisements really emphasize the new scream rides, describing them in detail, with lots of loud music, including their heights. The issues I have addressed are just a few of the contradictions that need review, and we need to take this opportunity to make our area of which we can be proud. I have attached the names and addresses of the Six Flags sites in the United States. I strongly suggest that the Planning Staff, or members of the Planning Board inquire of these towns or cities regarding the compliance with the areas that are being addressed here tonight, such as environment, noise, water quality and traffic by Six Flags. Another question to pose of these people is, where are these parks located in relation to neighborhoods, wetlands, scenic views, and other areas of concern. Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. LINDA MC NULTY MRS. MC NULTY-Linda McNulty, 14 Twicwood Lane. I spent about two weeks reading over the traffic study that was done for the DGEIS, and I found several things that were either contrary to popular belief in actuality in our neighborhood, and, well, not in our neighborhood particularly, but in traveling the area. Going from the Lake George area, delivering a contract to the Glens Falls area, it was just a mob scene between Route 149, I had gotten off at Gurney Lane, I cut over through the Municipal parking area, to Glen Lake Road, Tee Hill, and I found that there were several other cars following me or in front of me doing the same thing. That is not one of the collector roads that is indicated in the traffic study. However, the other area roads are impacted by the traffic in The Great Escape area because you just can’t get either down the Northway, up the Northway, or around there, in any kind of a timely fashion. I can’t possibly understand how expanding this Park, they’re talking about increasing to 1.5 million people attending, and the traffic study indicated that they’re averaging about three people per vehicle that’s coming to the Park. In my math, I gather it’s 500,000 vehicles that they’re predicting per day. I can’t visualize Route 9 being able to handle that, even with the internal roads that they’re planning on putting in. The internal roads, I’m also wondering about whether they’re one way, how people are going to get out when they need to get out, for emergencies or just because they’ve had enough of the day there. The exiting from I-87 onto Gurney Lane, it takes three to five minutes, if you’re coming south, getting on to Gurney Lane, it’s a left hand turn. You’ve got traffic coming across from Route 9. It’s an impossible situation. Not only that, it’s dangerous because the visibility is very limited. The bridge side rails are high enough that you cannot see traffic coming across the bridge. So half the time you’re out across the Gurney Lane area, and you have a car within maybe 100 feet of you or less, and they travel quickly through there. They don’t just put along. The Great Escape is proposing to remove several trees from the Route 9 corridor, and already the traffic noise is, we feel like we’re living on a freeway. We also feel like we’re living in the center of the amusement park. This shouldn’t be the situation in a housing development. I really feel that they should be made to mitigate the present sound problems before they’re even allowed expansion. I would also highly recommend a five year waiting period to try to resolve some of these issues before they even begin expanding. The noise is traveling to further developments. It’s not just our Twicwood area. I’m hearing complaints from people that are trying to golf at the Glens Falls Country Club, people that are living over in the Baybridge area, off of Bay Road. They’re now hearing the screams from people on the roller coaster. The west side of Route 9, they’re hearing it in developments over there where it’s crossing Rush Pond. I really feel that this is a negative and unwanted thing for our community. Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Thank you. Okay. Chuck McNulty. CHUCK MC NULTY MR. MC NULTY-Okay. Chuck McNulty. In my opinion, this DGEIS is inadequate and, frankly, dishonest, and I think it will contribute to the public’s distrust of The Great Escape’s management. I’ll cite just a few examples of what really bothers me about this work effort and leads me to conclude that its authors are at best attempting to mislead the public and the Town decision makers, 9 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 8/29/00) and at worst, are incompetent and dishonest. In the traffic study, the authors discuss several intersections, controlled by traffic lights, and after acknowledging each is currently a problem, they offer a magical cure all of changing the light cycle. As an example, they suggest that all the congestion and back up on I-87 at the northbound Exit 20 ramp can be eliminated by eliminating the exclusive northbound Route 9 part of the cycle. They fail to explain how anyone is to make a left turn at that point, from Route 9 onto the entrance ramp of northbound I-87, without the green arrow that is a part of that exclusive Route 9 northbound cycle. They also fail to adequately acknowledge that the intersection is sometimes clogged by traffic backing up from the Route 9 northbound lane from as far as the light at 149. Drivers northbound on Route 9 at Exit 20 are now currently crossing the double yellow line, and driving up the middle of the road in an attempt to make a left turn onto I-87 going north at that exit. I can’t understand how obliterating the left turn option on that light, and doubling the amount of traffic that’s headed for The Great Escape, is going to make everything okay, and I think that applies to all the different traffic intersections that they’ve argued that they’re solving by just changing the traffic signal. The traffic study also fails to adequately discuss the impact of doubling of the traffic on I-87 and Route 9 on other roads in the area. The impact is not just on Round Pond Road, not just on Glen Lake or Aviation Road. Local residents already use Montray Road, Country Club Road, Glenwood, Bay Road, Wincrest, Oakwood, Sweet Road, Haviland, to avoid Route 9, when they’re traveling from any direction from their homes, north, south, east or west. How much more traffic will be forced into residential areas and on residential streets and other roads in the Town, when The Great Escape attendance doubles? The sound discussions are engineering studies that totally dismiss the human aspect of the problem. Residents of formerly quiet neighborhoods shouldn’t have to listen to rock bands, ride noises, people screaming, PA announcements from car salesmen, PA announcements for go cart tracks, trucks roaring up the interstate a half mile or more away, or deep bass boom box type noise from roller skating rinks, and, yes, all of these should be a part of The Great Escape DGEIS because by being where it is, and by having become a generic, run of the mill, thrill ride park, instead of the children’s theme park that it once was, Great Escape attracts similar businesses, and the patrons that go to these businesses and, therefore, are a contributor to some of the noise that these businesses create, and I think the GEIS ought to take into account these ancillary impacts. On the sound, as a start, I would recommend revising that old instruction that says, first you get rid of all the attorneys. I think you should get rid of the attorneys and the engineers. I don’t care how loud or how soft a ride, a PA system or a band is, I shouldn’t have to listen to it in my home. The GEIS, in evaluating noise impact, should consider what bothers people, not what activates an engineer’s decibel meter. The engineering approach that takes the attitude, if I can’t measure it, it’s not a problem, should be thrown out. The impact here is on people, not on engineering instruments. The project suggested in this document, the attendance increases envisioned, will transform the Town. It’ll destroy at least three residential neighborhoods, and it will impact several more. That should be obvious to any half competent consultant or Town official. That is what should be clearly stated in the GEIS, whether The Great Escape likes it or not. The discussion should not be, if there will be an impact. There’s going to be one hell of an impact. It should be whether the Town of Queensbury is going to become a gaudy, commercial area, or whether it’s going to protect its year round residents, and strive to be what its signs say it is, a nice place to live. Right now it’s not a nice place to live, and I think the Town could be sued for false advertising. Thank you. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Okay. The next person is Donald Milne, and could George Stark be ready, as well as Barbara Bartwith and Dave Harrington. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Go ahead, Mr. Milne. DONALD MILNE MR. MILNE-Mr. MacEwan, could I have a point of order for a minute, before my time starts? MR. MAC EWAN-What’s on your mind? MR. MILNE-I wrote a letter regarding additional time, and I wanted to express deep concern for the lack of time to prepare analysis and commentary. The size of this document, over 600 pages, requires time to read and digest. In addition, those neighborhoods effected must read it to determine which questions require analysis by professional consultants. Then we have to hire those consultants and receive their input. MR. MAC EWAN-Mr. Milne, your input that you want to give us can go beyond your verbal comments tonight, that you have until September 12 for written comment. So you still have plenty th of time. MR. MILNE-Which still, it’s really not, because we had to find consultants. We still haven’t been able to get some. 10 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 8/29/00) MR. MAC EWAN-That’s fine. That’s why we’re having this comment period. That’s the purpose behind it. MR. MILNE-Yes, but we would like to have it extended beyond September 11. th MR. MAC EWAN-Go ahead. Your 10 minutes starts now. MR. MILNE-Okay. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Wait a second, we were just advised by our Counsel that once you come up here, Craig, it’s 10 minutes. MR. MAC EWAN-Yes, that’s what I just said, his 10 minutes is starting. MR. MILNE-Okay. This document is notable, not only for its size. It’s notable for numerous omissions, errors, misstatements and contradictions. It goes overboard in attempting to emphasize the economic benefits of the Park to the community while minimizing its adverse impacts to our community. They talk about providing improved levels of environmental quality for potential impacts on water quality and they go on and on. I respectfully ask the Board, if we are to believe that the addition of a 200 foot high roller coaster in front of our view of West Mountain improves the visual quality of the site. I respectfully ask the Board, if the removal of every tree from the area of the Samoset Motel south to the Coach House Restaurant will result in improved levels of stormwater management in that area? I respectfully ask the Board if the collection of runoff from parking lots on which 4500 cars have been leaking oils, gasoline and antifreeze will improve our water quality. With regard to omissions, the Scoping Document asked that noise levels to be produced by the Park within the adjacent DGEIS area shall be mottled. Such mottling shall consider the effect on properties across Glen Lake that may be effected by noise carrying over water. This document does not include such mottling. Nowhere in the document could I find that, and it does not include studies of noise levels on properties other than six houses adjacent to the monitoring station on Birdsall Road. Their studies completely ignore and omit noise which has caused residents of Fitzgerald Road, Ash Drive, Mannis Road, Hall Road, Jay Road, Ivy Road, Glen Lake Road and others to complain of noise from the Park. The consultants did adhere to limits put forth in one other part of the scoping document which called for an apples to apples comparison, using the same monitoring stations that Mr. Wood used in 1990, when he was putting in the Comet. However, they did add one monitoring station in the Park which was not included in the 1990 study. They chose not to add any stations in other areas, such as Glen Lake. Now, notably, the station used in Glen Lake was in an area where no resident complaints have been issued, because residents claim the noise from the Park is blocked by the hill and the trees. They further stated in the GEIS that the hill is very effective in limiting noise propagation. However, in other areas of Glen Lake, they are hearing the noise, and the results of this single station are the basis for fallacious claims in this document that noise is not a problem for Glen Lake. Now, will the Board require an analysis of the effective noise carrying over water, as called for in the scoping document? Will the Board require additional testing with monitoring stations along shoreline properties, along the shoreline? I emphasize shoreline locations, not on roads behind hills and trees. Now another omission, in describing land use, they identify the Glen Lake neighborhood within the study area as a group of six or seven homes, and Figure 1-1, which shows the project location map, shows the primary study area is including not just six or seven properties on Birdsall Road, conveniently located behind the hill, incidentally, but includes all of the properties, from the home owned by Tuba on the northwest shore, to Powell on the south shore. This includes 34 homes, not 6. In addition, they should have included all residences on Glen Lake, since they are impacted visually, audibly, and by the increased nutrient loading of waters due to sewage effluent or runoff from the Park. Will the Board require inclusion of these in all homes fronting Glen Lake in the Impact Study? Now stormwater analysis is also omitted for Park Area A. Since Area A is adjacent to the sensitive wetland, this is important. Will the Board require that study? The document provides reference to plantings, but no specifications on the size of trees or whether those plantings will be trees, shrubs, or ground cover. Will the Board require such analysis and specification? Now, in Section 6, they talk about vegetation removal and they talk about removal of large trees, such as that in northern Area C. Large trees absorb large quantities of nutrients which do not reach ground water. Will the Board require analysis of the effects on groundwater from this removal? Regarding sewage, errors in Section 2.1.10 bring into question all the data and conclusions in this Section. First, they indicate the volume of sewage from the current theme park is 45,636 gpd. They estimate the Park, theme park expansion will produce only 60,000 gpd. Now, my numbers say, if you increase from 900,000 to one and a half million, a factor of 1.5, the volume, with expansion, should be 68,454 gpd, and the total volume should be 103,454 gpd, not 95,000. Will this be corrected and corrections made and the conclusions based upon this data? Now, the document purports to show the system proposed will produce effluent quality, which is significantly better than DEC standards. However, the proposed level for phosphorus discharge, at .5 milligrams per liter, only just meets DEC potential effluent standards. Glen Lake cannot biologically afford any additional phosphorus loading. Will measures of current phosphorus be taken, and an analysis of future phosphorus in Glen Lake and the watershed be determined based on 11 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 8/29/00) additional loading? Sources at DEC have told us that phosphorus discharge to a river does not accumulate in a river as it does in a lake. This accumulation will result in considerable degradation of the lake over time. They strongly suggest the sewage be handled by a line connected to the Glens Falls Treatment Plant. Will a comparison study of the effects of ammonia phosphorus and biological oxygen (lost word) on the watershed and waters of Glen Lake be done which compares the alternative of local sewage treatment versus transfer of sewage to the Glens Falls Treatment Plant? Regarding stormwater management, they state, on Page 4-9, groundwater will not be impacted because no grading will occur, at or below the water table, and they claim the water table, groundwater table is more than six feet below grade. Their evidence they cite is a Warren Soil Conservation Service report which claims the groundwater table in Hinckley and Hinckley Plainfield and such soils is at a depth of more than six feet. I challenge that assumption. The basis for the challenge is as follows: The land upon which the existing parking lots in Area C were built is filled land. So that gravel was brought in and filled over wetlands. The water table in those wetlands is the level of Glen Lake Brook, not six feet below the parking lot. Generalizations in the report regarding water table and those soils does not apply to this situation. Additionally, that fact should have been known to the engineers formulating this report. This spring those parking lots were completely flooded for an extended period of time. That could not occur if the water table were truly six feet below grade. Will the Board require test borings to verify data presented as fact in this document? Now, regarding runoff, antifreeze, an ingredient of antifreeze is ethylene glycol. Cars in our area are mixed with a 50% solution of this. The BOD5 of antifreeze is 5,000 milligram per liter. The biological oxygen demand for raw sewage is only 250 to 300. So this stuff can have a deleterious effect on watershed. As a result, will traps or filters be employed to prevent hydrocarbons from entering groundwater? Hydrocarbons from Route 9 have already been detected in the Fen. That’s part of the Glen Lake Watershed Study. Will you require an analysis be made of additional hydrocarbons from Route 9, due to additional traffic generated, this is not in this study. The authors