2004-10-04 MTG45
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 388
REGULAR TOWN BOARD MEETING MTG #45
TH
OCTOBER 4, 2004 Res. #479-494
7:08 P.M. LL# 8 & LL#9
BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT
SUPERVISOR DANIEL STEC
COUNCILMAN ROGER BOOR
COUNCILMAN THEODORE TURNER
COUNCILMAN JOHN STROUGH
COUNCILMAN TIM BREWER
TOWN COUNSEL
BOB HAFNER
TOWN OFFICIALS
Jennifer Switzer, Budget Officer
Marilyn Ryba, Executive Director of Community Development
Ralph VanDusen, Water/Wastewater Superintendent
Mike Shaw, Deputy Wastewater Superintendent
Bruce Ostrander, Deputy Water Superintendent
Bob Keenan, Director Of Information Technology
PRESS: Glens Falls Post Star, TV8
Supervisor Stec called meeting to order…
PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE LED BY SUPERVISOR STEC
PUBLIC HEARING – Proposed Local Law Prohibiting Parking On Section Of Carlton Drive
In the Town Of Queensbury
Notice Shown
7:10 P.M.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Okay, I will open the public hearing and actually I believe that Councilman
Turner was spearheading this and we set this public hearing for tonight while he was gone. And it
is, in a nutshell, as written it’s proposed that we adopt no parking for one hundred ninety-five feet
from Aviation Road heading north on the east side, on the Silo side of Carlton Drive and I presume
it was largely for traffic concerns about people parking on that side. And so we were looking to
restrict parking on that portion of Carlton Drive, one hundred ninety-five feet on the east side of
Carlton Drive. Is that correct, Ted?
COUNCILMAN TURNER-That’s correct.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Okay, so with that the public hearing is open and if there’s any members of
the public that would like to comment on this, again we’d be looking to set no parking on one
hundred ninety-five foot section of Carlton Drive, on the east side of Carlton Drive. Anyone at all?
Yes, ma’am, in the back please. For these public hearings we just ask that you come forward to the
microphone, state your name and address for the record and just give us your comments please.
DOTTIE MEADER-Good evening, Dottie Meader, 9 Schoolhouse Road. I feel that it is dangerous
for cars to park on Carlton Drive in front of the Silo and cars parking on the beginning of
Schoolhouse Road. The cars are parked there all day Saturday and Sunday and congest an already
tight busy area. Delivery trucks for Hess sometimes park on Schoolhouse Road because they can’t
get into Hess. The delivery trucks are on one side of Schoolhouse Road and the cars from Silo are
on the other side of Schoolhouse Road and the cars are parked on Carlton Drive in front of the Silo.
Take for example coming over the bridge from Queensbury School to turn left onto Carlton Drive,
once you turn onto Carlton you’ve got rows of cars on your right in front of the Silo, backed up
traffic cars trying to get onto Aviation, which left turns are difficult and cars pulling out of Silo onto
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 389
Carlton that can’t see because of cars parked in front of the Silo. A couple of cars almost hit me
because in order for them to pull out of the Silo to take a left when they pull out of the Silo onto
Carlton to get onto Aviation, they have to come out half way into the road to see if any traffic is
coming because of the rows, the cars that are parked in front of the Silo. Thank you for your time.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Thank you very much. Anyone else like to speak on the Carlton Drive
public hearing? No parking, again on the east side, first one hundred ninety-five feet. Yes, sir.
Good evening.
HARRY TROELSTRA-Good evening, I’m Harry Troelstra, I’m part owner of the Silo. I realize it
has been occasionally a little bit of a problem there but to me it’s basically caused to a couple of my
employees that were basically too lazy to walk the extra few feet to park on June Drive. So, that has
been taken care of and if it ever happens again, they will have to go somewhere else. I had a visit to
Kennebunkport about four weeks ago and I asked a couple of waitress where they parked because it
was a real problem there parking to find a place at the restaurant there and they said they had to
walk a half mile to get to it. So, my employees definitely will have to walk a little for the them and
that will be taken care of. I did measure the road though and the road is about thirty feet wide and
there’s ample space in case there is a car parked half way on the grass. I mean, it takes about four
feet away, still leaves about twenty-four feet for people to pass in either direction. I noticed the lady
was talking about visibility, I agree with her. I mean, it’s very hard sometimes to see what’s coming
and I warn the people about it so I don’t think there should be any problems of parking from the
Silo people any more. Occasionally a customer, when our parking lot is full will park there but
that’s not very often. So, whether it’s a very urgent deal, to say it’s no parking, once in a while
we’d like to have the liberty of a little bit of overflow and you know, in like the Balloon Festival,
etcetera and then it would be nice to have the extra few parking lots there. There’s one thing I’ll be
talking about traffic in that area and would like to, maybe this is not the right time but I do take the
round about basically to get to the traffic light in front of Friendly’s there and every time I go over
there I have to, on Greenway North I have to stop at the Old Aviation Road either way because
there’s a stop sign there. I don’t know why this is considered a main road, why that has to have a
stop sign either way while the Old Aviation Road has no sign whatsoever. They can just, for the
five houses that are over there, I mean they have the liberty to go all the time on Greenway North
without having to stop, I think that should be changed. So, I would like to recommend that also.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Okay, thank you.
MR. TROELSTRA-Okay.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Anyone else like to speak on Carlton Drive Parking? Anyone at all? Any
Town Board Members like to comment on Carlton Drive Parking? Okay, last call for the public
comment on the Carlton Drive public hearing No Parking, east side of Carlton Drive? Alright, with
that I will close the public hearing.
PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED
7:15 P.M.
RESOLUTION TO ENACT LOCAL LAW PROHIBITING PARKING ON
SECTION OF CARLTON DRIVE IN THE TOWN OF QUEENSBURY
RESOLUTION NO.: 479, 2004
INTRODUCED BY: Mr. Theodore Turner
WHO MOVED ITS ADOPTION
SECONDED BY: Mr. Roger Boor
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 390
WHEREAS, the Queensbury Town Board wishes to consider adoption of a Local Law
which would prohibit parking on a section of the east side of Carlton Drive in the Town of
Queensbury, and
WHEREAS, a copy of the proposed Local Law has been presented at this meeting and was
previously reviewed by the Town Board, and
WHEREAS, such legislation is authorized in accordance with Town Law, Vehicle and
§
Traffic Law 1660(18) and the Municipal Home Rule Law, and
WHEREAS, the Town Board conducted a public hearing concerning the proposed Local
th
Law on October 4, 2004,
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT
RESOLVED, that the Queensbury Town Board hereby adopts and enacts the Local Law
Prohibiting Parking on a Portion of Carlton Drive in the Town of Queensbury, to be known as Local
Law No.: 8 of 2004, and
BE IT FURTHER,
RESOLVED, that the Town Board hereby authorizes and directs the Queensbury Town
Clerk to file the Local Law with the New York State Secretary of State in accordance with the
provisions of the Municipal Home Rule Law and the Local Law will take effect immediately and as
soon as allowable under law, and
BE IT FURTHER,
RESOLVED, that the Town Board further authorizes and directs the Town Highway
Superintendent to post no parking signs on the appropriate portion of Carlton Drive and take such
other and further action necessary to effectuate the terms of this Resolution.
th
Duly adopted this 4 day of October, 2004 by the following vote:
AYES : Mr. Boor, Mr. Turner, Mr. Strough, Mr. Brewer, Mr. Stec
NOES : None
ABSENT: None
LOCAL LAW NO.: 8 OF 2004
A LOCAL LAW PROHIBITING PARKING ON A PORTION OF CARLTON
DRIVE IN THE TOWN OF QUEENSBURY
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 391
BE IT ENACTED BY THE TOWN BOARD OF THE TOWN OF
QUEENSBURY AS FOLLOWS:
1. Purpose:
The purpose of this Local Law is to prohibit, under penalty of fine for violation, the
parking of any vehicle on the east side of Carlton Drive in the Town of Queensbury.
2. Definitions:
For the purpose of this Local Law, the words "Motor Vehicle," "Vehicle," "Person," and
"Park" shall have the same meanings as set forth for the definitions of such words in the Vehicle and
Traffic Law of the State of New York.
3. No Parking on the East Side of Carlton Drive in the Town of Queensbury:
No motor vehicle or other vehicle of any kind shall be allowed or permitted to park
and no person(s) shall park a motor vehicle or other vehicle for any period of time on, in or
along the right-of-way on the east side of a portion of Carlton Drive in the Town of
Queensbury, such portion beginning at the intersection of Carlton Drive and Aviation Road,
continuing in a northerly direction away from Aviation Road 195’ along the easterly side of
Carlton Drive.
4. Responsibility of Motor Vehicle Owner:
Should any vehicle be found parked in violation of this Local Law, it shall be
presumed that the owner of the motor vehicle is the person responsible for parking the motor
vehicle in violation and this presumption shall only be rebutted upon a showing by the vehicle
owner that another person clearly identified had custody and control of the motor vehicle at
the time of such violation.
5. Penalty:
Any person violating any provision or paragraph of Section 3 of this Local Law shall, upon
conviction, be punishable for a first offense by a fine not to exceed $25, and for a second offense by
a fine not to exceed $50. In addition to the aforesaid penalties, the Queensbury Town Board may
institute any proper action, suit, or proceeding to prevent, restrain, correct, or abate any violation of
this Local Law.
. Effective Date:
6
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 392
This Local Law shall take effect immediately upon its filing in the Office of the Secretary of
State.
PUBLIC HEARING – Proposed Local Law To Amend Queensbury Town Code Chapter 179
“Zoning” To Convert All Parkland Recreation Zones – Ten Acres (PR-10) To Parkland
Recreation Zones – Forty-Two Acres (PR-42)
Notice Shown
7:17 P.M.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Okay, I will open the public hearing for this proposed zoning change and for
those of you that are in the front now and can see this, basically what we’re talking about in this is
all of the property in the Town that is, there’s approximately eight hundred sixty some odd acres of
what is currently zoned Parkland Recreation Ten Acre zoning which is predominately located
between Peggy Ann and Potter Road in the Town of Queensbury. And we’re proposing to consider,
well tonight’s public hearing, we won’t act on it because we need to have recommendation from the
County and whatnot but it is the portion of property between Peggy Ann and Potter Road that is
currently zoned for Ten Acre Parkland Recreation to Forty-two Acres Parkland Recreation. So, if
there’s anyone that like to speak on this public comment, on this public hearing or any questions
about what we’re attempting to do and again, it’s the wooded area that we’re talking about between
Peggy Ann and Potter Road and east of West Mountain Road and approximately eight hundred
sixty-seven acres, anybody at all? Ms. Monahan.
MS. BETTY MONAHAN, Sunnyside Road-Betty Monahan, Sunnyside road. How many owners
are involved in this property?
SUPERVISOR STEC-Off the top of my head, I believe there’s just one.
MS. MONAHAN-So, I take it that’s the city.
SUPERVISOR STEC-I believe so.
MS. MONAHAN-What is the rational for doing this? Normally, when you’re just rezoning a part
of the Town you come up with a rational why you do this in a resolution.
SUPERVISOR STEC-That’s correct, we still do that, yes ma’am. Would you like us to answer the
question?
MS. MONAHAN-Yes, please.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Marilyn, do you have a copy of the notes that we have that we sent on to the
Town Board there, perhaps you could just review briefly?
MARILYN RYBA, Executive Director-Sure thing. Whenever there’s a zoning change or proposed
zoning change there are a list of questions that need to be answered and a copy of this information
was distributed to the Town Board as well as available at the Town Offices and on our website. But
there is a question about a need being met for the proposed zone change and it’s further protection
of watershed lands, open space, endangered species and aesthetics. Well LC-42 Zone currently
SUPERVISOR STEC-PR, PR.
MS. RYBA, Executive Director-Excuse me, PR-42 Zones currently could, well excuse me I was
correct LC-42 Zone currently could be another area to meet a 42 Acre requirement, there are some
uses allowed in LC-42 that might not be appropriate for a watershed area and those uses include bed
and breakfast, commercial boat sales, service, storage, campground, game preserve, hunting and
fishing cabins, kennels, nurseries, and sawmill, chipping, or pallet mills, and sportmen’s club firing
range. Whereas the PR-42 Acre Zone, there is one existing which is just east of I-87 and that just
contains parklands and recreation trails. Essentially, how is this proposed zone compatible with
adjacent zones? That too protect, provide greater protection from influences of development which
surround the PR-10 Zone that includes Single Family Residential One Acre to the north, Urban
Residential, it should be ten thousand square feet to the, and Suburban Residential One Acre to the
east, Suburban Residential twenty thousand square feet to the south and Suburban Residential One
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 393
Acre and Single Family Residential One Acre to the west. Although, the PR Zones allow passive
recreational activities, the City of Glens Falls does not allow any such activities on the watershed
properties. There is some managed timber cutting that takes place. In terms of physical
characteristics, there are large tracks of managed woodland accompanying logging roads. Three of
the four parcels within the area of the proposed change, are already greater then forty-two acres in
size. So that’s one of the reasons. The classification, I think that also goes to why it’s appropriate
to allow the forty-two acre. Currently, the current zone would allow, let’s see, eighty-five single
family homes. The proposed zone would allow twenty single family homes. In terms of
Environmental Impacts, there would be greater protection of endangered species and affiliated
habitat, that endangered species being the Karner Blue Butterfly. And in terms of how it’s
compatible with relevant portions of the Comprehensive Land Use Master Plan there are a number
of references as well as the Open Space Plan Vision and Map and one of the references in the
Comprehensive Land Use Plan relates to there being a watershed zone for these particular areas and
this is one way of affording a watershed zone but yet not creating an additional zone which I know
in the 2002 update people didn’t want to see additional new zones being created. How are the wider
interests of the community being served? Once again, it’s protection of the watershed, public water
supply, protection of endangered species and furthers open space goals. The Planning Board will be
looking at this and providing recommendation during their October 19 meeting.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Alright, thank you.
MS. MONAHAN-Has the City of Glens Falls been notified of this proposed change?
SUPERVISOR STEC-While not required, I did give the City a courtesy call sometime ago.
MS. MONAHAN-That’s what I wondered. Thank you.
SUPERVISOR STEC-You are welcome. Is there anyone else that would like to address the Town
Board on this? Yes, Mr. Irish.
MR. DOUGH IRISH, 8 Buena Vista Ave.-First I’d like to applaud the Town Board for considering
the rezoning of that piece of property. I also would like to urge the Town Board to consider a
zoning that would be even more restrictive because I don’t think that the LC-42 or RC-42 which
ever you’re going to be
SUPERVISOR STEC-PR.
MR. IRISH-PR, would, I think you’d actually create an environment where that land would be even
more desirable to the point where during our Committee For Smart Growth we had one realtor that
was sitting on the Board that envisioned million dollar homes along the reservoirs in there. So, I
think with a larger tract of land you could also have the opposite affect of trying to protect that
property if the City ever decided to sell it off and develop it where you would be creating basically
another effluent neighborhood with you know, high dollar houses in there. I would like to see on a
selfish note because I live in that neighborhood, no development in that area and since it’s
watershed property for the City I would hope that they would agree to that. I mean, I see no
problem with recreational use of the property but to zone it in the fashion that will allow any kind of
construction in there for residential homes, I don’t think is what you really want to do. So, I would
urge you to consider something that will be a little more restrictive for that area.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Thank you, Mr. Irish. Is there anyone else that would like to speak on this
public hearing regarding the rezoning of Parkland Recreation Ten acre Zone to Parkland Recreation
Forty-Two Acre Zone? Anyone on the Town Board have anything to add at this time or from staff?
Okay.
COUNCILMAN STROUGH-It many ways though, Parkland Recreational surprisingly is more
restrictive then
SUPERVISOR STEC-LC.
COUNCILMAN STROUGH-LC.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Absolutely, you’re right, it is, I agree a hundred percent.
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 394
COUNCILMAN BOOR-And I also would add that I don’t know of any other, I don’t know how we
could come up with a stricter zoning for Mr. Irish without definitely having a spot zoning because
we essentially would have to create a zoning that doesn’t exist now.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Right, I agree with Roger.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-And the purpose would be pretty obvious so I don’t think we can go that
route.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Anything from staff or Marilyn, anything more? Thank you for reading that.
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-Is the public hearing closed?
SUPERVISOR STEC-I haven’t closed it yet. I was going to let John, you have
COUNCILMAN STROUGH-I’ve just, I’ve got a couple of questions. One is, why are deleting
Parks Recreation Ten, why don’t we just leave it as an option? I know we’re not using it after this
law is enacted but can’t we leave it on the books in case there is a property that comes around that
might look good for PR-10? I didn’t know why we were deleting Parkland Recreation Ten Acre.
SUPERVISOR STEC-The background on that, I had thought, I had considered that and actually
what I did was I reacted to how, I told them what we were looking to do and the way that it came
back is that they had written to eliminate and that same question crossed my mind and myself
personally, I don’t, I mean that’s really more of a question for an attorney if there’s an advantage to
keeping, although there won’t be anything in PR-10. Is there an advantage to keeping that as a
zoning code even though we don’t have any land that’s zoned that anymore.