claim the project will only slightly increase or produce no increase in nutrient loading, due to stormwater. This is unacceptable at the present time, because we’re attempting to reduce nutrient loading in Glen Lake. We’ve had several projects that work. The DGEIS does not include figures for current phosphorus in Glen Lake Brook and Project Area C. We need data on levels in Park Area A and the Fen immediately after the Park. Will these studies be added to the DGEIS? In summation, due to the location of this property which is placed in an environmentally sensitive area, the wetland, the Fen, the Glen Lake Brook and the lake itself, and its close proximity to residential neighborhoods, its development must be limited. We cannot expect it to expand, as other parks such as Six Flags and Darrien, which is surrounded by acres of farm land. Common sense indicates that a 200 foot high roller coaster has an enormous impact, an enormous impact. Common sense dictates 90,000 gallons per day of effluent going into the soils 100 feet from a Fen has an enormous impact. Common sense dictates that we must not allow hydrocarbons to be released from 4500 cars. Given past Code violations, are we willing to trust this corporation with the well being of our valuable watershed? Will this Board take into account past violation patterns when weighing data which show limits at or near allowable standards? Are we to trade the peace and tranquility of our beautiful area in the pursuit of profits? For the record, I was speaking for the Glen Lake Association. MRS. LA BOMBARD-George Stark is going to speak, but could Anna Fowler and James Underwood be ready. MR. MAC EWAN-Mr. Stark, go ahead. GEORGE STARK MR. STARK-Planning Board members, I’m probably the most unpopular person here tonight, because I’m going to speak in favor of what The Great Escape is proposing. The Draft Environmental Impact Statement is just that. It’s a Draft Environmental Impact Statement. It’s not the Final Generic Environmental Impact Statement. They still have the opportunity to take all the comments that are here tonight, digest them, go over them, and then put them into the Final Impact Statement. That’s the purpose of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement. I didn’t read the whole Draft Environmental Impact Statement. I mean, you know, and I imagine most people here did not, either. I mean, there’s a lot of technical data in there that I plain just don’t understand. What I do understand is that I’ve owned a motel for 24 years, the Mohican Motel on Route 9 in Lake George, that’s in the Town of Queensbury, mailing address is Lake George, and we’ve seen The Great Escape grow over these 24 years. When Premier Parks bought it, they expanded it quite a bit, and we’re expanding our business. The economic impact of The Great Escape, I’m sure everyone knows. There’s 22,000 people, roughly, in Queensbury, and over 4,000 season tickets were sold to residents in Queensbury to The Great Escape. I mean, people use this. The money that this generates is throughout the whole economy here, not just to me, you know, or business owners, but everyone. All I can say is that, you know, there’s a tremendous economic impact. Give The Great Escape a chance, in the Final Environmental Impact Statement, to address these concerns. I agree with a lot of these concerns. Mrs. McNulty and Mr. McNulty talked about how all these access roads, I’m guilty of that myself. When I come down Route 9, a lot of times I go over 149, take a right and go down through Tee Hill Road, and I end up going down to Bay Road, to get Downtown, 12 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 8/29/00) or else I’ll go north to Exit 21, get on the Northway and get off at Exit 19 or Exit 18, depending on where I’m going. Right now, the situation from the Trading Post down to Pirates Cove is pretty bad. I agree, but hopefully, they’ll be able to mitigate some of those traffic concerns by the ring road and their parking, and they can get the people in and out faster and everything. I don’t agree with everything they want to do, but, you know, it’s a corporation, and they should have the right to expand. That’s all I have to say. Thank you very much. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Okay. Barbara Bartwith and Dave Harrington. I guess you’re going to speak together. DAVE HARRINGTON MR. HARRINGTON-Thank you, Planning Board, for allowing us to have the time tonight. I’m Dave Harrington. This is Barb Bartwith. We’re co-directors for the Prospect Mountain Road Race, and we represent the Adirondack Runners. We’ve heard a tremendous amount of negativism from the community. We would like to present a little bit of positive that The Great Escape does for the community. Barb? BARBARA BARTWITH MRS. BARTWITH-Through the sponsorships of Great Escape, we’re able to put on a much better race, a higher quality race. It attracts runners locally, out of the area, out of the State. This increases revenues for the local merchants. We purchase shirts for the runners, for the volunteers, food, awards, all through small businesses to keep the revenues here in the community. Ten percent of the profits go to the Adirondack Runners Scholarship. The rest, the remaining goes to Michelle LaFontaine’s Nursing Scholarship at Adirondack Community College. All these things would not be possible without the sponsorship of Great Escape. When they help the Adirondack Runners, they’re also helping local businesses, the high school seniors, bringing out of town runners and their families to the community. It’s putting funds back into the community. I think we need to give them a chance to address the issues that everybody’s presenting tonight, but also do everything we can to let them, in turn, help us. That’s all I have to say. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Thank you very much. MR. HARRINGTON-Thank you. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Anna Fowler and James Underwood will be next, and Kevin Dineen and Ed Lewey, would you be ready, please. Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-Ms. Fowler. MS. FOWLER-Hi. I’m Anna Fowler on 96 Ash Drive, on Glen Lake. I’m the Secretary for the Glen Lake Protective Association, and I was giving out blue ribbons earlier. I used up almost 30 yards, so I wondered if all of you guys could stand up for a second. MR. MAC EWAN-I’d ask that we not do that, and just address the Board. MRS. FOWLER-Okay, well, you can look out and see all the blue ribbons there. Raise your hands. Thanks. First of all, I just wanted to say, for me, as a layperson, it’s rather overwhelming to come into the library and, with my eight year old boy, and find this stack of stuff that I tried to go over, and I did attempt to go over the first part, but I felt like we are at a huge disadvantage, as lay people, to be trying to look over a couple of copies between all of us, and try to make sense of this in such a short time. There are several things that I felt will have a strong adverse impact, unlike what they seem to be saying in this document, there is the stormwater management for the paved parking lots, which involves PVC piping, perforated PVC piping, going underneath the pavement, so that that water will go into the ground under the pavement. That does not address the fact that the cars will be increasing in numbers by around 2,000 or more than 2,000 cars, parking spaces available. That’s what I mean. So that will mean an increase in chemicals, and hydrocarbons, coming into that groundwater, which I do not feel, or I’m not sure whether or not the natural systems will be able to handle that, and that was not addressed in the document. The noise studies have been mentioned before, and the fact that they, it says that the background noise levels have not changed over the past decade, for the receptor neighborhood, to me, says that that noise study is not accurate, and has some problems with it, and especially, of course, the Bobsled, and one thing I would like to say is if it cannot be properly mitigated, I wonder if it could be removed, if that’s, perhaps, the best thing to do with it. Also not addressed, as has been mentioned, are noise problems involved with taking out a huge area of trees and land, and also those trees are absorbing nutrients and runoff from the I-87, and that’s already been mentioned, but that’s going to be a huge impact. The visual impacts could be 13 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 8/29/00) very big. I looked at the visibility analysis maps, and saw that most or all of the wetlands would be impacted, and large areas of Glen Lake would be impacted, in one case over 50% of Glen Lake would be impacted by this, the 200 foot tower. In Photograph 14, there’s a view of the wetland from the bike trail that shows where you could see the 200 foot tower, and from looking at that photograph, I can see that the impact would be tremendous in that area, and I enjoy that view. That view used to be pristine before the Nightmare came up over the tree line, and now the Nightmare’s kind of peeking up over there, but a 200 foot or higher ride would have a huge impact on that view, and I also know that many people like to canoe and kayak and fish in that area, and it will also be a large impact there. One question I had about the pole replacement simulation photos, will there be an impact on the bike trail electric lines, and if so, we need to see some photos like that on what that impact would be, because that’s a very scenic area of the bike trail, the best part. As far as the potential wildlife occurring on The Great Escape properties, I saw a number of omissions in the bird life, and I am trained in Ornithology. There is no mention of the Osprey, which is the most, the biggest one I saw. That has been sighted many times in the primary study area, and also is nesting on Glen Lake, and I consider the wetland and the lake to be one system, since the water is all connected. So that should be included. The Bald Eagle should also be included. That has been sighted. Other ones that are not included are the Great Horned Owl, Bard Owl, Hooded Merganser, the Common Loon. The Merganser and Loon come through on migration, raven, and I didn’t really have time to determine if there’s other ones, but those were ones that came out at me immediately. The source that was used for their bird list was a 1988 document, which is not up to date. Bird populations have changed a great deal since then, and my main thought is that the project is on a wetland. It’s a very environmentally sensitive area, and the vast scale proposed is just not acceptable as far as environmental impact, and it will definitely have a detrimental impact if it goes on at this scale. I’m not saying that I’m against Great Escape, per se. I just feel that we can’t allow this huge scale to occur in this location, and that it’ll be a detriment to all of us who live near the waters that depend on the wetland, and so that’s all. Thank you for letting me speak. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. MRS. LA BOMBARD-James Underwood. JAMES UNDERWOOD MR. UNDERWOOD-My name is James Underwood. I live at 99 Mannis Road, over on Glen Lake. Through the years, I’ve been involved with the Glen Lake Protective Association, with doing the water studies on the lake, and also in drawing up the lake plan. One of the things I’d like to address tonight is the massive amount of parking lots that are proposed over on the other side of Route 9, and the effect that they will have on the lake, if they’re done in the present form that they propose. I have no doubt that probably some blacktopping is going to be necessary, maybe around the immediate area where they’re proposing their bridge over the Northway, or I mean over Route 9, but at the same time, I would think that, for the most part, you know, when we have a summer, as we’ve just had, we have to keep in mind the fact that this operation is only going to be viable for three months out of the year, and when we have a year like this, where we have an incredible amount of rainfall, much more so than normal, that the detrimental effects of having such a vast blacktop area are going to have a definite effect on the waters of Glen Lake. When the groundwater is saturated, as it is in a year like this, you know, it’s even more noticeable, as we’ve had effects on our lake this year, and probably all the lakes in the area have been the same. What I would propose is that many of these outlying parking lots that they propose, the ones over in back of Martha’s, some of the ones up the hill, in the other direction, too, rather than blacktopping them, that they would be kept in their natural state, or if they’re going to propose new ones, that they be grassed over areas. I know that they complained that they wouldn’t be able to put their parking lines down to pack the cars in there, you know, but they could go out to the, as they do over on the athletic fields, and put lines, if they really wanted to get that technical about doing it, but at the same time, I think that these natural surfaces would allow for a better percolation of runoff, when we do have rain, instances, we have to keep in mind the fact that when people arrive, they park their cars, and they don’t come back to their cars for hours and hours an hours. So the fact that blacktop is there is really unnecessary. People are going to be very quick to make their way to pathways that lead to these crossover bridges and that would allow them to leave the areas where they are natural, for better percolation. Don Milne alluded to the effects of antifreeze and oils and heavy metals that are in the oils that drip out of cars on a regular basis, and I just think the dissipation of these would occur in a greater manner, rather than having them all be collected in, you know, collection basins or whatever and then directly go straight to groundwater in a vast quantity. So it’s just something that I wish you would address. Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Next is Kevin Dineen, and could we have George Stec and David MacGowen on deck here. 14 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 8/29/00) KEVIN DINEEN MR. DINEEN-Good evening. I’m an 18 year resident of Queensbury, and I’m here tonight to represent my family, my brothers, my sisters, and I think more importantly my kids and my nieces and nephews. I’m a professional athlete by trade, and it’s given me an opportunity to travel the world and meet people from all over the world, and I can’t tell you how proud I am to tell people and say I’m from the Lake George area. I love to tell them about our beautiful lakes, our bike paths, our beautiful mountain views, our golf courses, our skiing, fishing, our outlets, Saratoga, and our amusement parks. I think they’re all part of the Lake George experience. I think it’s something that we all have something to be extremely proud of. The Great Escape has been a Lake George presence for decades. I think it started as a locally owned business, where you could get a summer job. I think probably a lot of people here may have worked there as kids. It’s always been a good neighbor. They’ve donated, they’ve had people here tonight talking about how they’ve done well for the economy, how they’ve done well for different charities, the Hole in the Woods camp, etc., etc. So they’ve done a lot of goods things, but also in the last 10 years, there’s been a lot of changes that I think a lot of us have noticed. There’s been, one, they added the biggest roller coaster, a wooden roller coaster, around. They added water rides, which carry millions of gallons of water, which I think a lot of people have addressed here tonight. I think the Alpine slide probably might be the noisiest ride in the world. So there’s been a lot of changes. We’re not where we were at one time. All these have meant different things. They’ve meant increased traffic and increased noise, and increased adverse effects on our wetland. I, personally, don’t have the time or the knowledge to do studies on the noise or the water quality, but I can certainly tell you what my senses tell me, living on the lake and being around there, the wetlands, I talked to anybody that was here. I would say that this year was probably the worst year you’ve ever seen the lake, Glen Lake. The quality of the lake is probably as bad as it’s ever been. Whether Great Escape is responsible for that, I don’t know, but the lake is not what it once was. The noise. I think your ears certainly don’t lie to you. You’ve talked to people tonight, and no matter what they say, you know, you hear it. It’s out there. They say that, you know, that you guys spent $70,000 in improvements this year, they fixed the tires. I’m not sure if Firestone might have done your tires or not, but that, in all seriousness, is very, very loud, and it is an issue with all of us, and I think that’s a lot of the reason we’re here. The increased traffic. I mean, I play sports where every night we empty out of a parking lot 17,000. We’re talking about putting an extra 600,000 people into the Park. No matter the amount of studies you did, when I played in Ottawa, they put in a $10 million ramp they had to do for their parking problems that they have. It takes you 45 minutes to an hour to get out of there, and once these things start happening, I think once we get to a point, there’s no turning back. Like with the roller coasters, we say, well, we’re trying to address it by changing the wheels and that kind of thing, but once you get there, it doesn’t change. Once you build the roller coasters so many feet high, it doesn’t change. This is kind of an intimidating experience getting up and speaking in front of you all. I know it’s a thankless job that you all have, is to hear this, and to make some rulings, but I really believe that you all may never have a more important ruling than you do on The Great Escape. It’ll effect your kids and my kids for years to come, but I guess what I really wanted to say is you really have to understand what this is really all about tonight and this whole thing, and it’s not so much