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-We thought based on what you guys had asked us to do that since
there were going to be no properties zoned PR-10A that it made sense to make it clear that all
properties that are currently PR-10A will be PR-42A. If the Town Board ever decides that it’s
appropriate to zone other properties in the Town for PR-10A, we can easily put it back in. But right
now, after you’re done, if you do go through with this proposal, there will be no PR-10A and we
thought it was just easy to have it, you know, consistent, do a complete change.
SUPERVISOR STEC-And I can see, I mean, I can see both and to me it really didn’t, I didn’t feel
strongly about it enough to say, let’s undo but I see where you’re coming from.
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-If the Town Board feels strongly, we can, you know put it back in.
SUPERVISOR STEC-I don’t, I personally think it’s a little cleaner not carrying a defunct zoning
code.
COUNCILMAN BREWER-Yea, what’s the purpose of having a zone if we have no property zoned
that.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Especially if you say that it wouldn’t be a tremendous big deal to recreate it
if we ever wanted to in the future. Anybody else, Ted or Tim? Oh, you’ve got more questions, I’m
sorry.
COUNCILMAN STROUGH-Well, Section 8 says that the local law shall take effect immediately
upon filing in the Office of New York State Secretary of State as provided by New York Municipal
Home Rule Law Number 27. Why do we need Section 7 and Section 7 again is that nefarious
Section 7.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-Yup.
COUNCILMAN STROUGH-Where we have to make an option. Do we even need Section 7, I
mean this
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-We don’t in this case, we thought after all the controversy at the last
time, that we would give you both choices again.
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 395
COUNCILMAN STROUGH-Well, why don’t we just
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-If you want to delete it, that is fine.
SUPERVISOR STEC-So, you say the whole section can be deleted? I’m comfortable.
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-Because it will be effective and I know of no applications that are
currently in existence.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Nor do I.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-And because there’s no basis in law for having this, I would also
recommend that we remove it, further more because we are extremely shorthanded with staff, five
and a half personnel. I don’t want to rely on a staff recommendation, as far as an application being
complete. So, I think it’s certainly in the best interest of everybody to remove that language.
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-That’s no problem.
COUNCILMAN STROUGH-Alright, we’ll delete Section 7.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Ted and Tim, alright I’m hearing that we can, let’s do that.
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-And while we’re doing that, can I
SUPERVISOR STEC-Yes.
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-I think for the public, I should mention that we talked with the Town
Board, we talked with Marilyn Ryba, talked with my partner Mark Schachner and we thought that it
would be appropriate to for clarity sake to add Section 4 and I thought I would read it in the record.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Sure.
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-And it just says, the Town Zoning Map of the Town of Queensbury
shall be changed so that all properties currently zoned Parkland Recreation PR-10A shall now be as
of the effective date of this local law, Parkland Recreation PR-42A, and that’s just to clarify that the
map needs to be changed to indicate the change in the zone.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Okay, thank you. Any other questions, John? Yea, that’s fine with me.
John?
COUNCILMAN STROUGH-No.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Okay, and again we won’t be acting on this tonight, I will close the public
hearing and we will take action on this some time later this year, likely November perhaps
December.
PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED
7:29 P.M.
PUBLIC HEARING – Proposed Local Law To Amend Chapter 14 “Code Of Ethics”
Notice Shown
SUPERVISOR STEC-Okay, briefly on this one, I will open the public hearing. The only change
that we’re proposing to the Code of Ethics is that currently the membership or the appointment of
members reads that it must be an unanimous vote of the Town Board, that would be all five
members of the Town Board. We believe that there are situations where it will be impossible if one
member feels that it would be inappropriate for them to participate for example in the appointment
of members to the Ethics Board that, that would make it impossible to fill vacancies. So we’re
proposing here tonight to change from requiring an unanimous vote to at least four members of the
Town Board which would take care of those instances. So, that’s the only change proposed to the
Ethics Code that the Town has and with that, again the public hearing is open if there’s anyone that
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 396
would like to speak regarding this public hearing on the Ethics Code, please just raise your hand.
Anyone at all? Any Town Board Members? Did I cover it thoroughly enough? I think so.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-One question I have. This refers to appointment to the Ethics Board, is
that the same as reappointment?
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-Yes, appointments are for a term and at the end of the term, there’s
no rights to automatically continue. So, an appointment, everyone is a new appointment.
COUNCILMAN BREWER-I do have a question and maybe it’s technical but we have
appointments to make tonight, if we effectively pass this law tonight and it’s not filed, are these
appointments valid?
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-We had talked with, I don’t remember if I’ve had the chance to talk
with all of you.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-Not me, not on if it was valid tonight.
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-But I dealt with how to deal with the fact that you may only have
four votes. I understand that one of the Town Board Members may recuse himself and are opinion
is that under the current law that’s there, that if he says that I am not voting for this reason and that
he wants a vote of the four remaining people who have not recused themselves to be unanimous,
that that on the record with the resolution of the other four Town Board Members and this resolution
would together make the appointments valid.
SUPERVISOR STEC-And we can always, I mean there’s nothing that would stop us in two weeks
to say, reappoint, to reaffirm tonight’s action.
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-There’s no question, reaffirm and ratify.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Okay and while I’m hearing Councilman Brewer’s, technical but I think
valid point. If you could just make a note that we would, you know assuming that we will reappoint
or we appoint two members tonight that our next meeting, we reaffirm that after it’s been filed with
the Secretary of State, Bob.
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-I’d be glad to do that. So, I think that should be the next meeting.
th
SUPERVISOR STEC-Yea, the 18, our next Regular Town Board Meeting.
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-Darleen will probably file it later this week.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-My question would be that until it’s ratified, no ethics claims can be made.
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-No, I think that they can. I think that if the person recuses himself,
goes on the record as I said and the other four, I think that no court could say that wasn’t
unanimous.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Okay, anything else from the Town Board? Anything else from the public?
The public hearing is still open. Alright, seeing none, I’ll close the public hearing. Any further
discussion from the Members of the Town Board?
PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED
7:32 P.M.
RESOLUTION ENACTING LOCAL LAW NO.: 9 OF 2004 TO AMEND
CHAPTER 14 “CODE OF ETHICS”
RESOLUTION NO.: 480, 2004
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 397
INTRODUCED BY: Mr. Tim Brewer
WHO MOVED ITS ADOPTION
SECONDED BY: Mr. John Strough
WHEREAS, the Town Board wishes to consider adoption of Local Law No.: 9 of 2004 to
amend Queensbury Town Code Chapter 14 entitled “Code of Ethics,” to provide that appointment
of members of the Ethics Board should be by super-majority vote of the Town Board rather than by
unanimous vote, and
WHEREAS, this legislation is authorized in accordance with New York State General
Municipal Law §806, and
th
WHEREAS, the Town Board duly held a public hearing on October 4, 2004 and heard all
interested persons, and
WHEREAS, a copy of the proposed Local Law has been presented at this meeting and is in
form approved by Town Counsel,
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT
RESOLVED, that the Queensbury Town Board hereby enacts Local Law No.: 9 of 2004 to
amend Queensbury Town Code Chapter 14 entitled “Code of Ethics,” as presented at this meeting,
and
BE IT FURTHER,
RESOLVED, that the Town Board hereby authorizes and directs the Queensbury Town
Clerk to file the Local Law with the New York State Secretary of State in accordance with the
provisions of the Municipal Home Rule Law and acknowledges that the Local Law will take effect
immediately upon filing with the Secretary of State.
th
Duly adopted this 4 day of October, 2004, by the following vote:
AYES : Mr. Turner, Mr. Strough, Mr. Brewer, Mr. Stec, Mr. Boor
NOES : None
ABSENT: None
LOCAL LAW NO.: 9 OF 2004
A LOCAL LAW TO AMEND CHAPTER 14 “CODE OF ETHICS” OF
QUEENSBURY TOWN CODE
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 398
BE IT ENACTED BY THE TOWN BOARD OF THE TOWN OF QUEENSBURY AS
FOLLOWS:
SECTION 1. PURPOSE.
The maintenance of full membership of the Town Ethics Board
is essential for accomplishment of its purpose. However, it is sometimes difficult for the Town
Board to reach unanimity on appointment of members. Therefore, in order to accommodate some
diversity of opinion within the Town Board while maintaining full membership of the Ethics Board,
appointment of members of the Ethics Board should be by super-majority vote of the Town Board
rather than by unanimous vote.
SECTION 2. AMENDMENT. Section 14-6(B)(1)
of the Queensbury Town Code is
hereby amended to read as follows:
B. Members.
(1) The Ethics Board shall consist of five members, each of whom shall be appointed by
at least four members of
unanimous vote of the Town Board. All members must
reside in the Town of Queensbury. After written notice and opportunity to reply,
any member may be removed by unanimous vote of the Town Board for substantial
neglect of duty, gross misconduct in office, inability to discharge the powers or
duties of office or violation of this chapter.
3. SEVERABILTY.
The invalidity of any clause, sentence, paragraph or provision of
this Local Law shall not invalidate any other clause, sentence, paragraph or part thereof.
4. REPEALER.
All Local Laws or ordinances or parts of Local Laws or ordinances
in conflict with any part of this Local law are hereby repealed.
5. EFFECTIVE DATE.
This Local Law shall take effect upon filing in the office of
the New York State Secretary of State.
CONTINUATION OF PUBLIC HEARING – Proposed Local Law To Amend Town Code
Concerning Purpose And Establishment Of Professional Office Zones And Amendment Of
Town Code Tables Concerning Residential Uses
Notice Shown
7:33 P.M.
SUPERVISOR STEC-This public hearing was left opened at a previous Town Board Meeting, it
was a very lengthy public hearing. I believe the public hearing at that time lasted three hours. If
there’s anything new, we don’t want to discourage anyone but bear in mind that we had a full three
hours on this so if we can avoid repeating ourselves, that would be appreciated. With that said, the
public hearing is open, if there’s anyone that would like to address the Town Board on this proposed
local law, please just raise your hand. Yes, sir and again, as before we just ask that you step
forward, state your name and address for the record please.
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 399
MR. JERRY ARGAY-Jerry Argay, 27 Surrey Field, Queensbury. I have a letter I’d like to read, I
did send to Mr. Stec. I’ve heard several different comments in regards to this letter and I’d just like
to read it clarify it, the content of the letter to the Board and to the members at large. (read letter
into the record)
October 1, 2004
Mr. Daniel G. Stec, Town Supervisor
Queensbury Town Board
742 Bay Road
Queensbury, NY 12804
Dear Mr. Stec:
We, the members of the Board of Directors of the Surrey Field Homeowners
Association, and representing the Surrey Field Homeowners, request that the zoning change
for the proposed 174 unit apartment complex and office building to be built on the property
at the corner of Bay Road and Blind Rock Road be voted down by the Queensbury Town
Board.
There is much concern, even now, regarding the traffic on Bay Road and the flow of
this traffic, from the various senior housing developments and the students and/or staff of
the Adirondack Community College along with the other daily traffic on this road.
Concern should also be given to the drain on the municipal water system and the
lack of public sewers.
We at Surrey Fields are opposed to this type of development and think serious
consideration should be given to traffic flow, water, sewer and the school system before any
further home or business construction is done.
Thank you for your consideration of our request.
Very truly yours,
Jerry Argay, President
Surrey Field Homeowners Association
(letter on file in the Town Clerk’s Office)
SUPERVISOR STEC-Thank you and I acknowledge I did receive that letter and I believe I copied
the Town Board on it and I was working on a response that I didn’t get out today but I was planning
on trying to get out tomorrow. Thank you, sir. Is there anyone else? Yes, ma’am.
MS. KATHY SONNABEND-My name is Kathy Sonnabend, I live at 55 Cedar Court. This issue
has been very confusing for the public to follow.
SUPERVISOR STEC-I agree wholeheartedly.
MS. SONNABEND-And having attended several of the meetings recently, I think the problem is
that there’s been a difference of opinion with respect to the current zoning code. According to the
st
discussion among the Planning Board Members on September 21 and in testimony at the Town
th
Board’s public hearing on September 13, there are many people who have been involved, either
are currently involved or were formally involved in government who believe that the zoning code
indicates only professional offices can be constructed in the first thousand feet from Bay Road.
Unfortunately, apparently our Town Attorney says that no, that’s not the way the law reads that it
does make it possible for apartments to also be constructed during the first thousand feet. So, as a
result, the publics been very confused and I know what Surrey Field was trying to indicate was that
they think only professional offices should be in that first thousand feet and the reason that I know it
is a very large majority of their residents have signed the petition that I’m going to be submitting
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 400
tonight to the Town Board. This is not all of the petition signatures tonight, I have with me five
hundred and eighty-one residents of the Town of Queensbury from all over the Town that has
signed this petition. We have more signatures that just haven’t been brought in yet but I know they
exist and we will be continuing to collect signatures until when and if, we’re assuming that this
proposal for the hundred and seventy-four unit apartment complex does go before the Planning
Board, it is the subject of an open hearing which was tabled at the last meeting but it is scheduled
th
assuming that the hearing tonight closes, to be held at the Planning Board Meeting on October 26,
so we’ll be also submitting copies of these same signatures as well as additional ones. I’d like to
read into the record what this petition says. (read the following into the record – on file in the Town
Clerk’s Office)
We, the undersigned citizens strongly urge the Queensbury Planning Board and our elected
representatives on the Town Board to do the following:
Maintain the integrity of the Professional Office Zoning of the Bay Road corridor, as
envisioned in the current Town Zoning Code and Comprehensive Land Use Plan, and as
implemented since the re-zoning in 2002. Professional offices improve our job and tax
base, generating more tax revenue than additional burden for services and contribute to the
development of a town center.
Reject the above captioned site plan No. 56-2004 and application in whole, regardless of the
political influence of the property owners. Any additional high density residential housing
in the neighborhood of the Bay Road corridor will erode our tax base, exacerbating already
strained municipal services, road, sewer, school etcetera while generating insufficient tax
revenue.
Develop an updated plan for balanced and desirable land use and growth for all of
Queensbury, to enhance the quality of life and economic viability for generations to come.
We need to prepare to take advantage of the good jobs generated by the anticipated Luther
Forest Nanotechnology Park, but only 3% of our town is currently zoned commercial.
This is a grass roots petition effort. I conceived this idea after attending that very long Town Board
th
Meeting on the 13. This petition has been distributed by many individuals, citizens in the Town of
Queensbury on a voluntary basis, no one is doing this because of their job or their desire to run for
political office and we did not put pressure on anyone to sign this. Most people we spoke with were
already very concerned about growth in Queensbury. Some because they were so new to the
community, didn’t know much about it, very few people refused to sign and most of the ones who
refused to sign told me it was because of their jobs or their connections politically in Town while
they agreed with us, they weren’t comfortable being able to make that a public position. The other
concerns that have come up involve, if this proposal were to be seriously considered the fact that on
that property, there’s some very steep grades and wetlands area and in addition to that particular
proposal, we also have a proposal off of Oakwood which also involves a very steep grade and what
we’re concerned about is if developers are allowed to level off, to cut off the hills and fill in the
valleys so that a lot of these grades are eliminated, that we’re going to be opening up Pandora’s
Box. The build-out study which still has not been released is based upon developing all currently
residential zoned property in the Town of Queensbury that has a grade not greater then fifteen
percent and based on that, they indicate that we could have about another nineteen thousand people
in this Town if all of that land were developed. Well, if we start allowing properties with grades of
twenty-five percent as we find in these two proposals I just mentioned, then we’re opening up for
much, much greater development and a lot of it north of Bay Road adding to the congestion and
also eliminating a lot of the beauty in this area. We do not want Queensbury to look like Long
Island, we want to maintain our hills and forests. One last point, I’ve heard that the Planning
Committee or Planning Board asked for a moratorium several months ago and I’m hearing a lot of
residents as we pass around this petition asking, why aren’t we having a moratorium. I know the
PORC Committee intends to do a good and thorough job trying to reconcile our Comprehensive
Land Use Plan and Zoning Code and bring it up to date and start out by talking to the community
and finding out what we really want. Why not give them the time? Why didn’t we put this on the
ballot to find out what residents want, what the voters want rather then Dan, you deciding that no
we didn’t need a moratorium?
SUPERVISOR STEC-For starters, Dan didn’t decide, I’m one of five.
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 401
MS. SONNABEND-Okay.
SUPERVISOR STEC-And I don’t recall that there was ever a vote on the moratorium by this Town
Board.
MS. SONNABEND-And that’s, I’m wondering why we didn’t pursue this idea? The Planning
Board and the Zoning Board I understand, both wanted to have a moratorium and the citizens in this
Town from the work I’ve done also would like to have a moratorium. We should be putting this to
a vote.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Now, that I’m not sure if that’s even a feasibility. Bob, is that an appropriate
thing that could possibly go on the ballot?
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-If there’s a moratorium, it’s something that’s done by the Town
Board.
UNKNOWN-Can’t hear.
SUPERVISOR STEC-What he’s saying, go ahead Bob, if you could speak into the microphone.
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-I said the moratorium is something that would be adopted by the
Town Board.
MS. SONNABEND-You never put that kind of thing out for vote?