about the Impact Study and the traffic and the noise and the wetlands. It’s not going to improve the theme park experience to get bigger and better. The fun factor is not going to go up that much higher. This is all about big money. It’s what it is. It’s big money, okay. We’re a long way from Kansas. Story Town is long gone. We are now dealing with Six Flags, Incorporated. Okay. You’re talking about a publicly traded stock. The stock’s down right now. All of a sudden something goes through, what happens, the stock goes up. Okay. So you’re dealing with big business. We have high paid consultants here that are here to do a job, and it’s understandable. That’s what they do. Is that bad? Is that bad for our area? I think that’s what we’re here to decide tonight, what’s bad. Like I said, I think they have been a good neighbor in a lot of ways, they’re putting millions of dollars, they’ve spent millions of dollars to buy the land. They’re spending millions of dollars for this. They’re spending lots of money for these studies, and I think we have to understand that we are dealing with a very, very big business, and it doesn’t have anything to do with this. It has to do with bringing in an extra 600,000 people a summer, and that’s what we have to address. So I hope when you all sit down and you study this, that you think long and hard about it. Thanks. ED LEWEY MR. LEWEY-Good evening. My name is Ed Lewey, and I am a marketer, and I have marketed something called Story Town for over 40 years. I have not gotten up in front of a group like this and spoken before. I’ve gone through environmental hearings in the Adirondacks. I was very much involved in the 1980 Olympics and ski jumps and all kinds of things. All I can tell you is I know nothing about water. I know nothing about the environment, but I do know about marketing, and the history of Story Town is that Charlie Wood, you all know the history. Charlie started Story Town, and when he spent dollars, things increased. More motels came, more business came, and it was a continuing effort by Charlie Wood to make this thing all happen. Yes, he made money, but he also gave money back to this community, in many, many ways, and many, many donations. I started with Charlie as a representative of the Adirondack Attractions. I represented all the Adirondack 15 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 8/29/00) Attractions, from the North Pole to Land of Make Believe, and I watched these attractions, over the years. The people who spent the money continued in business. The people who didn’t spend the money are now out of business. Tourism is, I understand in the Town of Queensbury, one of your biggest things that you do. You are a tourist community. You are a part of the Lake George area. I don’t pretend to know. I know that most of these folks in this room today are neighbors. I’m not a neighbor. I’m from Saratoga Springs. I happen to represent the Race Track. The Race Track, this year, spent eight and a half million dollars in improvements. It also poured this whole meet. We’re up in attendance. I’d like to take the credit, as the marketer, but I think the improvements played a huge part, and I know, from my small dealings with the Six Flags folks, that they will do the environmentally right thing when it comes along. I talked to the Warren County Tourism Department today and they gave me the latest figures. Since 1996, and that’s when the folks from Premier, now Six Flags, came to Town, there has been a growth of 45% in tourism in Warren County. That’s quite a growth pattern. That’s taxes. That’s business. That’s new homes. I heard somebody mention tonight that the new homes in Queensbury are getting more and more, there are more and more homes, and a lot of things happen. The number of visitors, annual visitors, now exceeds 3.5 million. These are the figures I received today, from Warren County Tourism Department. The Great Escape caters to thousands of children, especially in the month of June when there isn’t any real business up in this market. If those school groups didn’t come in and spend money and gas for the school buses and all of those things, they definitely have an impact. Six Flags has tried to extend the season. One of the things, as the marketer of the Adirondacks for years and years, was how do we get it so that it won’t just start on Memorial Day and end on Labor Day, how do we get to expand the season so that more people have more jobs, more things will happen, and these folks have started to do that. They’ve opened up a little earlier, and they’re now closing at the end of October. There are an awful lot of people that are proud of The Great Escape and what it represents. Again, back to the Race Track, this is today’s Times Union, and it’s a story about The Great Escape, and what the jockeys do on their day off, and they quote how great it is, and these are people from many different lands, these jockeys, they come to The Great Escape and they have a great time. Yes, they could go to other places, but The Great Escape has given them that they want to come to. So, I think, as a Planning Board, you certainly have to look into some of these types of things. I don’t have anything more to say, actually, and I don’t want to waste everybody’s time, because a lot of people have prepared themselves and everything about the environmental impact. All I can tell you is that if you don’t let things grow, the impact will be tremendous, and that’s all I really have to say. Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Okay. Next is George Stec, and then David MacGowan, and let’s have Kathleen MacGowan, and Paul Derby on deck. GEORGE STEC MR. STEC-Good evening, everyone, and thank you, Planning Board, for giving us this opportunity to speak our opinions this evening. My name is George J. Stec, George Stec. What I’m about to present to you are my personal opinions and observations. I’m not a rocket scientist or a nuclear engineer, but I have lived in the area for 35 years, and I have been involved with some of the environmental changes in The Great Escape land holdings. By nature, I’m a retired State Forest Ranger, and my job has brought me into the environment of Great Escape, and I’ve been dealing with some of those issues, with regards to the wetlands, in 1973 and in ’79, ’80, and the filling in of the west side of Route 9 was a travesty, to this date, and I envision more of this coming down the road. Some of my concerns are, I’m concerned about the wetland encroachment and destruction. I’m concerned about deforestation between Route 9 and the Northway. I’m concerned about the pollution of Glen Lake. I’m concerned about addressing the stormwater and runoff. I’m concerned about lighting. I’m concerned about buffers. I’m concerned about parking. My home is two miles away, and I can see some of the rides protruding above the trees. I can see the light glow in the evening. I can hear, occasionally, fireworks, and years ago, yes, years ago, I used to hear the people screaming two miles away. Maybe over the 35 years the trees beneath my house have grown to the point where they are acting as a good buffer in screening out some of the noises. My main concerns, and some of these have been addressed, and will continue to be addressed, is the traffic, the noise, and more importantly, which I think, is the sewage disposal. Life as we know it on this planet is dependent upon the sun, the green plants and the water. When you alter, change any of these three things, the planet’s headed for big problems, and I think we are witnessing some of these going on today with the floods in the south, I mean, well, the eastern coast, and the fires out west. Over the years, I have seen the character of the Park change drastically, from a quaint, children oriented park, with short hours and short season, to an adult screaming park with long hours and extended seasons and special events. When the Premier Parks, Great Escape, when they bought the land, they invested seven and a half million dollars, and originally, this was proposed to address the parking and the traffic issues. Now, I believe that if you’re going to invest seven and a half million dollars, you do your homework. I think they grabbed a tiger by the tail, and I don’t think they know how to let go yet. This area is not suited for expansion. I see it as the developer is trying to put 10 pounds of 16 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 8/29/00) sugar in a 5 pound bag, or at this point, the glass is already full, but like I said previously, my major concern is the sewage disposal on the property. To me, this is paramount. The only solution is municipal sewage. Do not dispose of it in the Park, ship it out. Now, The Great Escape is going to say, cost, cost of dollars. They spent seven and a half million dollars, now they’ve got to make good on it for their stockholders. I’m going to briefly give you some facts here. The Queensbury residents face a $12 million potential library expansion, bear with me. The Queensbury residents face major school district expansion, in the next two or three years, I’m saying major school expansion in the new two years, big tax increases for the Queensbury people. The Great Escape Park lies in the Lake George School District. No tax money for the Queensbury School taxpayer. The Great Escape adult ticket is $33.00 for the ticket. It has a $.20 sales tax on it, $.20 sales tax on a $33.00 item, comes to .6% sales tax, .6, and most of us, when we go to Lowe’s, or any store around here, we pay seven percent sales tax. They have the advantage of only charging .6. The 20 cent or .6 tax in the area, we end up getting the benefits. When you look at the potential one and a half million people coming into this Park, 20 cents, that’s minimal. That’s a tragedy. My solution, with regards to the sewage in the Park, like I said earlier, is to ship it out. My solution is to have municipal sewage, is to increase the tax on the admission tickets, put the municipal sewers in, no disposal, on site, of any sewage. Glen Lake and its environment don’t need this on this site. So ship the sewers out. With the one and a half million people expected to come in, the money will be there. They can pay for it. The sewer line ends at Gambles, I believe, Sweet Road. From there to the Park is not that far, and if they have good faith, if their intentions are good, if they want to do something for the community, as was previously noted in the June 30 meeting in the Queensbury Town Hall, put their money where th their mouth is, increase the sales tax on their tickets and pay for the sewers. Thank you. MRS. LA BOMBARD-David MacGowan. DAVID MAC GOWAN MR. MAC GOWAN-Good evening. My name is Dave MacGowan. I live at 48 Birch Road, and for those of you who don’t know, that’s on the side of Glen Lake that’s closest to the amusement park. My wife and I, we moved here five years ago from Kalamazu, Michigan, and we chose to raise our family here in Queensbury, primarily because of the quality of life issues and it’s really a great place to be. We have three children right now, and we are not opposed to amusement parks by any stretch of the imagination. We’ve purchased Great Escape passes the last three years running, and we do frequent the Park. However, with that said, I’m strongly opposed to any additional expansion proposed by The Great Escape. Point Number One, I’m very concerned about the pollution that’s going to be generated by the cars and the parking lot that will be added as proposed by The Great Escape. I’m a chemical engineer by trade. I specialize in filtration equipment, and I have considerable dealings with wastewater issues. I’m not going to go into technical details. However, I’d like to say that in industrial plants, where you have pollution issues, that equipment requires continuous monitoring and continuous maintenance to assure that the treatment methods are functioning properly. What I’d like to know is, Question Number One, how are we going to monitor that stormwater runoff and assure that it does not effect the quality of Glen Lake? Point Number Two, nobody, tonight, has mentioned property values, but I know that that’s a very, an issue that concerns many of us. I’d like to know, what are you, as the Planning Board, going to do to help us protect our property values and keep our investments from eroding. I know, like myself, there are many of us who have worked very hard for our homes, and we don’t want to see those property values decrease. Point Number Three, we moved here, again, because of the quality of life. What are you, as the Board, going to do to help us prevent decreasing the quality of life? The traffic issues on Route 9, I feel, have already begun to erode that life quality. Point Number 3b, is what effect will removal of those trees between Route 9 and the Northway have? My guess is that it’s going to have significant effect on the noise that we experience in our back yard. Point Number Four is on the Alpine Bobsled. Three years ago, my wife, Marianne, she was one of the first people to call John Collins at The Great Escape and complain. At that point, she was told that there was only one other person who called in and complained, and that it really wasn’t an issue. This was three years ago. The Great Escape has had three years to correct that problem. I’m questioning what other additional problems are we going to see with this expansion that no one’s foreseen? If The Great Escape can’t correct one minor problem, over a three year time span, how can the citizens of Queensbury expect them to correct problems that they can’t see? Number Five, I think we need to talk immediately about a Noise Ordinance. I know there’s some difficulties with doing this, but we need to put that in place now, to prevent any future rides from being put in that’s going to continue to degrade our quality of life, and Number Six, I would say that regardless of how this comes out, the Board should not, under any circumstances, grant The Great Escape any variances to the current Queensbury Building Code. Thank you. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Okay. Next is Kathleen Gowan, and would Paul Derby and Lorraine Stein be ready to speak. KATHLEEN GOWAN 17 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 8/29/00) MRS. GOWAN-Good evening. My name is Kathleen Gowan. I’m from Elm Drive, Glen Lake. I’m a career forester, and I’ve fought forest fires for over a decade. I have personally witnessed the devastation caused by nature, and what havoc forest fires wreck upon local, neighboring communities. Why should we purposely encourage and direct such destruction, when we have the power to control it? This is not in nature’s hands, here, but our own. Please understand that we all have a responsibility here, and each of us needs to accept that, including myself. My comments are specific to the removal of trees between the Samoset Motel and the Coach House Restaurant. I have a real concern regarding the damage that would occur to not only the aesthetics of this area, but to the watershed after removing a mature stand of predominantly white pine, between the Samoset and the Coach House. These trees provide year round benefits with respect to our air and water quality, in addition to acting as a beautiful natural sound barrier. This is just one small aspect of the Park’s plan that I have concerns with. We can co-exist, but not as such extremes as what’s being proposed. Watershed quality cannot help but be effected. Water quality. What will become of the lake where I grew up and still today provides me with so much inner peace? Noise and air pollution generated from increased pedestrian and automotive traffic has to increase as well. Aesthetics, if nothing else, will be greatly effected, in an adverse way. Please, I’m truly scared of what’s about to happen. This Board has the means to do this right. I believe in you, each one of you. Please don’t make me wish that I was wearing a purple ribbon tonight, this evening, rather than a blue one, as though it were in memory of Glen Lake, rather than in support of it. Thank you so very much for your time. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Okay. Paul Derby. PAUL DERBY MR. DERBY-Good evening. My name is Paul Derby. I live at 86 Ash Drive. That’s on Glen Lake. I apologize in advance, because I’m going to be winging it a bit. I have a prepared statement. I’m going to be chopping it and moving it, and the reason for that is because I just received some advice from a stormwater runoff expert, an opinion, and I’ve tried to add some of these things in here. So I’ll be cutting mine and putting that in. This leads me to the first issue to actually the timing of public comment. This DGEIS took the applicant several months to compile and evaluate, and contains a lot of data, complicated text that needs to be reviewed and analyzed by the public, and by our qualified experts, and I ask the Board at this time if you will consider giving the public additional time to prepare adequate comments. Obviously, we’re not going to get through all the people that are here tonight. If there’s no additional public hearings granted, will the Board at least allow additional extended time for written comments, I propose another 60 days if possible. First, I’d like to go to the comments that I received from this water expert. He didn’t have much time to look at the data, but these are some of his comments. Number One, looking at the stormwater runoff, he said that the Park should have included Park Area A along with it’s proposed new development for Park Area C, in its analysis, they needed to do a total stormwater management plan. This is important. He suggests that to mitigate this, they could still do what he called a retrofit stormwater management plan in Park Area A, with minimal analysis, it would take some time to do, but we ask the Board if they would require that this be done. Second suggestion, the Park Area C parking lot should not be paved. The suggestion, again, was that paving the ring roads is probably a good idea to get traffic in, but instead of using pavement on the parks, he suggested technology, and I’ll just tell you what it is. This is actually from a company called Gravel Pave II, and I can pass this but I need it back, actually what it is is a kind of block that allows the water to pass through. You can then put the blocks down with the stormwater management that they want to do. The water will run through. You can put dirt on it then and then actually put a lawn on it. This is the orange bowl, this picture up here, which they park on, the road’s coming in and then parking. I’ll just hand that. MR. MAC EWAN-I’d ask you, when you’re done, Mr. Derby, could you just give it to Staff, so that can be made part of the record, please. MR. DERBY-Okay. Then I’ll turn it in with the written comment. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Thank you. MR. DERBY-Okay, and the reason for this is not only for better stormwater management, which you said would happen, but also it’ll look better. So you have environmental and aesthetic qualities. As far as the sewer treatment plant, a better alternative for that would be to run those sewer lines, I know there’s political problems with that, but the risk potential to Glen Lake, all the watershed, is far higher if you put a treatment plant there, then if you had no effluent going there at all. So we suggest and we ask the Board to have them further look into this. Also, we haven’t referred to the Glen Lake Watershed Management Plan, which the Town Board adopted, I believe, two years ago, and in that plan, it requires that management within the Watershed use, it doesn’t require, but it suggests, what’s called a Utra Mod Model, which is in there for modeling development. That has not been done in this DGEIS, and we suggest that you do. We ask if the Board will ask them to do the Utra 18 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 8/29/00) Mod Model. Again, The Great Escape could run this. We could give them the model, and that would help us have a better idea what’s going on. I’m going to skip ahead and look at noise, because noise effects me. I live on Ash Drive, it’s close to the lake, and let me just read from the DGEIS, Page 3-34, which states, and I’m quoting, “With respect to the measured sound readings, topography is very important. With reference to Section 4.8, the figure entitled, “Line of Sight Profiles”, it can be seen that the Glen Lake shore monitoring point does not have a clear “line of sight” from the Park or major potential noise source such as the I-87 corridor. As can be seen from the Glen Lake monitoring results in particular, even though a monitoring point may be physically very close to the Park or another noise source, existing intervening topography such as a hill is very effective in limiting noise propagation.” However, regarding where the monitored site was placed, it was placed on Birdsall, as already has been mentioned, behind a hill that’s there. As Don Milne said, there’s been no noise complaints from that area. The selected place was inadequate. However, a topography map will show that while a hill blocks this small area, those six or seven households, there is a clear auditory line of sight that does exist from the Park over the wetlands to the inlet bay of the lake, immediately to the north of their chosen monitored site. This is obvious enough if one were to stand upon the bike path bridge at the inlet to the lake, look to the west toward the Park then turn around and look back to the east toward the lake. There’s no hill there. There are trees but there is nothing to block that noise. While the distances to Ash Drive where I live, Canterbury, Birch, Chestnut, etc. are further from the monitoring site, noise from the Park to these locations has a relatively clear line of sight. In my home on Ash Drive, and for many others to whom I’ve spoken, noise from the Park, in particular from the Bobsled, really does exist. I’ve heard it. My wife’s heard it. We have called and complained about it over the last three years, and they should have that on record. Further, in addition, in the past, my wife and I have attended Town Planning Board meetings and offered space on our property for an audible noise monitoring site. If we go to the minutes, we can find that. I ask the Board, will you compel the applicant to amend this draft with additional audible noise studies at appropriate sites on Glen Lake where actual noise from the Park has been noted, and again, I offer my property for such a site, gladly, because we can hear it. It was loud today. Now the applicant may argue that their 1999 testing was set up to copy the same sites as the 1990 test to do a comparative data to show change in noise level. However, there are several inadequacies in this argument. Number One, the 1999 study added an additional monitoring site within the Park to get more and better data. Why wasn’t, or couldn’t additional monitoring sites be placed along Glen Lake to get more and better data. They could be and they should be. I’ll skip ahead, and this is very important. The applicant did not follow its own plan, as stated in the Scoping Document, which states that, and I quote, “The noise levels to be produced by the Park within the adjacent DGEIS study area, as a result of the cumulative impacts such as increased traffic, loudspeakers, more rides, if any, of Park attendance shall be modeled using data gathered by the consultants. Such modeling shall consider the effects of the properties across Glen Lake that may be effected by noise carrying over water.” Page Four, Scoping Document. Ladies and Gentlemen, not a single study, nor noise impact effect, nor model was attempted regarding noise carrying over water. Why not? Again, the applicant failed to follow some instructions. Will this Board make the applicant go back and fulfill the conditions of its own Scoping Document? The applicant also makes the bold conclusion, on Page 421 of the DGEIS, that “there is no causal relationship between growth and visitor attendance, the corresponding levels of general Park operations as contemplated by the proposed Project and increases in audible noise impacts in the receptor neighborhoods.” This statement I know is incorrect. I hear it, and I ask the Board to reject the conclusion, given the testimony from the many people that you’ve heard here this evening. Finally, I’d like to address a quick point that has not been addressed so far. This concerns Ash Drive and Glen Lake Road residents, and that part is the electricity project. The Park claims that it will need additional electrical service for their proposed expansion project. The first option for additional electricity is to run higher 50 foot electricity poles with more cross tiers and thicker power lines along Ash Drive, it’s Ash Drive, not Road, and Glen Lake Road, see Section 2 and 7 of the DGEIS. This Environmental Impact Statement claims such a change is within the current visual character of the area. However, a closer look at that proposed path shows that this action will require the removal of many existing trees, and/or cutting back of many, many branches along Ash Drive and Glen Lake Road. This certainly will radically alter the visual character of our neighborhoods which I find unacceptable. Before this option for additional electrical power is granted, will the Board walk this proposed line along Ash Drive and Glen Lake Road to observe the impacts that it will have on our community. Further, as an alternative mitigating measure, will the Board and the applicant consider burying these electrical lines? This is their proposed action within the Park, and as they state, they do it for functional and for aesthetic reasons. For the same reasons, these alternatives ought to be considered on our public roads. They say it will be cost prohibitive, but I think the money’s there, and that may solve that problem. I wish to thank the Board. I don’t envy your task. This is an important decision. All I ask is that you weigh all the options and be fair minded, and we appreciate it. Thank you very much. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Okay. Lorraine Stein is next, and would Bernard Watkins and Dale Nemer get ready. Okay, Lorraine. 19 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 8/29/00) LORRAINE STEIN MS. STEIN-Hi. My name is Lorraine Stein, and in the interest of time, most of the items I was going to address have already been addressed. So I’m not going to get into what I was going to originally say. I just wanted to make two comments. I also agree that we have not had enough time to review the document, based on the fact that it, the size of the document and the technical data that is incorporated in it. So I also request that the Board allow more time to review it, and I also want just to remind that Board that before you make your final decisions that, if approved, all these impacts caused by the expansion project will be irreversible. So I just want you to weigh that heavily when you make your decision. Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Okay. Bernard Watkins. BERNARD WATKINS MR. WATKINS-Mr. Chairman, Members of the Board, I want to thank you for the opportunity you’ve provided this evening. I am a 30 year summer resident of Glen Lake. My children have grown up here. Many of them worked at The Great Escape or Story Town, as it was known then, but I have a great concern about what’s happening to this area, and I feel that the effort that is being made by The Great Escape is not surprising, since they are in business and if I were them, I would try to propose something that would give me as much flexibility as I could have. So I have no great quarrel with what they did, but I think our responsibility, and specifically yours, is to make sure that we don’t create a monster which, in effect, will take that little postage stamp of land and devour it. It’s really a very small area that we’re talking about, and we’re talking about convening thousands upon thousands of people in that one spot, and we’re talking about impacting the lives of people who live here year round and who are here for the summer months. So I’d ask you to carefully think about, and I’m sure that you will, what’s going to happen. I would ask you to propose, perhaps, to the people from Great Escape, that some sort of a time line, which I did not see included in here and may not have been necessary as part of their proposal, but what would go on line, and when. If they were going to put in the sewage treatment center, when that would, in effect, come on line, when would the traffic be expanded, and what sort of controls would the Town Board have after they began to incrementally allow this expansion. If they were to say that if these conditions are met then step two can be taken. If those conditions are met, then step three can be taken, but I cannot imagine how you could safeguard all of the concerns that have been expressed here tonight by giving some sort of a blanket approval at this time. I just don’t think it would be possible, no matter how much study is done or what kinds of recommendations are made. I think that the work that has been done by this community, in promoting the wonder of this area, and if you look around in a 200 foot ride, and then you look at the mountains that are around us and how we kind of co-mingle those ideas, it is very difficult for me to understand. I want The Great Escape to remain. I think it’s been great for this area, but I don’t think that it should be allowed to expand as is being proposed here. I think the environment of that area could not handle it. I don’t believe it’s good for this community. So I respectfully ask that the Board seriously consider reducing the expectations that have been established by The Great Escape. Give them an opportunity to do some of the things that would be, help them to promote their business, but not to devastate this area. Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Dale Nemer is next, and would Marianne McNeil and Max Urenda get ready. DALE NEMER MRS. NEMER-Hi. Thank you for this opportunity to comment. Noise is our family’s number one concern. Frankly, day to day, the screams and other related noise emitted from the Park are tolerable, but the racket produced by the Bobsled ride is deafening and disturbing, both from our yard, in our home, and when we are on the golf course at the local country club. I’m aware that modifications were made to the machine. However, there is no perceptible decrease in the noise. The vast difference in noise pollution between the times the ride runs and does not run is enormous. Question. What strides has the Town made in developing and implementing a Noise Ordinance to preserve the character of our area. Question. Has the Town considered an Ordinance to restrict the volume of noise at certain hours, i.e. seven or eight p.m., bedtime hours for children, and some oldsters, too. I’m curious if The Great Escape has considered moving toward virtual reality rides that are being added at other theme parks, an indoor experience obviously easier on neighbor’s ears, and less vulnerable to rainy summer days. Question. Has the Town examined the proposed new ride slated to be built near the perimeter of the Park. Question. Has the Town considered requiring cement or concrete barrier walls to protect the environment against noise, such as Bush Gardens, Universal Studios and Knox Berry Farm. They have moved in this direction to protect neighboring 20 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 8/29/00) areas. Speaking of noise, we’re concerned as to the potential increase in traffic noise from the Adirondack Northway, as a result of the proposed enlarged parking lot and the cutting down of land and trees, a natural buffer on the land adjacent to the Northway. It appears that there is sufficient parking available now, as many spots seem to go unused each day. Question. Has the Town Planning Board adequately examined the impact of the proposed expanded lot, in terms of the heavily wooded buffer outlined in the Town Master Plan Neighborhood Seven, Page Eight? The proposed buffer will not protect neighbors from Northway noise. Instead of what is, in effect, clear cutting of the land on the west side of Route 9, has the Town considered the creation of a parking garage? In addition, from my reading of the report, it appears that few islands of trees and bushes are being built to replace the cut trees. No doubt the character of the area, both in terms of driving on Route 9 and from a variety of visual vantage points, i.e. Prospect Mountain, the bike path, will be negatively effected. Also, cement parking lots cause heat retention and stormwater runoff. Question. Have these issues been addressed by the Planning Board. Another question. Where is the spoil from the clear cut going? This is not clear from the report. Traffic is a big concern, and it became an even bigger concern these last two years when we were teaching our two daughters to drive. It is virtually impossible to make a left hand turn out of Montray, Round Pond and Kendrick Roads between four and six-thirty p.m. Hence, people are driving circuitous routes to avoid this snarl. Question. Has the Town Planning Board considered the secondary impact and ripple effect of traffic on secondary roads, including the aforementioned roads, as well Haviland Road, the Orchard Park area, Route 149, and Bay Road? Question. Speaking of secondary effects,. Specifically how have local fire, rescue, police and ambulance services responded to the report? The character of our area, from pine scented pillows to the famed Adirondack chair, to the world famous photos of Nathan Farb, to the Adirondack Magazine, all of these boast of our home area’s natural and serene beauty. We are indeed a tourist Mecca. I venture to say, and I hope, that more people travel to our region to enjoy and partake in the natural outdoors than an amusement park. However, there is room for both, although let us not forget what was here first. It’s my family’s great hope that The Great Escape’s corporation does not effect what was here first, and that the corporation will, in all of their expansion plans, respect the quality of the local air, noise, water and vistas from public and private areas. From what I’ve read, with some creativity, The Great Escape and its designers and planners can add rides and attractions that can be exciting, yet sensitive to local ears and the environment and in other words, not as loud as the Bobsled. I certainly wish I had had sufficient time and expertise to read and synthesize the report. An extension of time is in order, as summer finds many of us not at home. I request an extension, maybe three months. Thank you for your attention, but I have a procedural question. We’ve all asked many questions tonight. When do we get the answers? Who answers our questions specifically, when, is it in writing? MR. MAC EWAN-Mark or Chris? MR. SCHACHNER-The answer to the question, Mrs. Nemer, is that this step tonight, the public hearing is one step in a process, under a law called the New York State Environmental Quality Review Act, or SEQRA. After the close of the public comment period, which is September 12, th after which written comments can be received until then, it will be incumbent upon the applicant first, with the assistance of the Town’s consultants, to prepare a draft of a new document called a Final Environmental Impact Statement. One of the principal components of that document will be a section called Responses to comments on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement. At that time, it will be up to the Planning Board, which is called the SEQRA Lead Agency, to decide whether it believes that the entire draft Final Environmental Impact Statement, including the responses to comments, are appropriate, and this will be a process that will evolve over a period, probably, of several months. MRS. NEMER-Thank you. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Marianne McNeil. MS. MC NEIL-Mr. Chairman and Members of the Board. Well, this morning I knew it was nine o’clock, because I heard the roar of the Alpine Bobsled. I said, well, I have two choices. I can close my window and put the fan on, but that’s not why I live at Glen Lake. I want to hear and I want to see the birds and everything else, but the Alpine Bobsled drowns it out, and I said, well, now my day will go off, and it will be the roar of a jet, that’s how I would equate the Alpine Bobsled, then silence and then the roar of the jet again. This will go on all day long unless I want to sit in the house with everything closed up. Heaven forbid I should go out on my screen porch, or I should go down on the dock, because then it would be magnified even more. Now, to me, this would be a significant impact. They don’t seem to think it is, but I think it is, and when I’ve just heard now that it’s been three years since people have been complaining about the noise from the Alpine Bobsled, I want the Board to see if there are any other Bobsleds in the Country or somewhere else that are quieter. Maybe this Alpine Bobsled is incapable of making a quiet noise, of course that’s a contradiction. So, I think I’d like to have them do that, and I really feel sorry for people who have children, because we all know that extra loud noise, over a long period of time, is damaging to your hearing, and as far as the traffic, when I sit on my porch at night, and it’s very quiet, I can hear the traffic from the 21 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 8/29/00) Northway now. If they’re going to remove all the trees and all the hills and everything that goes with it, it’s going to be a lot larger, and as the woman previously stated, if you care to go out on Route 9, maybe between four and six, forget it. You can’t get on Route 9. Not only do people block the road from Glen Lake onto Route 9, they won’t let you out. So now our whole family has been forced to go over Glen Lake Road, out to Bay Road, and we call it going the back way. So strangers have come. They have changed our life and no one’s doing anything about it, and my problem is, if they can’t correct the problems that exist now, I cannot believe you’re going to sit here and let them create more problems for us, and I also hope the Board is aware that Six Flags, now, is in the red. They are not making money. They’ve been losing money, and I hope they don’t get this plan with the sewage half built, and then say to us, well, if you don’t want us to ruin your air and your water, you better give us some tax payer money so that we can finish this. So I hope that agreement is put in there, that you get 100% money from them, not asking the taxpayers to do it. Thank you very much for your patience. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Max Urenda, please, and would Linda Whitty and John Salvador be ready. AUDIENCE MEMBER AUDIENCE MEMBER-Max has submitted a letter. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Okay. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Next speaker, let’s move on. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Okay. Then Linda Whitty, please. LINDA CLARK WHITTY MRS. WHITTY-My name is Linda Clark Whitty. I’ve lived on Glen Lake for 30 years. Before I begin, might I say that 45 speakers with an estimate of 10 minutes each, that, to me, is seven and a half hours of listening. That’s not reasonable or fair to anyone in this room or even to you. I’m speaker number 23, by the way. Now I remember Story Town, simple, sweet little Park. Wetlands we called the swamp when we were kids. We used to go back in there with our canoe. We could go as far as Jungle Land, and actually see the people walking over the little bridges in Jungle Land. We could snorkel at Glen Lake, and we could find a clear fishing line, and follow that fishing line to the very end, and get a lure off the end of it. That’s what I remember. Since then, increased noise. Our environment has changed drastically, in terms of that Bobsled ride. I’ve seen filling in of the wetlands. I’ve seen clear cutting of trees along the wetlands, especially between the Trading Post and The Great Escape. I’ve seen a drastic change in the water quality. Don’t try and snorkel. You can’t see anything anymore. Now, I’m hearing you say, now I see parking along the wetlands, where parking was promised that it would never happen. They park in there. I see an increased dumping of runoff water into the lake. I am now hearing about a proposed sewage treatment plant, which brings more phosphorus in the lake, leading to algae blooms, an increased proposal of noise, with a 200 foot roller coaster, designed to make people scream, an increased clear cutting of what is left of the trees around this Park and increased offensive change in the visual environment of our neighborhood. These are just a few of my many concerns. What does Premier Parks want? They want Six Flags in our neighborhood. Six Flags Parks, around this Country, are surrounded by many acres of land buffering the noise between the Park and surrounding neighborhoods. That does not exist in this case. Bottom line, Six Flags Park cannot comfortably fit into this neighborhood. I am reminded, now, of a song, some lyrics, Oh, you know, you need to know, you don’t know what you’ve got ‘till it’s gone. They’ve paved paradise, and put up a parking lot. Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. MRS. LA BOMBARD-John Salvador? I just saw John. He left? MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Next speaker. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Okay. Andrew Patnode, and then Robert Tompkins and Herb Levin. ANDREW PATNODE MR. PATNODE-Member of the Board, my name’s Andrew Patnode, W.W. Patnode Sons. I represent a company who does a lot of work for The Great Escape. We love to see them expand and bring more events to our area so that we can do work for them. They’re a great corporate neighbor, excellent company to work for. I think one thing that people forget in this auditorium is that everyone has to work somewhere. We’re constantly looking for new industry, new places for 22 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 8/29/00) new jobs, how can we bring somebody into our area. Well, you’re looking at them right here behind me. Most of the commerce that takes place in the Town of Queensbury is from people traveling, coming some place to look at something, to go to an amusement park, to see Lake George, to go on the Minnie Ha Ha. The way that The Great Escape can keep people coming to see them is by putting new events, new rides, new shows, and different things to, not just to bring travelers from long distances, but to keep people interested that are in their own neighborhood. The other thing I want to touch on is that I’ve heard a lot of people say that, well, my kids work there, and they’re a good place for my kids to work, or what not, but it’s not just kids’ jobs, it’s not just summer jobs. It’s many full time jobs, not to mention construction jobs. There’s a lot of construction workers in our area who need more places to work. I am sure that most of the problems that people in this room tonight had with their plan can be resolved. Water can be treated, and it can be made clean. Sound problems can be reduced. The trees that they’re worried about for parking lots, landscaping can be done. More trees can be planted, only in different areas, and may I add that it is construction workers that would do all those things. Obviously, I’m a little one sided on this, because we enjoy all the work that The Great Escape provides for us, and it’s not during just the hours that the Park is open or the months that the Park is open. It’s in the off season times. This year alone we, I probably had, our company had 20 to 25 people working at The Great Escape for three months, all high paying construction jobs. It’s hard to find those things in the Northeast, and you certainly don’t want to lose the opportunities when you have them. So I think that through a little bit of work on The Great Escape side, and a little bit of work on the Town of Queensbury side, we could come to a resolution and figure out a way to go forward on this, and I hope it happens. Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Okay. Robert Tompkins? MR. MAC EWAN-Next speaker. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Herb Levin. HERB LEVIN MR. LEVIN-My name is Herb Levin. I live on Birch Road, on the shores of Glen Lake. I’d like to thank the Board for their time, and for allowing me to get up and stretch. I’d be more than happy, incidentally, to give up a minute of my time so everyone can get up and stretch, if it’s okay with you guys. MR. MAC EWAN-Continue right on. We’re ready to go here. MR. LEVIN-Okay. I tried. When Mr. Wood purchased the site and began developing the Park, the word ecology was not yet coined. Wetland and environmental concerns were minimal. Filling in the swamp was the way to make use of this site. Now we all know better. We know that environmental damage to sensitive areas is wrong, yet here we are tonight deciding not only will we accept the previous ecological damage, but very likely, due to planned expansion and increased use, I would expect a further decline of our environment. Let’s look at the current activity of the Park owners. Let’s consider the current record. I’m concerned that the Park owners have done nothing to isolate current parking from critical wetland areas. Currently, autos and other vehicles are allowed to park and possibly leak toxins right into the banks of the wetlands. This is allowed, despite currently adequate parking. An expanding water park rests right on top of the aquifer, the Fen. I would assume that such water parks use chemically treated water, and this chemically treated water drains right into the soils of this wetland. I am concerned that no attempt has been made to correct previous encroachments, and these environmental areas are allowed to remain. I offer suggestions to the Town Planners. Require greater and increased buffers between the Watershed and all aspects of the development, especially parking. I urge lower impact parking systems, similar to the Bronx Zoo. Leave the trees, park between them. Don’t clear cut. Don’t pave the area. If the expansion is approved, please require the correction of previous environmental mistakes. For instance, require the removal of the recycled asphalt layer dumped in the sandpit north of the Park. Incidentally, this area slopes and drains into the wetland. It should not be allowed to remain. Please require this return, and all other environmental mistakes, to be changed to the ecological well being. I ask you to please limit the height and the sound production of all rides and all future rides. Last night, I was walking my dog, actually, it was early evening. I listened to a symphony of crickets and frogs, along with the slight hum of Northway traffic. All of a sudden, I was very nervous at the thought that future strolls would be punctuated by the screams of the roller coaster riders as they crest the peaks of the proposed giant rides. That thought scared me. I wish I could believe all the consultants and the experts, but sadly, it wouldn’t surprise me that, if allowed, the proposed development will cause further contamination of the lake and our neighborhoods. Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. 23 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 8/29/00) MRS. LA BOMBARD-Okay. Next speaker is Laurie Graves, and after Laurie is Diane Hayes and Virginia Etu. LAURIE GRAVES MS. GRAVES-Good evening. My name is Laurie Graves from Ash Drive on Glen Lake. I’m not an environmental engineer, but I do know what I hear, and I do hear the noise. I do know what I will see if they do put a 200 foot roller coaster in, and along with being able to see that, I will also be able to hear that. I don’t want to be able to go out to my front yard, sit on my dock, and have to look at a roller coaster as I look toward the inlet of the lake. I don’t go along with the clear cutting of all the trees. The Association has worked very hard on the stormwater management, to protect the lake, and it does encompass a very large area in the Town of Queensbury, and clear cutting these trees is detrimental to that. I have a problem with the traffic on Route 9. As one lady mentioned, turning around on Glen Lake Road and heading back out toward Bay Road, going the back way, is almost the only option that you have to come out of Glen Lake Road and take a left turn, it’s just not possible. The people won’t stop and let you go out. So you either have to take a right hand turn, go up into the County Center and circle around to hit the light to make a left hand turn. It’s not fair to the people to have to do this. I don’t agree with them paving the parking lot. There has to be other alternatives to this. There needs to be drainage there, and there are other ways that that can be accomplished. The Board has to scrutinize the plans that The Great Escape has. I’m not against The Great Escape. I went to Story Town when I was a little girl. I’ve gone to The Great Escape as an adult and had a lot of fun. They are a business, and I realize that. We’re not saying that they can’t expand, but it has to be scrutinized and controlled. Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Okay. Diane Hayes? DIANE HAYES MS. HAYES-Hi. I’m Diane Hayes. I grew up on Glen Lake. I spent my first 25 years there. Just like Linda Whitty, we used to take our small boats and go up the creek, all the way up to Animal Land, and I might have been one of those people you saw going over the hill. We used to swim right near Route 9. There was a very large, cold pool of water where we used to swim right off of the boat, just the small boat, and you know what’s there now? It is a parking lot, and ever since they put that sand in on the east side of Route 9, that was when you began not to be able to see with your snorkel, and you couldn’t dive for coins when your relatives would come to visit and throw coins down, but nobody knew, nobody knew then that by putting that sand there they were going to have a drastic effect on the lake, but we know now, and you guys have to protect us, because this Impact Study has very many falsehoods in it. I just have a couple of other things. Concerning the rides, I’d really like for the rides to be below the tree line, and when you guys talked about having extra power lines and putting in taller and larger poles along the Glen Lake Road and I’m assuming along the Bike Path, that’s just a beautiful area there, and it would really destroy the whole look of it, to say nothing of looking across toward West Mountain and seeing nothing but a ride sticking up. I think removal of the trees from the Animal Land and the Samoset Motel area is just plain wrong. How can anyone think removal of these trees will not have an impact on noise or erosion, or the nutrient runoff? It doesn’t take an engineer to know common sense things. Much of what is in this draft seems not complete or not completely thought through. More time is necessary for the review of this huge document. Our area must remain preserved. Let’s find the right way to have those fun rides and attract tourists without doing harm. We, the public, are relying on you to find the right way to proceed with this expansion. I’d like to recommend an extension for comments, both verbal and written, for 30 or 60 more days. Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Thank you. Virginia Etu, please. MR. MAC EWAN-Next speaker. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Okay. Robert Hughes, and after Robert Hughes, Michael J. O’Connor, and Karen Sabo. ROBERT HUGHES DR. HUGHES-Hi. I’m Robert Hughes. I should mention a conflict of interest. I own property on Glen Lake, and I’ve been a lifelong summer resident, for my entire 44 years, and I, too, would like to just support most of the comments. That lake has changed a lot, and I don’t think it’s been for the better. I see a lot of suits are being paid to sit here, but I also see an awful lot of people who are here at their own expense and their own personal sacrifice, and I think there’s a lot more of those. I think 24 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 8/29/00) it’s important to remember one thing, that this is exploitation. This type of industry is big business. It ends up becoming a large drain on the community. It really does not bring money into a community, it takes it out. That money no longer re-circulates in the community, and therefore becomes a major drain. That’s just basic economics. I think there’s other issues. I think the fact that they have that Bobsled ride shows a total lack of sensitivity and a lack of concern for the neighbors and the neighborhood and this community as a whole. That ride does sound like thunder on Glen Lake. I also feel that their example of not being willing to tie in or contribute to the sewer system proves that lack of community orientation. As for environmental concerns, I reiterate many of the fears that people have voiced about the sense pollutions that have been going on here. As an Odolarangologist, I warn you all that auditory pollution can be vastly more emotionally damning than visual pollution. You must continue to enforce visual height and sound restrictions. I really don’t think we need this kind of growth here. Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Thank you. MICHAEL O’CONNOR MR. O'CONNOR-Good evening. I’m Michael O’Connor. I reside at 546 Glen Street. I also have a year round home on Glen Lake. I’ve been a resident of Glen Lake, either part time or year round basis, since 1953. I’d like to thank the Board for persisting that The Great Escape file this DGEIS. I think the Board took the right approach in requiring the applicant to do it, as opposed to looking at what they’ve been doing or going to do on a part time or on a piecemeal basis as applications come in. I’m a little confused, and maybe the Board will sometime either informally or formally, explain to us what approval of the final draft will mean, because I don’t understand that there’s an actual application before the Board at this time, unless this is to be considered an application, and I don’t think that’s true. I’m wondering what level of review will be required in the future, when they get more specific as to what they propose, and that should be spelled out in any resolution or acceptance of this, so that there’s not a question later that we’ve already gone over that base and we don’t need to go back to it. I think in fairness to the applicant, that should be set forth, as well as to those that have concerns. I also think the applicant, for its efforts to date, and I’ll say I do not oppose The Great Escape. I think they, as owners of a business, have rights. It’s a matter of balancing their rights and those that they will effect by their proposed expansion. I think that that can be done. I think that they have a very positive impact on the community, particularly economically, and I think that a partnership can be worked out, so that everybody can co-exist. I have spoken only briefly to some of the representatives of the applicant, and I thank them for being open with me, and I might suggest that they stipulate to a further written response time to allow everybody the opportunity to make the examination, and consult with experts, if they think it’s in their interest to do so, and I think that would ease a lot of the concerns that are out here, that it took a year to put this document together and this is certainly probably not the first draft of the document, and everybody is being asked to respond to it in a very short time period. I do have concerns, though, which I would like to have part of the record, and my main concern is the proposed package plant for sewage. I just don’t like package plants. I am not an engineer and don’t pretend to be an engineer and never have on any project that I’ve worked on, but I do remember the failures of the Lake George Village package plant, failures of the Bolton package plant, and even I think Bayberry town houses, which are now screaming to hook up to City sewers because what was then the state of the art, what was then going to work, what is not now working. I think that probably what is proposed is an improvement over the present septic systems that are there and about in different places, and serve different portions of the present operation, but I still think that what’s proposed, at least in my mind, as layman in that area, is a Band-Aid approach. I think The Great Escape should be required to hook up to the Glens Falls Sewer System. I think if you go back a little bit when Wal-Mart came into Town, they paid for the line extension, which now goes up to as far as Gambles, or across the street from Gambles. They paid for the one time sign up fee to the City of Glens Falls, and the applicant didn’t include every property owner from the point of extension to the end of the line. What they did is they made whole every property owner. There were some people that said, well, some people along Route 9 don’t want to be included in this sewer district. What they made it, they took an easement from people, and they made it optional whether or not the people would be included in the extension or not included in the extension, but they did allow a stub for everybody. In fact, they paid for everybody’s expenses. They paid for expenses of Mr. Wood. He owned two pieces of property, which he chose, initially, not to have in the first extension of that sewer district, but they paid for his out of pocket expenses, as part of that extension for Wal-Mart. I think the Town Board and the City need to get together to make this possible. I understand the concerns that have been raised about time, but I’ve also heard and saw in the DEIS, or in the draft before you, that they believe that they have enough sewer capacity to operate, almost to the point of their full extension. So there doesn’t seem to be any rush to run to the package plant. There’s no need to do it immediately. I think that they should allow the time to fully explore this possibility. I think everybody here, and I will do the same, and I speak only as an individual, should contact the Town Supervisor and the Town Board, the Mayor and the Common Council for the City, and tell them to get together and resolve the 25 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 8/29/00) problems with the sewer cooperation, so that this is a real possibility, and it becomes an alternative. I think if The Great Escape is hooking its sewer into the City of Glens Falls, that alone is a great advantage that they’re offering to all the residents on Glen Lake. It will avoid what will happen when the present septic systems aren’t working as well as they work now, if they are working, but it’ll avoid the issues in the future. That should be a fairly decent trade off. I also have a concern, though, if they come back and say that they’re not going to do that, even the location of the present package plant that they propose. Why are they putting it so close to the wetland? Why don’t they put it on the west side of Route 9, either on the north end of the property or the south end of the property. Get it as far away from the wetland as they possibly can. They will get a SPDES Permit from the State of New York for that, and that SPDES Permit will require that they hook into any municipal sewer that is then available. Why don’t you put it in a position where it is more likely to be hooked up to, and less likely for the City and the Town to pay expenses to hook up to it. I understand that where it’s located, it’s probably there because of gravity, but if they installed their own pumping system and pumped it up to where Animal Land was, that’s much more likely to be hooked into by the City and the Town than where it is presently located. You’d also avoid the risk of perhaps some outflow into the wetland. My second concern is the visual impacts of the project. I’ve argued often on behalf of people who want to construct single family homes on Glen Lake, because of our present requirement that you can’t build a single family home on there in excess of 28 feet in height. I don’t understand how that gets compared at all to what is being proposed here, and this is my question, as to what is the approval, if this is approved? The best you can tell from the visual photographs, that’s a six foot balloon or maybe a four foot balloon or a two foot balloon, at a 200 foot height, but are they talking about having a sub structure underneath it? Are they talking about it being 100 feet long? Are they talking about it being 20 feet long? Are they talking about a peak, or what are you talking about? I don’t think you can make an intelligent decision as to what is being proposed or what the visual impact of it is at all, based upon what you have in the document before you. I also understand that the photographs before you have not been touched up, if you will, by computer, as to what effect removal of existing vegetation will have on them. What you have is just present photos. They don’t take into account future clearing of the vegetation that is shown in the photos, and you can do that by computer generation, and you can do it from a three angle point of view, and you can tell, very practically, what, in the future, you would see from something being constructed when you’ve cleared out the land underneath to build this 200 foot ride. Okay. So, they also don’t have receptors from points that I think are important. There are two view sheds that I’m concerned about, one is from the patio of the Glens Falls Country Club, or the first tee of the Glens Falls Country Club, or out in the lake, or down by the island on the lake. They have nothing there. Lastly, I’m concerned about sheet drainage. I applaud their effort. Apparently they are going to put some fill in finally, in the parking lot that’s below the restaurant. I wonder, though, how they are pitching it. When I asked a couple of questions briefly in the hall, I was told that some of these things haven’t been engineered yet. So, again, I wonder what is the extent of what you are approving as a Generic Draft Environmental Impact Statement, as opposed to a project environmental impact statement. Thank you for your time, and thank you for your efforts. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Okay. Karen Sabo. KAREN SABO MS. SABO-Hi. I’m Karen Sabo. I live on Twicwood Lane, and I want to thank you for the opportunity to express my views. Many of my concerns are ones that have already been mentioned, but I do want to say that I am very concerned over the increase in the noise coming from The Great Escape over the past two years. Between the Comet, the Alpine Bobsled, special event concerts, and the daily Elvis impersonator, my neighborhood’s been involuntarily bombarded with noise, and I also want to say I’m very concerned when I read the DGEIS, that it concluded that the acoustical and, from their study, it concluded that the acoustical environment and the background noise levels have not significantly changed over the past decade. I think the DGEIS should realistically acknowledge that there is a current noise problem, and a strong potential for more negative noise impacts from the 200 foot roller coaster that’s proposed. I think the DGEIS should include sound studies and proposals involving sound walls and/or other measures that they should be taking to address this issue, but it doesn’t. Also, the overwhelming noise heard by the neighbors from the concerts and the special events at The Great Escape was not studied in the DGEIS. All that was mentioned was that the concert noise was not a problem, and anyone whose windows shook from the Christian Rock Concert last year and hears Jailhouse Rock all the time can tell you that it is a problem, and the other really, really big concern I have is the extensive removal of trees on the west side of Route 9, and as Dale mentioned earlier, it’s in direct conflict with the Town of Queensbury’s adopted Master Plan, which recommends that the west side of Route 9 “Maintain the existing heavily wooded buffer between the properties and the Northway”, and as the residents in the neighborhood on the east side of Route 9 have told The Great Escape and the Town, they can now hear the Northway, since The Great Escape removed some mature trees on the former Animal Land property. Because of the increased Northway noise from the removal of a relatively small number of trees, it should be 26 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 8/29/00) obvious that the clear cutting large areas of dense woods would cause a very serious Northway problem to nearby neighbors. However, this potential negative impact was also not addressed in the DGEIS, or even identified as a concern. So, essentially, the impacts from the removal of these trees were not identified as a potential problem. So the possibility of a parking garage was not addressed, nor was the possibility of sound walls along the Northway, and there is no mention of rearranging the connecting road and parking lots or decreasing the number of parking spaces needed in order to preserve some of the wooded buffer on the west side of the property, and when reviewing the EIS, the Town must weigh evenly the economic, social, and environmental impacts of the proposed project. The DGEIS has already concluded that the economic and physical benefits “far outweigh the minor and insignificant adverse impacts”. I don’t see how a conclusion can be reached if many of the potential impacts haven’t even been addressed. Although the economic benefits are outlined in this document, I cannot find where the public need for this project was discussed. Does the Town have such a need for this project that it is willing to sacrifice its neighborhood character, wetlands, the environment, safety, and the quality of life for its residents? During the SEQRA process, the Planning Board will be asked if this project could result in any adverse effects associated with certain issues such as noise, community or neighborhood character, drainage or flooding problems, aesthetics and the communities existing plans or goals as officially adopted. The Environmental Assessment is also required to ask “Is there likely to be controversy related to the potential adverse environmental impacts”. Only when the Planning Board members can, in good conscience, answer no to these questions, should a project move forward, and because of their location, by the neighborhoods and by the critical wetlands, I think that this project, that their expansion should be limited, if there is a potential for negative impact. As far as the DGEIS goes, I feel there are too many critical issues that are not properly addressed or omitted entirely. Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. I think at this time what we’ll do is we’ll take a quick five minute break, let everybody get up and stretch their legs a little bit. How’s that sound? We have about 30 more speakers, give or take, to go through, and what we’re going to do is we’re going to go until 11 o’clock. Those speakers we don’t get to tonight, we’re going to continue this public comment tomorrow night, starting at seven o’clock, and it will be hosted at the Queensbury Activities Center, right where we usually have our Planning Board meetings. Okay. All right. With that, let’s announce three more. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Okay. Next is Scott Cartier, then Raymond Erb, and Karen Howe. So, Scott, come on down. Is he here? MR. MAC EWAN-Next speaker. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Okay. Raymond Erb. RAYMOND ERB MR. ERB-My name is Raymond Erb. I live at Fitzgerald Road on Glen Lake. As has been pointed out, the deterioration of the lake has gone down in years. It’s not what it used to be, and the wetlands, the runoff into the lake, could be very detrimental to the lake, and as far as the sewage problem is, I agree with Mike O’Connor and George Stec. As he said, ship it out, rather than keep it in the area, with the large amount of a sewage treatment plant. The 200 foot ride that is proposed over a 50 foot tree line, it will definitely accelerate the sound above the tree line towards the lake, and if you take a stone and skip it across the lake, that’s exactly what the sound does. Somebody out in a row boat or a fishing boat, a good 200 feet off the shore, I can hear them talking. It sounds like they’re just outside my window. So, this is what’s going to happen with that roller coaster. As well as the sound of the coaster itself, you’re going to hear the people screaming, and it’ll keep you wide awake. The other thing I recently saw on television was in the Saratoga Springs, where they were talking about a noise level ordinance, and the fellow said they have a meter that the use to measure the sound, but he said the fellow who had the meter, or knew who used the meter was no longer in Saratoga, so they don’t use it, because no one else knows how to do it. So there is a meter available for your new ordinance that you want to put in, as far as sound goes. Many of the other people spoke on subjects that I would have liked to have approached, but what I’m mainly concerned with is the land value. If the value on my land goes down, it will hurt me in the long run, but I’m quite sure my taxes are not going to go down either. Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Karen Howe. KAREN HOWE MS. HOWE-Good evening. It has been a long night, and I want to thank you, first, for allowing me the opportunity to address you this evening. My name is Karen Howe, and I am a resident of Queensbury. I was born in the Glens Falls Hospital, grew up in Twicwood, and graduated from this 27 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 8/29/00) very high school. I moved to Fort Lauderdale in the early 70’s to further my career in education. When my husband and I decided to start a family, a little late in life, there was no question where I wanted to raise my kids, right here, Hometown USA. If it weren’t for The Great Escape as the bread winner for my family, I would not have been able to afford to bring my family home. I serve as the Director of Human Resources for The Great Escape, and I’m responsible for all of the recruiting of all our full time and seasonal staff. I think it’s important to remind everyone that the Park supports over 50 full time positions, year round, and that our seasonal jobs are counted on by hundreds of local residents to support their families, as well as provide a learning environment for our first time employees. Our 14 and 15 year olds have the opportunity to work with our seasoned staff members, helping them to learn work ethic, build summer friendships, in a family oriented environment, and allow for a wonderful mentoring process. The continued growth of the Park simply allows us to give back to the community and allow our children, as they grow up, a place to work, so that they might not have to leave this beautiful area, and so that they can support their families here locally. My message has addressed issues truly from the heart, to this point, what I feel is just, or even more important, is the overall economic impact our Park has on this community. Where would we be today without the financial support and growth the Park brings to this community? The individual vendors, the hotels, the businesses, the charities that all exist mainly as a result of The Great Escape’s business, are countless. The continued growth only ensures that the continuing success will remain there for these companies and agencies. I understand the concerns and caution, and agree with that, but please think about the individuals, the people that could lose their jobs, or complete businesses as a result of losing The Great Escape to this area. Just as a few points of fact about our positive economic impact that The Great Escape’s expansion might have, let’s talk about more quality jobs. First, payroll. Right now, in 1999, our payroll is averaging at about $5.2 million. By 2004, we’re looking at 10.9. Our permanent full time jobs will increase from the 50 jobs now to over 100. Seasonal jobs will increase from 1400 to over 2300. Talk about local purchases and local products and services that are used by The Great Escape. Right now we’re spending over $6 million, expected to be $12 million by 2004. The variety of goods and services, just as an example, I’m going to list a couple, but certainly this list is not all inclusive, purchases and installation of maintenance, fire extinguishers, fire alarms, security systems, construction, carpentry, skilled craftsman, paving materials, labor, delivery and supplies of food stuff and beverages, erection and repair of fences in and around the Park, landscaping, thematic design and painting, electricians, electrical supplies materials, hardware and tools, signs, graphic design, communications, marketing materials, purchase and distribution of fuel and energy, refrigeration and kitchen appliances, trucking and transportation services, mechanical parts and repair services, decorations, decorative supplies, computer, technical maintenance support, lumber supplies, laundry services, waste disposal, legal services, engineers, consultants, printing services and supplies, medical services, office supplies and advertising. The list goes on and on. Think about what The Great Escape does bring to this community, and what we’re hoping to continue to bring. Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. MRS. LA BOMBARD-David Edwards? Is he here? Okay. Warren Rosenthal? And after Warren, would Cathy DiMartino and Colonel Robert Avon get ready. WARREN ROSENTHAL MR. ROSENTHAL-Good evening. We’ve heard a lot of comments this evening about the concerns related to the expansion of The Great Escape, and we’ve heard a few remarks related to the potential economic benefits of the expansion of the Park, and I’m here tonight to talk about what we think are some of the economic benefits of this proposed expansion, and I’m President of the Warren County Economic Development Corporation, and I’m representing our organization here tonight, and on August 17, our Board unanimously agreed to endorse the expansion plans of the Park, subject to th the company adequately addressing the concerns of traffic, noise, wastewater, stormwater, visual impact and so forth. Our organization recognizes that there are many issues surrounding this expansion, particularly (lost words) of the Park, but we also need to remember and understand that tourism is the primary industry of our County and of our region, and to the extent that we can expand the tourism industry, extend its season, if not extend it, make it year round as much as possible, then that will have a positive economic impact on the community and we’ll be able to create better quality jobs for all the people in our community. There’s mainly four areas of impact that we see from this expansion, payroll, purchase of goods and services, taxes, and multiplier effects. The proposed expansion will result in 25 new full time management positions, 20 full time technical positions, and 900 part time positions, and as was mentioned by some previous speakers, the payroll will increase from approximately $5 million to a little over $10 million over the next five years, making it one of the largest payrolls in the County, and frankly, in the region, and as the previous speaker just mentioned, they’re currently purchasing $6 million in goods and services locally, which is projected to double over the next five years, and this will directly benefit local business people and their employees as well. The Great Escape currently pays $1 million in sales taxes. I know there was some discussion about that by some of the previous speakers as to whether that was a significant enough impact, relative to the amount of revenue generated by the Park, but the fact of the matter is, 28 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 8/29/00) it’s still $1 million in sales tax still represents about three percent of the total sales tax paid in Warren County. They’re also paying about $150,000 in school taxes, about $70,000 in special district taxes and these are projected to grow, respectively, to $2 million sales taxes, $309,000 in school taxes and about a little over $100,000 in special district taxes, again, if the proposed expansion proceeds as discussed in the plan. Because The Great Escape draws people from a very wide radius, of the one million visitors per year, roughly 40% stay overnight. Most visitors to The Great Escape will also visit other attractions, patronize restaurants, and purchase goods from retailers, spending on average, and we have a range here, we’re approximately, based on some of the surveys that have been done, $30 to $100 per day. These dollars in turn, of course, will generate additional jobs and taxes in the community, and finally, again, as has been mentioned by some previous speakers, The Great Escape has continually demonstrated good corporate citizenship in the community by donating over $100,000 to charities in the Year 2000, offering free admission to disadvantaged kids and charitable organizations throughout the area. In short, The Great Escape is a significant economic engine for the Town, the County and the region, and with this expansion, it will become even more so. For this reason, our organization, the Warren County Economic Development Corporation, endorses The Great Escape’s expansion, and recommends that the Town Planning Board accept the Draft EIS, subject to the company implementing adequate mitigation measures, specifically related to stormwater, wastewater, noise, visual impact. Thank you very much. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Okay. Kathy DiMartino. KATHY DI MARTINO MRS. DI MARTINO-Good evening, Kathy DiMartino, from Birdsall Road, Glen Lake. We’ve been living on Glen Lake for 10 years now. It’s our secondary residence. Our primary residence is down State, and I have to say that we’ve been to these meetings before down State. I am so proud of the people that have been here, and the support that you’ve gotten, and the very intelligent responses that you’ve had from so many people. I’m not going to reiterate, you know, of course, we’re very unhappy being on Glen Lake, we’re concerned with our wastewater. We’re concerned with our lake. I’m concerned with my property values. We’ve put a lot of money into this house. This is our retirement plan. My husband’s self-employed, and we can see it’s going to be devalued if it continues like this. Nobody’s against Great Escape. They’re against Great Escape’s taking advantage of the neighborhood. My experience on Long Island, as you can tell from my accent, is that problems do exist, especially with sound barriers. People have recommended, you’re going to put up sound walls. Well, they don’t work, believe me. I live adjacent to Sunrise Highway, the main road on Long Island. The State Department took a lot of property. They took down the trees and they put up 18 foot sound barrier walls. The only problem is, the road is above the sound barrier, and being a half mile away, you can still hear every truck, every motorcycle that passes. Now there’s more development going on. They’ve removed some trees for the new development. The sound just keeps increasing and increasing. By removing those trees on Route 9, you’re going to have a worse problem than ever. Besides just the sound along. I’ve heard everything that they want to do within the Park, but I haven’t heard, yet, even though talking about tax monies, what goes back to Queensbury. This is where the Park is located, but the tax monies are going to Lake George. Lake George gets a lot of tax monies from all those other hotels and things that go on there, but nothing is coming back to this community. Nobody is addressing, I haven’t heard one thing say, well, we’ll try to do this or we’ll try to do that. I haven’t heard any solutions there. I wasn’t aware of this entire study. In fact, I was only notified of this meeting yesterday and decided to drive up here this morning, because I wanted to hear what was going on. I would like you to think about having some concessions to the community, something, some kind of fee, kick back to help the schools, to help the tax problems, to clean up the lake. It’s not only Glen Lake. There’s other waters involved as well, that this runoff is going to be going on to, and I thank you for your time, and I thank everybody, and I want to say how great this is that so many people showed up and stayed. Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Okay. Next speaker is Colonel Robert Avon. Is Helen Miller here? She just left? Okay. Robert Schultz? And after Mr. Schultz, the following get ready: Marie Miller and Jeff Bartone. ROBERT SCHULTZ MR. SCHULTZ-Mr. Chairman, Members of the Board, my name is Bob Schultz, and I live at 2458 Ridge Road, Queensbury. It’s shaping up to be a classic clash between commercial development interests and environmental preservation interests. Well, reasonable people, of course, are interested in both, and favor both. It’s just a question of balance. I would hope that the stenography transcript would be available soon, but on computer readable material, at production costs, reproduction costs, a buck or less for everyone, made available to everyone. In 1977, Warren County passed a 29 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 8/29/00) resolution, creating the Warren County Sewer District, and Sewer Project. The project was defined as including the construction of an incept, a sewer line with pumping stations from a point in the Hamlet of Bolton where the existing sewer system of the Hamlet can be picked up. This line was to extend down the west side of the lake, through the Village of Lake George, to pick up Lake George sewage effluent, and then to the Glens Falls Sewage Treatment Plant, down Route 9. The design includes a branch up the east side of the lake, essentially following State Route 9L to a point in the Town of Queensbury to the vicinity of Cleverdale or Dunham’s Bay. The line is to be constructed so that additional points of entry can be included, and so that localities along the way may create new sewer districts, as developments occur. I was reading from the resolution. The resolution included a survey description of the meets and bounds of the district, which of course included both sides of the lake and the Route 9 corridor, down to Glens Falls. This project that we’re discussing tonight is within that district. The State Environmental Quality Review Act requires a consideration of alternatives, including alternative sites. I don’t see where the developer has included a review of alternative sites. Dismantling the Park, the facilities that are here now, and moving them to a site, not included in a Critical Environmental Area. The Warren County Sewer District boundaries include two formally designated Critical Environmental Areas, Lake George and Glen Lake, and the headwaters of Glen Lake, Rush Pond. The State Environmental Quality Review Act requires a consideration not only of those kinds of alternatives, but the no action alternative, the requirement that you look and consider what’s wrong with what’s there now, the project as we have it now. I don’t know that, it doesn’t appear as though the environmental review thus far has considered either of the alternatives, or reasonable alternatives, or the no action alternative. The Queensbury Board has placed apparently a high priority on bringing sewers up from the south, to a point pretty close to the Queensbury/Lake George line, and of course at the other end, they have a high priority and they’re working to bring the sewers down from the north to the Queensbury/Lake George line. It’s highly likely that, should a municipal sewer line be constructed, that the Park’s wastewater generating facilities will be converted or connected to the municipal system. The Draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement mentions the possibility of this event. I would disagree with my friend, George Stec, you would not want to lightly consider placing a municipal sewer line down Route 9. People shouldn’t forget that municipal sewer lines induce development. So whereas development is now limited by the soils and surrounding surface waters, all of that, I mean that limitation, that restraint, disappears with the construction of a municipal sewer system. If people think the existing planned expansion is going to cause adverse impacts, they haven’t seen anything. If that municipal sewer system goes in, there’s no limit to the amount of development, the hi rises, there’ll be a city developed around a Park, if the municipal sewer goes down Route 9, certainly connecting Lake George to the Hudson River. The Park’s wastewater facilities should have been, but were not, viewed as simultaneous, contemporaneous, with an inextricably linked and contiguous to the facilities that are being proposed in the rest of the Lake George, or the Warren County Sewer District. The law requires and prohibits segmentation. This area is in the Warren County Sewer District. It’s never been removed. There’s an environmental review process underway up North. There’s another one underway here. It seems to me before you go any further someone should be coordinating the two reviews. You’re segmenting the overall review of the Warren County Sewer Project. There’s no question but that these facilities, what you’re proposing, what you’re advancing, the construction of the municipal sewer system, is going to be constructed simultaneously with other facilities, other sewer facilities, and that they will be inextricably linked, and contiguous to those facilities. The environmental review that you have underway here now should have but did not consider all cumulative impacts. In the time I have left, I’d like to quote what the high court has said with respect to these issues I’ve raised tonight. I will attempt to complete this discussion in writing before the comment period expires. On second thought, I will include the major environmental review cases that the high court has ruled on, and what the court has said with respect to this issue of segmentation in writing before the comment period expires. It’s true, package treatment plants, in responding to Mike O’Connor’s comments, it’s true package treatment plants occasionally fail. It’s also true municipal sewer systems fail, and the damage, when a municipal sewer system fails far exceeds an occasional failure from an isolated package treatment plant. One only has to look at not only the failures in the Lake George Sewer System when the lateral at the Fort William Henry broke and all the wastewater escaped onto the surface of the land, but one only has to look at the failures of municipal sewer systems from Santa Monica Bay to Rye Beach. Thank you. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Okay. The next speaker is Marie Miller, and Jeff Bartone follows her, and then Steven Green. MARIE MILLER MRS. MILLER-Good evening. My name is Marie Miller. I live on Glen Lake. I’ve lived there for 45 years, and everyone’s talked about everything tonight which I would have like to have brought up as well, but it’s already been said. Water will carry sound, as everyone knows. We can hear the screaming of the children, and that really doesn’t bother me too much, because I know they’re having a good time, but the Bobsled noise is something else again. Our grandchildren and the dog are effected very badly. I have to give him a pill, not the grandchildren, the dog, but my biggest concern is the water of Glen Lake is being contaminated. I have this sign that I wrote and it says, “What’s 30 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 8/29/00) going to happen in 10 years?” Will we have a sign like this that will say “No Fishing”, “No Swimming”, and “No drinking Glen Lake water”? I hope not, because it would not be a good thing, and on the other side, it says, “We drink Glen Lake water”, and with that sewer plant, I’ll bring you a glass of water, now that’s the other one “No sewer plant”, filtration plant is the proper word for it. This says, “Do not contaminate Glen Lake”, please. Thank you for your time. Good evening. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Jeff Bartone? AUDIENCE MEMBER-He’s gone. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Okay. Thank you. Steven Green? AUDIENCE MEMBER-He’s also gone. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Charles Tall? All right. Mr. Duprey? I see, Delores Duprey? Canterbury Drive? Peter Christian? June Tally? JUNE TALLY MRS. TALLY-My name is June Tally, and I live on Pinewood Avenue, which is the other side of the Northway, beyond Rush Pond. We can hear the noise from the Northway, and Great Escape now, from there, and I live three blocks back from Rush Pond, out in westlands. I don’t know what it will be like when they take the land and the trees away that are a buffer now, preventing some of the noise from Great Escape. I’m really concerned. I’m also concerned that they’ve taken Rush Pond, the wetlands there, and made a parking lot, and the thought that they might put it under the Northway and dump stuff into Rush Pond, I’m really concerned about, and I feel very sorry for the people of Glen Lake, Twicwood, and the areas where there are noise levels, too. I have one more concern, nobody’s addressed it, as far as I know, tonight. On Page Four of the DGEIS, it speaks about the project, about Parking Area C. They’ve already done Stage I and Stage II Cultural Resource Survey was performed on the lands there, and located one prehistoric site near the proposed hotel, which may be eligible for the inclusion in the national register of historic places, to comply with the State Historic Preservation Act, it’s proposed that the disturbance to this potential archeological site will either be avoided during construction and operation of the project, that means move the hotel, or excavated prior to the construction, in accordance with legal and regulatory requirements of the State Historic Preservation Office. This is a subject near and dear to my heart because I work with Dr. Starbuck, volunteered, since Roger’s Island, and I’m very concerned about the artifacts and things that will be destroyed there is that project, if the hotel is put there too quickly without a complete survey done, and done right, by that I don’t just mean shovel test pits, but if there are artifacts there, and they have found evidence of it already, it should be dug properly, and the artifacts should be saved. In fact, it might be an idea for you people from Great Escape. It would be a real plus if you had it dug properly, and used that for one of your interested, like Fort William Henry has done. It’s been a drawing card for them for four years. I worked up there as a volunteer with Dr. Starbuck. So, it could be something that you could use to draw tourists to there, too. Just a thought, but I am concerned, and I do hope that the Board will monitor this particular part of it. So, I’m asking that you do, if things go ahead, and I’m very concerned for the Town of Queensbury, and I know it’s in your hands. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Thank you. MRS. TALLY-You’re welcome. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Thomas Mayer? Okay. Peter Didio? Denise Paddock? Mark Hoffman? MARK HOFFMAN DR. HOFFMAN-A few brief comments. I’d like to just echo the comment made by several speakers that more time should be provided for comments for people to digest this large document, and also potentially if technical expertise needs to be recruited, that would provide some additional time. I also have concerns about the degree of independent technical review that would be done by the Town. I think most of us are familiar with the fact that data and interpretations that are presented by the sponsor of a project are clearly biased in favor of the project, and it’s really critical that qualified independent technical review be available to review this project. In terms of just a reaction, I agree with many of the comments that were made. I also was very impressed with the degree and thoroughness of review of the data by some of the speakers. The few speakers that did speak in favor of the project seemed to focus mainly on the economic benefits. I don’t, in any way, 31 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 8/29/00) mean to denigrate the economic benefits. There’s no question that there will be some jobs created, possibly some additional tax revenues. However, I think if one looks at what the concerns are regarding our area’s economy right now, with about two percent unemployment, I think one could make the argument that our problem really is not unemployment but rather underemployment, and bringing in 900 part time jobs, seasonal part time jobs, with no benefits, and no pension and no health insurance, is not going to do anything to improve that situation. Also, to keep things in perspective, in terms of the 50 additional full time jobs that would be created, the way, you know, sometimes it’s hard to think about numbers, but I tried to put it into my perspective. My little doctor’s office employs 10 full time employees who have pension benefits and health insurance. That’s 20% of the additional full time jobs that would be created by Great Escape, with all of the environmental impacts and so forth associated with that, just to keep things in perspective. One other comment. I attended a meeting which was sponsored by the Glens Falls Transportation Council, the Town of Queensbury, Glens Falls Hospital Healthy Heart Program, and New York State Department of Health, regarding bicycle and pedestrian transportation, trying to foster that in terms of improving the public health of our community. One of the items that was identified by that group as a way to improve pedestrian and bicycle transportation was to identify a way for people who live in the west side of Town to get to the Warren County Bicycle Trail, and they identified Gurney Lane as really the only feasible way to get people across the Northway to the Warren County Bicycle Trail. With the increased traffic that’s being proposed for this project, I wonder how the safety of bicyclists and pedestrians on Gurney Lane would be protected. I think that’s a real concern, and finally, in regard to visual impacts, the Town is currently in the process of updating its Zoning Code with an emphasis on trying to improve the visual impact and aesthetic qualities of our community. At the same time, I’m very concerned about additional blacktopping and parking lots along and adjacent to Route 9. I took a quick look at the pictures out, that were on display out there, and I didn’t see very much being done to modify or mitigate the negative visual impact of additional blacktop along our major roadway. Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. MRS. LA BOMBARD-There are five speakers left, or I have five cards here, Jack Fox, Hal Halliday, Dareen Patten, Eric Gilbert, and Scott Moffin. So, Jack Fox is next. JACK FOX MR. FOX-I know it’s getting late so I’ll keep it really short for you all here. My name is Jack Fox. I moved to this community about three and a half years ago. I live here in Queensbury, work here in Queensbury, and obviously you can see by my ID here, I’m an employee of The Great Escape, a Finance Director at The Great Escape. I’m also a homeowner here. I moved here, as I say, three and a half years ago. I’m very happy here. I’m very proud of it here. I’d like to stay here for a long time, and very much enjoy this community and like to be a part of it. I’m not here to speak to you solely as the Finance Director of The Great Escape. I’m here to speak to you largely as a community member. Looking at the EIS study, you can see the impact we’ve had here. We’ve already talked about the tax dollars and the additional employees it brings. I’m here because I honestly believe that continued growth of this Park is good for this community, and good for everyone involved. It brings both and tourists and citizens like myself, I’m glad to say I moved here. I’m proud to say I moved here. It brings people like us to this community. It helps support many of the people who were born and raised in this area. Several of my co-workers here started out seasonally and have continued to work this area. It brings opportunities for them. It brings people for outsiders, like myself, the chance to come here and opportunities to come and join. I think The Great Escape is a solid member of this community, and I’m glad to say that a lot of us citizens that work at The Great Escape are solid members of this community, and I’m proud of our growth in recent years, and I’m happy to see that we, along with several other businesses, are interested in continuing to grow this community. I’d like to see that continue, and I hope this Board is interested in seeing that continue. I did, I’d like to see it continue both for the employees of The Great Escape and the residents. I think it’s great. Some of the other impacts are not only economic. I hope that a lot of the residents in this area come and enjoy our Park as well and enjoy the Park. I think it’s got a lot of impact on a lot of the growth here, in economic ways, and the entertainment factors, other factors for this community as well. So I think when we’re looking at some of the negative impacts, I think we also need to look at a lot of the positive impacts of this community, a lot of entertainment factors, a lot of growth factors, a lot of business factors, increase in growth as well. So I think I’ve heard a lot of factors, but I’d like this Board to consider very much a lot of the positive impacts that are going to come along with this, the growth, the entertainment, a lot of positive both for this business and this community, both for its community members and the business. Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Hal Halliday? HAL HALLIDAY 32 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 8/29/00) MR. HALLIDAY-Good evening. My name is Hal Halliday. I’ve resided in the Town of Queensbury for 28 years. I’ve been a volunteer fireman in North Queensbury for over 20 years. I love the area, and I think that you have a great quality of life here in the Town of Queensbury, and that’s the reason that I moved here from New Jersey. In Queensbury we have great schools, we have good libraries. We have a great senior citizens center, and we have great emergency services, and I believe we even have great roads. I know you have heard differently sometimes, okay. I think we have great roads. We have these good things because we have a good balance of businesses and residences in the Town of Queensbury to make our life enjoyable. In order to have reasonable taxes, a good quality of life, and a good place to work, we need to look at where the money comes from to enjoy this quality of life. It is a true fact that the tourism dollar generated in our area turn over many times before leaving. A visiting guest stays at a hotel, buys food, fills the car with gas and visits local attractions. All of the people who service these tourists then spend the payroll dollars in our area again, supporting their lifestyle. Again, turning over more payroll dollars to be spent in the area. Proven studies have said that a tourism dollar turns over seven times in the community before it leaves. Anyone that takes the time to figure it out can figure out the domino theory. I am presently employed at The Great Escape. I’m a full time seasonal manager, and very soon hope to be joining the full time yearly staff. The Great Escape is a solid employer. It’s committed to safety and our local environment. I live on the east side of Lake George, and I can’t hear the Bobsled, and I don’t hear Elvis singing, but I do hear the boats on Lake George. I do hear the Minnie Ha-Ha whistle, and I do hear an occasional plane flying over my house to enjoy the splendor of Lake George. I don’t come before our Board to complain, because it still amazes me that people move on to the shore of Lake George, and the next thing I know, they’re at the Town meeting complaining about the boats on the lake, or they move near the airport, and they complain about the noise of the planes flying overhead, or some of them live near an amusement park and they complain about the noise of the amusement park near their house. On one of my days off last week, I made a mistake and drove up Route 149, made a left turn on Route 9, and headed south. I got stuck in traffic, and actually thought about the other road choices that I could have made to go to the same location. My point is that we all have choices to make about our daily life. Let’s not try to make other people change to suit our own personal needs. To the Board, when you answer your statements, to the people who moved here five years ago, tell them that they should not have assumed that The Great Escape would never expand. We all have choices to make where to live. My family made the choice to live here. If I was not happy and my family was not happy living here, we would move, just like we did 28 years ago. If the Impact Statement is done, if it meets guidelines and goes by regulations for this area, I ask you to please support The Great Escape in their expansion efforts. I think it would be in the best interest of our Town and my family. Thank you very much. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Okay. Dareen Patten? DAREEN PATTEN MRS. PATTEN-My name is Dareen Patten. I live at Seven Jackson Road in South Glens Falls. I represent The Great Escape as an employee of Park for the last 14 seasons, 14 years. I’m a full time Staff member. Just to begin quickly, I was Mr. Wood’s personal secretary for a few years. So I’m familiar with what his efforts were before he sold the Park. Just going back, the Park opened in 1954. As Hal said, it’s amazing to me people that live in an area, and know what is existing, and then oppose the expansion, perhaps, of the Park, and the environmental impact, you know, what it is that the Park presents to the community. Just like the Warren County Airport, just like SPAC, again, Lake George has certain things that, as part of a tourist area, yes, we will have issues that perhaps neighborhoods and quiet neighborhoods would not normally fathom as part of being in their neighborhood, but, again, as being part of a tourist area, certainly, we know that we need to encourage tourism into the Warren County area. If anybody can recall the Park, 1989 the Park was sold to International Broadcasting Corporation. During the two years that IBC owned the Park, they drained the Park. They did not put anything new into the Park. Neighbors should know, who visited, there was no capital investment, no capital projects, and the Park suffered. It started to die, actually, and if you ask Mr. Wood or you ask anybody in the amusement industry, you’ll know it’s crucial to have expansion and make improvements. So, Mr. Wood, in 1991, bought the Park back in order to save it, because he knew that it would die a slow and painful death if it was not, you know, did not have capital projects, did not have improvement. During the first year that he bought the Park back, he put four rides into the Park, three new rides, and one reconditioned ride. He did that because he knew that the Park was suffering. The attendance was dropping, and again, the impact on the area would have been significant. I’d just ask that people remember that this is a Draft Environmental Impact Statement. A draft in any business is always subject to change, subject to improvement, before the final version is made public and is out there for review. Six Flags, again, is in a business. They are in a for profit business. There’s no question about that. They do have a couple of choices. They can choose to expand the Park. They can also choose not to expand. They could choose to sell the Park. They could choose many different options, but it is critical to the 33 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 8/29/00) residents and to the area that the Park expand and continue to be strong, so that we, again, can encourage tourism and support for the area. Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. I know I said that at 11 o’clock we were going to cut it off, but believe it or not, we’re down to two speakers left. So I think we’ll forge ahead. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Okay. Eric Gilbert? ERIC GILBERT MR. GILBERT-Hello. My name is Eric Gilbert. I’m the Manager of Operations at The Great Escape Theme Park. I have newly moved here from actually San Francisco, California. I guess around late March I was given an opportunity, Scott had called me from The Great Escape and said he’s got a beautiful theme park that he has just started at, that I could use to grow, so I can learn more things and grow my career, but also it would really give me an opportunity to see this beautiful area and experience it. Me, I’m mobile, so I enjoyed the opportunity, and I am enjoying the opportunity. I just wanted to say a couple of things about The Great Escape and about theme parks. As I started when I was 17 years old, given an opportunity to learn new things, to meet people, to have fun, I was, you know, looking for a job. Working at The Great Escape, a lot of the young people learn how to be responsible, learn how to be good members of the society, learn how to hold a job and to be friendly to people and to learn about money and about budgeting and about, you know, earning their pay. We also employee senior citizens who, you know, use that as an opportunity to do things, you know, beyond their career goals, as well as they are mentors also to those young people, and I was very thankful, at 17, that I had the opportunity to learn about those things, about becoming a good, responsible citizen, and I do think that, as Six Flags, we do offer that, and I just want to thank you very much and say that I do support the growth that this Park has to offer to the community, as well as to myself and other young people who do wish to start off their careers there at The Great Escape. Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. MRS. LA BOMBARD-And Scott Moffin. SCOTT MOFFIN MR. MOFFIN-Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. I know that I’m the last one of a long evening of comments and a lot of good issues have been brought up. So I’ll make my comments very brief. As mentioned, my name is Scott Moffin. I’m the Director of Operations out at The Great Escape. Unlike many that you’ve heard from tonight, I’m new to this area. I moved here in March. Although I’m new to this area, I’m not new to the theme park business. I’ve been with Six Flags for about 10 years, and in that time period, I’ve had the opportunity to work in four different States and four different Parks. I’ve seen Parks first hand that have had to work around stringent environmental guidelines, and I know that it can happen. I’ve been there. I’ve done it, and we’re committed to that. I feel fortunate to have been selected to come this Park, not only because it was an opportunity for advancement for me personally, but it’s a beautiful area to come to, and one of the most beautiful areas where we have a Park. I strongly support the continued growth of The Great Escape and the positive impact that I know that it will have on the Town of Queensbury and the surrounding communities. Thank you very much. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you, and that’s it. No other speakers. Okay. I’ll close the comment period for tonight. We want to thank everyone for coming out tonight, and expressing their concerns. I would like to remind you, on behalf of the Town and the Planning Board, that the written comment period is still in process here. We’ll accept written comment at the Town Hall up until the September the 12. I would encourage you to not only follow up with written comment, th but make sure that the Town does receive it so it can be included in our final document that we plan on establishing and adopting in the coming months. Is there anything that Staff wanted to add before we close up? Okay. Thank you very much. AUDIENCE MEMBER-Thank you. On motion meeting was adjourned. RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED, Craig MacEwan, Chairman 34