SUPERVISOR STEC-State law is very specific what can and can’t go out to a vote.
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-I believe that if they do pass a local law which would adopt the
moratorium that that would be subject to permissive referendum which could go out to vote, if you
had enough people like your petition that you’re talking about here. But that’s, you know a very
rare thing that you get enough people doing a petition properly.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-Just so I understand, cause I’m a little bit confused now too. Are you
saying that you can not put on a ballot a question asking if the citizens want to have a moratorium,
is that what you were saying?
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-I said that you guys could first
COUNCILMAN BOOR-No, that’s not what
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-You guys would first have to pass a local law adopting a moratorium
and that action by you guys could be subject to a referendum.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-That’s not my question though.
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-Okay.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-My question is, can a Town Board put on a ballot in an election year,
would you like to have us have a hundred and twenty day, six month, one year, whatever
moratorium on subdivision construction, could that be done?
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-I believe that you could.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-Okay, thank you.
MS. SONNABEND-That’s
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-I believe that if
COUNCILMAN BOOR-That’s all I needed to know.
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 402
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-You would first have to take your own action that that is what you
wanted to do
COUNCILMAN BOOR-Oh, absolutely.
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-And then, most things in New York if they’re subject to permissive
referendum, the Town Board can say we’ll put it to mandatory referendum. I would like to check
that out, that’s something I did not expect to be fielding tonight.
SUPERVISOR STEC-I was going to say, I would imagine that that’s the kind of thing that you
would want to research.
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-Yes, I can get back to you before the next meeting with that answer.
SUPERVISOR STEC-I think that would be fine.
MS. SONNABEND-The last thing I would like to say and maybe this will help keep the meeting a
little bit shorter, I would like to ask anyone in the audience who has signed this petition, shares these
general concerns to please stand up so that it’s obvious to the Board how many people here have
those concerns cause I know not everybody is comfortable coming up here nor do we have the time.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Alright, thank you, thank you everyone. Is there anyone else that would like
to speak on this public hearing tonight? Anyone at all? Yes ma’am.
MS. MONAHAN-Betty Monahan, Sunnyside Road. It just happened that today I was talking to a
member of the committee that worked on the rezoning in the Master Plan that was finally adopted in
1988, they were rather surprised about this discussion because even back then the intent was that
Bay Road would be Professional Offices. Ted, you worked with that committee I know. I do
happen to have the minutes of those meetings home, it’s in a folder three inches thick all of the
meetings they had, the minutes and all of the raw data that was given them to backup their work of
all of the various things that need to be considered that have an impact on good planning for the
Town. It was probably one of the best jobs that this Town has ever done in the matter of planning
and I think, you know I would ask the Town Board to go back and look at the history of what has
been done by previous committees and commissions on the zoning of Bay Road in particularly.
And at that time we did have a moratorium in place, we started off, I forget if it was four or six
months and it was extended, if my memory serves me correctly, it was extended to a year and a half
finally through a couple of different extensions, in order to give the committee time and opportunity
to do the job they needed and were asked to do. Now, we did this after we asked the, what was the
Planning Department at that time to check the number of lots that already had been approved for
Single Family Homes so that we knew that building could go on while the moratorium was in effect
and I think that’s one thing you forget, that when a moratorium is talked about we do have single
lots and I don’t know if that has ever been, if we have a build-out now that we know how many lots
are out there approved to be built on or not, but it certainly would be easy, I know we’re
understaffed unfortunately, but it is an easy figure to arrive at. So, I think you need to go back and
look at the history and see what’s always been the intent along Bay Road and what’s in the record
and I think you maybe need to go back and look at some of the old site plan reviews and the
comments on that when they came in front of the Planning Board so you really get a handle on what
has happened in this town and why it’s happened and the comments of the Planning Board when
these projects came in front of them. Thank you.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Thank you, Ms. Monahan. Anyone else like to speak? Yes, in the back, Mr.
Auer.
MR. DOUG AUER-Good evening, Doug Auer, 16 Oakwood Drive. What I’d like to do is call your
attention to something that I have up on the easel and this speaks to some issues that are in the
population projection build-out study which we’re still waiting for. By the way, the changes that are
to be incorporated in this could be handled in an errata sheet which is one piece of paper. So, I
implore you to please get copies of this thing out or at least make this available on the website, most
people have access, they could print it themselves. But what I have up here is a plan for a
subdivision on Oakwood Drive and the dark area that you see there, by the way, there’s five lots
that are shown subdivided there. Now, the dark area is what developers are required to show as for
slopes that are greater then twenty-five percent and that area has to be removed from the overall
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 403
area of that, it’s kind of a long rectangle, you have to remove that area that’s twenty-five percent
slope and for those folks that don’t know what a twenty-five percent slope is, it means for every
hundred feet that you go horizontally, you go up twenty-five feet, that’s a fairly steep slope. Now,
this build-out analysis that we have here says, we’re going to remove fifteen percent slopes. Well,
guess what, we’ve got twenty-five percent slopes on that and on the flipside of that easel that I have,
we also have the PO Zone area which is, which they’re talking about for a hundred seventy-four
unit apartment complex. So, what I’m getting at here is developers can be very clever as to how
they present, thank you very much, now that’s the subdivision land without showing the actual
footprint of the buildings that are going on it but you can see those contour lines on there and I have,
would roughly guess that twenty-five percent of that area is also in excess of twenty-five percent.
They didn’t put that on there by the way, that’s going to come up again at Planning Board but what
people need to know is that they’re asking for making a waiver, for getting a waiver on this twenty-
five percent. On the other side, piece that we had up before, they would be asking to get a waiver
for that land to include it in it and not exclude it so that they could get five lots in there instead of
three, if they subtracted the lots out, it would only get three. Now, this is not a matter of hardship
because I can tell you these houses are going to sell for a million dollars a piece. So, when we talk
about the code, your own code, Article XIII, talks about waivers and if you read that it kind of
eludes that this would be a case of a hardship. Well, it’s a case of a hardship where a person has a
piece of property, they want to build a house on it and perhaps the code doesn’t quite allow them
because of the area of it, then either the Planning Board can say, well, okay, we’ll make an
exception. What this is doing is it’s pert abating the entire plan so I, I am of the mind that this,
worse case scenario that we have in this build-out analysis could be even a worse case scenario then
the worse case scenario because again, I just came back from Charleston, South Carolina and I can
tell you they are building down there like you can not believe and you know, they really don’t care
about the schools. Charleston, South Carolina is rated worst in the country, they say this, they say,
well, we’ll send them to private schools, that what folks down there do. They don’t worry about
public education, it’s off the radar screen. So, what, I, I, again, professional office is precious,
precious land, we have so little of it available. This consideration and the lady that spoke before me,
very eloquently outlined what the issue is and the confusion associated with it, it is a bit arcane and
it is confusing but make no mistake about it, the folks that are in this room understand exactly
what’s going on. They understand that professional office is important, is what we want.
Developers who have developed on Bay Road have done exactly that. Take a ride up there now on
the way home and you’ll see what’s beautiful. I mean, some people might take some exception to
the Sodium Vapor Lamps that we have but hey, you know, you can always change the wattage on
that too if that’s important, I happen to don’t think it’s a problem but take a look at it, it’s not bad
and this is a business corridor. So, let’s pay attention to our code, let’s stick to what the code says
and that’s what your Planning Board understands, they believe they have the tools sufficient to
make a decision and I think the folks in this room very well understand what that decision is going
to be. Thank you.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Thank you, Mr. Auer. Anyone else like to speak at this public hearing
regarding this proposed zoning change? Yes, Ms. Bramley.
MS. JOANNE BRAMLEY-Joanne Bramley, Twicwood Lane. The Planning Board has
recommended to you that the zoning does not need to be changed at this time. I don’t think I have
to read directly from their decision.
SUPERVISOR STEC-I’m going to have the decision read later.
MS. BRAMLEY-The residents of Queensbury has expressed their concerns via petition, public
attendance and publicly addressing you, the Board. The Comprehensive Land Use Plan in the very
first page, it says a vision statement and it calls for and I quote, government to be responsive to the
needs of the citizens, to consider reduction in regulation where possible and that citizens plan an
active role in the Town’s decision making. When is it that the residents concerns are adhered to? If
we come to the Board in small numbers, we are told that we are not representative enough of the
public. When we participate in mass, we are still dismissed. The general public was not allowed to
sit on the newly formed on PORC Committee designed to assess the many issues facing growth in
our Town. We have public hearings and when we do, our concerns, and when do our concerns
count enough to get your vote? The votes that you received that enabled you to sit in the positions
that you do on this Board came from the people that are here in this room. Now we want your vote.
I challenge you to vote with integrity on this issue, to acknowledge the recommendation of the
Planning Board, the intent of the Comprehensive Land Use Plan, the 179 Zoning Code and the
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 404
public input that you received at the first hearing as well as this evening. The previous developers
were directed to adhere to the Professional Office Code vision for this corridor. It is unresponsive
to the residents and to the intent of the law to entertain an exception requested by Mr. O’Connor for
his project. And would each of you please outline how it is that it would be in the best interest of
the Town to do so? Is that something that could be answered tonight, that last question?
SUPERVISOR STEC-I think we’ll probably get to it when we have our discussion.
MS. BRAMLEY-Thank you.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Thank you. Is there anyone else that would like to speak regarding this
public hearing this evening? Anyone at all? Anyone first time at all before I allow a second time?
Ms. Monahan.
MS. MONAHAN-I just have one question and really it relates to planning in the whole, you know,
the whole bit of planning. Why when you have just appointed a committee to look at planning
throughout this Town and to look at all of the impacts and what should influence planning, why is
this Board all of sudden doing bit by bit rezoning and not giving them a time to do their job? You
are making their job much harder then it needs to be.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Thank you. Is there anyone else that would like to speak on this public
hearing tonight? Anybody at all from the public? Town Board Members?
COUNCILMAN BREWER-First of all, I think there’s a lot of, I know there’s a lot of confusion.
The Town Board, not Tim Brewer brought this change to be. What the change was, is one of the
Town Board Members wanted to change the existing zoning that is in place today as I understand it
and I’m just going to give you an outline of how I understand this so you’ll understand what I’m
saying and how I’m going to vote. I’m presuming a person heard about a development that was
across the street that this Board has no purview to review, approve or deny. The change brought to
the PO Zone, as I read this law and I understand it is that, that particular development across the
street was at the Planning Board would be excluded from the law as it is today. In other words,
what that person is developing, whether it’s Mike O’Connor or Joe Blow or Betty Monahan or Tim
Brewer is allowed, whether we agree with it or we don’t agree with it, it’s an allow, Betty, don’t, I
didn’t shake my head to you, you don’t have to shake your head to me, I’m telling you how I
understand it. I’ve asked the attorney, I’ve asked other attorneys, whether I think, I think
personally, that development shouldn’t go there and I think it probably won’t get approved and I
said that previously. But to arbitrarily pick one development in this Town and try to cut it off at the
knees by changing the law to prevent that I think is wrong, personally, that’s my own opinion. Let
it go through the process, when you five hundred people come to the meeting and the Planning
Board sees you and hears your reasons, they’re reasonable people, they’ve created what we have on
Bay Road right now. I was part of that process for nine years on the Planning Board. So, for us to
intervene and jump ahead of the Planning Board and to change the rules in the middle of the game,
when Betty so eloquently speaks of our Zoning Code, it says in there since 1988 that we should
grandfather pending applications, I take that seriously and it’s in the code but not everybody reads
that and I read it at the last Town Board Meeting when we talked about this topic. I’m going to do
what the Planning Board said, leave the law alone because that’s what they asked us to do at this
time. So, this law that’s pending I’m going to vote to not vote for it because I’m doing what the
Planning Board asked us and what a lot of people have asked us but I think the deficiency in this is,
the people really don’t understand the law. If the people in my mind understood the law, they
would ask us to change the law, not do nothing with it and that’s what I have to say and if anybody
wants to talk to me more about it, I’m more then willing to anytime. But that’s how I see the
process and it would be no more fair to us to go to Aviation Mall and say, ‘you know what, we’re
not going to allow Malls there anymore because Target is coming there and five hundred people or
three hundred people or nine hundred people don’t like Target’. It’s unfair. Let it go through the
process and I think you’ll have a product that you’ll be proud of. Whether it gets approved or
disapproved, I think if everybody gives the process a fair shake, it will work because it has in the
past on Bay Road as you see it today.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Any other Board Members? Did I interrupt Tim, are you done?
COUNCILMAN BREWER-I’m done.
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 405
SUPERVISOR STEC-Other Board Members? Public hearing is still open, any other Board
Members at this time?
COUNCILMAN STROUGH-Yea, I’ve got a few things.
UNKNOWN-Speak up.
COUNCILMAN STROUGH-Well, for one thing and you know, I’ve spoke to this matter at length
in a prior Town Board Meeting and at the Citizens for Queensbury Meeting and gave all the reasons
in the world why we should maintain the integrity of Professional Office Zoning. First and
foremost, it is Professional Office Zoning which to anybody in anybody’s mind one thing comes up
and ain’t apartments. Our number goal, our number one priority should be to adhere to the
Professional Office Zone as envisioned in the Comprehensive Land Use Plan, as envisioned in our
Town Law 179. All the developers who have developed professional offices along Bay Road have
been told that is the appropriate kind of development next to the arterial, from Mr. Schermerhorn to
Mr. Valente to even Mr. O’Connor himself because he does have an application that was proposed
that I voted in favor of for professional offices. Now, somebody somewhere told someone that’s
what’s going in next to Bay Road, period. I mean, you didn’t see any of them, any of the
developers offer, not even offer or try and get apartments or residential zoning. It just, someone told
them somewhere and whoever told them, told them appropriately. Now to allow an exception, for
me is wrong. Now, I know that the applicant that we’ve referenced who is proposing a hundred
and seventy-four apartments on the corner of Blind Rock Road and Bay Road did a successful,
according to our attorneys a petition, a Protest Petition which requires anything we do up here
tonight or in the future regarding a change in zoning on the Bay Road Corridor to be a four out of
five vote. Now, it makes me just wonder what was said to those people who did sign the Protest
Petition. Okay. No one is going to lose their horses, okay. If someone was told that they’re going
to lose their horse farm, that just isn’t come into play here. You know and even a reference was
made to available office space that is not being taken and one of the references was to TV-8
Building. I don’t think TV-8 is out of there, so maybe that’s why that’s not available. There’s
seven changes being offered in the Professional Office Zoning Code and I’ve got a brief summary
of them. One is to amend the language to clarify the purpose of the Professional Office District to
assure that we get beautiful high quality offices that will be residential friendly. I wonder if the
people that signed that Protest Petition, if that was what they were against. Was that it? I don’t
think so. The next item, the next change is to assure that we have Professional Offices in
Professional Office Zoning especially in the first five hundred feet, okay, from an arterial. That’s
one of the changes. Maybe, maybe that’s the one they were opposed to. Maybe it wasn’t. The
next amendment that office and residential language and clarifying the setbacks, that language is
being altered to clarify the setbacks. The fourth item is to amend the Professional Office Zoning to
allow personal service businesses as accessory and subordinate. There’s nothing alarming there but
I wonder if that’s why they signed the Protest Petition. I bet you they weren’t even told what
exactly is being amended here and I’ve got three more. That service facilities shall be located and
housed within the Professional Office Buildings, I think most people would want that. Sixth item,
we’re going to clarify the density for multifamily units, something that needed to be done. Was that
what they were protesting against, the clarification of the density for multifamily units? I don’t
think so. Clarify the floor area ratio requirement for Professional Office Use. You know, what
aspect? They’re seven items here. Which one when those people signed that Protest Petition, did
they think they were signing? I bet you it was never made clear to them what they were signing and
I would also like to make clear that anybody that signed that Protest Petition can withdraw their
signature. There is a formal route you have to take but you can withdraw that signature. Now,
some other questions exist. One of the items, one of the changes in Professional Office Zoning
that’s being suggested is that we, that Professional Office Use be allowed, be the only allowed use
within the first five hundred feet of an arterial. Now the Planning Board is a little bit upset with us
that we said only five hundred feet. The Planning Board made it quite clear prior to their resolution,
quite clear, the majority, the consensus of the Planning Board was one thousand feet. We don’t
think there should be anything in that Bay Road Corridor within one thousand feet of an arterial
other then Professional Offices. Professional Offices within the one thousand feet, that’s the only
thing that should be there. So, we’re going to send this Zoning Ordinance back to the Town Board
telling them it does not need to be clarified, we understand it. We understand it clearly, Professional
Offices only within a thousand feet of the arterial. The Planning Board, the Warren County
Planning Board had some questions. If you’re going to adopt a change in your Professional Office
Law, and you’re saying five hundred foot setback, does that include parking areas, buildings, other
amenities? They wanted the clarification. Another thing that might need a clarification, if we’re
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 406
talking about five hundred feet or we’re talking about a thousand feet, from where? Is this from the
center of Bay Road? Is this from the pavement’s edge? Is this from the setback? It’s not stated.
We don’t know. Now, also in today’s application or in today’s public hearing regarding
Professional Office Zoning, there is that either or situation that most of you and you’re pretty savvy
to what’s going on by now, are aware of. We’re either, if we do adopt this law tonight, there’s two
versions. One version is to allow any applications that are complete to go forward. In other words,
to go to the Planning Board. The other version of that is no, we want to make it clear to all
applicants whether you’ve applied now or you’re going to apply in the future, we just want
Professional Offices in a Professional Office Corridor like the Comprehensive Land Use Plan and
Code 179 states. Okay. Is the application complete? That’s the key. Has anybody, has the
Planning Board deemed the application complete?
COUNCILMAN BREWER-I would presume it is, it’s on the agenda.
COUNCILMAN STROUGH-Because it’s on the agenda doesn’t mean it’s complete.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Staff, do you have an answer whether or not it’s deemed complete?
MS. MARILYN RYBA, Executive Director-Applications are reviewed by two members of the
Planning Board as well as staff to determine whether the application is complete enough for review
by the Planning Board.
SUPERVISOR STEC-And did they make the decision whether it was complete?
MS. RYBA, Executive Director-In terms of having it go onto the agenda, yes.
COUNCILMAN STROUGH-But what’s the definition of complete?
COUNCILMAN BREWER-Well, you can spin that all night long John.
COUNCILMAN STROUGH-Well, what I’m saying is
SUPERVISOR STEC-Is there, in their term, in their term completeness, is it complete in the sense
that we’ve used the word complete before in other determinations like this?
MS. RYBA, Executive Director-In other determinations, yes.
COUNCILMAN STROUGH-If there is wetland, have they finished the Freshwater Wetlands
Application? Is this going to be sewered, have they submitted a Sewer Map, Plan and Report? I
mean, I’m just questioning whether it really is complete. In any event, I’ll save that for later, in any
event it almost begs the question, several times tonight the question of a moratorium has been
brought up. Now with the Community Development Department being up to five and a half people
short and internal position changes that could take place, I’m just wondering if maybe you know it
is that time for us to consider at least a thirty day moratorium against newly proposed residential
subdivisions and give the Community Development Department a little bit of relief. But that’s it for
now.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Okay, anyone else on the Town Board? Again, the public hearing is still
open, we’ll take more comment.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-Well, I’ll go and John you are a tough act to follow, a lot of what you said
would have been things I would have liked to have incorporated. I do want to clarify something that
was said earlier tonight that I believe is not correct and that’s this proposal to clarify, make more
understandable, make it easier for the applicant to understand and for the board reviewing the
application to reach a decision. What we are really looking for here is clarity and the clarity started
long, long before Mr. O’Connor’s project ever was on the radar screen. We had very serious
discussions this Town Board right here relative to a Gurney Lane Rezoning for Professional Office
and during those discussions it became very apparent unanimously to this Board that certain
portions of our code were incomplete and did not give good direction and they were Professional
Office. The beauty is, the vision, the people who crafted the Comprehensive Land Use Plan and
wrote the zoning recognized the Bay Road Corridor as something special and they were wise
enough to put strong language in that portion of the Professional Office Zoning so that I’m not
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 407
overly concerned with Mr. O’Connor’s project. I think the Planning Board does have it right but the
reality is, that the reason we address this Professional Office Zoning to begin with is because Mr.
O’Connor’s property is not the only Professional Office property in the Town. We have it on
Sherman Avenue, we have it on Western Avenue, we have it on West Mountain Road. So, what
were we really trying to do, we were trying to solidify Professional Office Zoning on a town-wide
basis. So, after we rezoned the Gurney Lane property to Professional Office, we took on the
endeavor of working on language to clarify the Professional Office Zoning and here again, John
took the lead and he did a wonderful job right down to the architecture of where the, the trash, the
trash was going to be stored. It was even suggested that maybe we do not want to allow any
residential in Professional Office Zoning. Much discussion took place, there was some back and
forth. We have a correspondence from Marilyn Ryba that states that staff has spent over one
hundred hours working on this Professional Office Rezoning and it did not include, I believe some
staff, some other portions of it. As February or March rolled along, I had a discussion with Chris
Round who had been inadvertently talking about, you know moratoriums aren’t necessarily a bad
thing. He didn’t suggest that we should have one but he certainly was illuminating some issues that
he was concerned about and he also said, brought to my attention that Mr. O’Connor was looking at
a property across the street and he was going to put nothing but multifamily residential on it. I went
to Supervisor Stec, I said, we’ve got to get moving on this, let’s not let this get too far along, I don’t
want him putting a lot of time and effort into it. If we’re going to do something, let’s get on it and
that’s when everything ground to a halt. And, as a matter of fact about a month later, Mr. O’Connor
and the Post Star said, Mr. Boor is not the kind of Republican we thought he was. You know, and I
want to tell you right now Mr. O’Connor that, in my mind, I’m the kind of Republican that would
never do anything that would increase people’s taxes inadvertently, I would never show special
interest greater latitude then I would the general public and I care very much about how this Town
looks now and in the future. And then subsequently the Planning Board made an unanimously
recommendation to this Board for a moratorium and Mr. Strough and myself were in full support of
that and I regret to this day, having not polled this Board because it should have come to a vote.
You deserve it, you should know where your elected officials stand on these issues. It shouldn’t be,
keep going back to staff, and well, what do you think, what do you think? We’re the, this is where
the buck , buck stops right here, these five people. So, I was really, I’m very upset with myself for
having not done that. Three members of the Board did not support the moratorium. So, as things
progressed we eventually got to the point where, alright, we’ve got to look at distance, obviously,
John’s idea of totally eliminating residential from Professional Office was not going to fly with this
Board. So we said alright, we’ve got to come up with a distance or some kind of criteria so that we
can preserve what is Professional Office. I mean, as John pointed out quite well, I mean when I say
Professional Office, I don’t think you think of apartments and I hope you don’t think of apartments.
So, for the next, I don’t know when, I don’t want to mischaracterize but for a month or so, the five
hundred figure was banded around and there was some private discussions that I won’t go into
about how this could possibly pulled off and then, one Sunday, Supervisor Stec you were seen with
Mr. O’Connor by one of these Board Members and the following Monday was the first time this
Board had ever heard of an exemption. You know, coincidence, perhaps but it was the first time
and what upset me the most is that if we’re going to function as a five person board we have to work
together. I do not want to believe you are an agent for Mr. O’Connor, I want to believe you are an
agent for the people of this Town and if I can’t trust, if I feel I’m not getting information that is
pertinent that I should be getting as an Elected Office, how can I possibly represent my
constituents? When I learned of this exemption now and this was a testy little workshop I might
add, this is where Mr. O’Connor said that there would be no more then sixteen students in these
hundred and seventy-four apartments, and I took exception to that also. So, two days later I went to
the Town Clerk and I said I need forms to file a complaint with the Ethics Board and I got the forms
and I went home and the next day I received a phone call from Darleen Dougher and said, ‘we’ve
got a problem’. And I said, ‘yes, well, what’s the problem’? ‘Well, two members of the Ethics
Board terms have expired, I told Dan you’ve got to get them reappointed before you can submit
your forms’. That was seven weeks ago. Seven weeks ago and now we’re here tonight, we’re
going to make a decision on this and I was unable to file my complaint with the Ethics Board.
Coincidentally, we’re going to be doing that same resolution tonight but it’s not going to do me any
good now and these are the types of things that I find very disconcerting and troubling. A board
should not function like this. We should be working together. We do not have to agree, I don’t
want us to always agree, otherwise it only take one of us, we wouldn’t all have to be here but we’ve
got to work together, we’ve got to be honest and we’ve got to share information even if it’s
information that may not help our case. And I would only ask that the Planning Board stick with
the firm determination that they showed the other night. I truly believe that they understand the Bay
Road Corridor as it is related in the Master Plan and in the Zoning but I think it’s important for them
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 408
to understand that the real reason we asked for the five hundred foot setback was not for the Bay
Road Corridor but for other Professional Office Zones that existed in the Town. So, I have the
confidence that they will probably do the job and because of the success of Mr. O’Connor’s
petition, I doubt very seriously that this Board is going to make a decision which in and of itself is
pretty sad, that an outsider can essentially render a board useless. Not what you want to see and
certainly not from an upstanding committeeman, you know, that’s not what your role should be and
I take exception to you interfering in this Town business and I’ll leave it at that.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Roger, are you done throwing your mud?
COUNCILMAN BOOR-For the moment I am.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Alright, just as a point of clarification. Councilman Turner, you were on
vacation for the last four weeks.
COUNCILMAN TURNER-Yup.
SUPERVISOR STEC-You got back into Town Saturday, right?
COUNCILMAN TURNER-Yea, correct.
SUPERVISOR STEC-The way that the law currently stands on the Ethics Board, we needed to
make this change so that four people not five are required. The fifth person holding us up, Roger
was you, seven weeks ago saying that you didn’t want any part in participating in appointing or
reappointing two members. So, you’re the reason, you were the reason for the hold up.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-Hey, four from seven, what is that? Three weeks, Dan.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Three weeks and we had a workshop and then Ted was gone.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-The bottom line is you weren’t going to reappoint and if you want to get
into that mudslinging, I’ll do that also.
SUPERVISOR STEC-I was ready and well, we needed four.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-No, you, there was one person that you weren’t ready to reappoint and if
you want to get into it, we’ll get into it.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Not me.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-Well.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Not me and well, let’s be honest here Roger.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-Let’s be honest.
SUPERVISOR STEC-You know I’ve been sitting here for several weeks now listening to you and
some of your pals.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-Okay, that’s it.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Say things that aren’t true, Roger.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-Okay, here’s the truth.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Well, Roger I just want to be true.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-Alright then, you opened the door, here you go.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Well, just
COUNCILMAN BOOR-You opened the door, you’re going to get it okay.
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 409
SUPERVISOR STEC-Okay, Roger.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-We’ve got five members on the Board of Ethics, okay. One of them, this
Board was not going to reappoint, the other four who I have tremendous respect for, two I don’t
even know who they are, never met them, one of them and this is, this is to, this is to hear a
complaint against the Warren County Chairman, one of them is the Treasurer for the Warren
County Republican Committee. Another one is a committee member and the other two are
Endorsed Republican Candidates in previous elections. Now, the only one that doesn’t have an
affiliation like that, this Board was not going to appoint. So, I rest my case.
SUPERVISOR STEC-And this Board, Roger, I don’t think we need, let’s be professional and let’s
keep a certain level of decorum here.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-What?
SUPERVISOR STEC-But you didn’t participate in those discussions and the rest of us did and
Councilman Strough was there and John
COUNCILMAN BOOR-I’ll keep going and it gets worse, buddy.
SUPERVISOR STEC-And John, you correct me if I’m wrong, John, did I express concern about
the mix of the Board because of that thing and did you or did you not say, that you did not have a
concern with it?
MS. MONAHAN-Dan, excuse me.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Ms. Monahan.
MS. MONAHAN-You’re in the middle, wait a minute, you’re in the middle of a public hearing.
SUPERVISOR STEC-We are.
MS. MONAHAN-And I don’t see what this has got to do with the public hearing that’s under
SUPERVISOR STEC-That’s fine.
MS. MONAHAN-You’re way off track.
COUNCILMAN BREWER-I think we can
SUPERVISOR STEC-Well, I think several people are way off track.
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-It’s not, it’s the Town Board’s decision of what to talk about here.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Thank you. And yes, Roger is correct that there was one Board Member that
was having a, or there was one person to get reappointed that was having a hard time getting the
support of the four, all four Town Board Members but to say that
COUNCILMAN BREWER-Keep in mind that was appointed, two of the people were appointed in
2002 that we’re not legally appointed to the Board to begin with because we didn’t know about this
exemption that you had to have five votes. So, we wanted to fix the law, Roger.
SUPERVISOR STEC-And in addition, there’s always
COUNCILMAN BOOR-You wanted to fix the law alright.
COUNCILMAN BREWER-Exactly so that you could step aside and we would appoint the people
that needed to be on the Board.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Yea, to say that we were holding up an Ethics complaint
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 410
COUNCILMAN BREWER-It’s a two way street.
SUPERVISOR STEC-I think is ludicrous, Roger.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-Okay, fine.
SUPERVISOR STEC-It’s completely unfair.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-Fine.
SUPERVISOR STEC-There was a quorum of the Ethics Board, you knew that, we told you that
this didn’t hold you up from submitting any complaint and I know that I told
COUNCILMAN BOOR-You never told me that.
SUPERVISOR STEC-I told you that in the workshop meeting that you said that you didn’t want to
participate in the process. I told you that it doesn’t prevent you from filing a complaint because
there’s still a quorum, there’s three out of five members.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-Dan, I said I would not participate in choosing a replacement.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Yes and
COUNCILMAN BOOR-Because I was going to be filing the complaint.
SUPERVISOR STEC-I recall that.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-Okay.
SUPERVISOR STEC-But what I said was, is that because there were still three members out of the
five, that there still existed a quorum of the Ethics Board and you could, there was nothing
preventing anyone from filing a complaint and you chose not to. Now, tonight, we are going to
reappoint both of the members in question and Ted has been out of Town for a month, he just got
back into Town Saturday. I think that we moved this along as quickly as reasonably possible and
we’re here tonight to do it, so, you know anyways that’s, how about this, can we have staff read the
Warren County recommendation, the Queensbury Planning Board recommendation because we
need to have those into the record. That was the reason why the public hearing was kept open a few
weeks ago and you know, if we could get those read into the record so that we know exactly what
we’re dealing with and then obviously, I have a couple of questions for Town Counsel. While staff
is looking that up, it strikes me that some Board Members think that some people that signed one
petition didn’t know what they were signing but other people that signed another petition knew
exactly what we were talking about. There’s been a great deal of confusion about this issue. A lot
of things that have been said that aren’t accurate and maybe it was, maybe it was honest mistakes,
maybe they weren’t but you know we’re trying to do the best we can. I take my job very seriously
but if there’s one thing that I take more seriously then my job, it is my integrity and I really dis, I
just really am beside myself that some people in this room and at this table, you know, think so little
of it and it is a two way street and the telephone works both ways. We moved this along, I tried to
put together a consensus. There’s a question in some people’s minds what time line was or wasn’t
and who filed when, what or who, who was talking about what and when but this is the third time,
Jason that I’ve talked about this and it hasn’t hit the paper, the rational that I’m talking about for a
lot of these things. In 2002 the Town rezoned property, the Town Board did on April of 2002 the
Town Board, four of which the members are still here, John wasn’t on the Town Board yet but
Dennis was and we took up a town-wide rezoning, we amended Chapter 179 which is what we’re
talking about doing this evening. We made that amendment and it two things. One, the resolution
very, very, very clearly said that anyone that has filed an application already and is deemed
complete and I assume that we’ve treated the question of completeness the same, and I haven’t had
any part in whether or not it’s been ever deemed complete but I’m assuming that the staff has
treated it the same way, as far as determining what’s complete, what isn’t but we determined then,
in 2002 when there was nobody’s application in question, there was no controversial topic out there
to worry about, that it was just a town-wide rezoning that did a lot of things including creating the
Professional Office Zone. And we said at that time and three of us voted yes, or I’m sorry, four of
us voted yes, myself, Supervisor Brower, Ted Turner and Tim Brewer and there was one abstention,
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 411
Councilman Boor who was on the Board for three months at that time but that created the
Professional Office Zone and it also said that we grandfather and that’s the lament’s term for it. But
basically it says that if there was an application in that was complete, we would consider it. Now, in
going back farther, 1988 and Councilman Brewer referenced that and Betty, cause I know that
you’ve got your book at home, it’s Chapter 105, Chapter 105 goes into great detail about we
grandfather. It says that it wouldn’t be fair not to grandfather and again, that was 1988, I was just
out of High School. Alright, but let’s find a more recent example of what is this Town Board’s
feelings on grandfathering or fairness. In the beginning of this year we had the paintball
controversy, it’s still kicking around and there’s still some issues there but the Zoning Board of
Appeals asked the Town Board to clarify or to change or to amend our code to make it simpler
whether or not paintball qualified as a firearm or not. And this Town Board sent a letter back to the
Zoning Board of Appeals, I signed it and every single Town Board Member saw it before I signed it
and approved it and it said right in there that it wouldn’t be fair to change the rules in the middle of
the game. Alright, well that’s not really a zoning change, that’s whether or not, that was a letter.
Another example from this year this Town Board, outdoor furnaces, very controversial subject, very
emotional subject, very obnoxious subject if you pardon the pun as far as the fumes and whatnot
that are involved. This Town Board grandfathered all existing, assuming they come into
compliance otherwise, existing locations even if they weren’t in the allowed zone that we ultimately
passed. So, this Town Board has a couple of instances this year of grandfathering. We’ve also had,
in 2002, four of us were on the Board then, three of us voted to grandfather and we created the
Professional Office Zone and I’ll come back to that in a minute and then going back to 1988, it’s
been in the code book since 1988 that we grandfather. Now, I ask Town Attorney, you know am I
crazy or you know what’s the deal with grandfathering and I was told not by this attorney but by
Mark Schachner that it is the extremely most common practice of all towns in the State of New
York to grandfather to existing applications in these situations. Now, it’s not to say that the law
requires it and we’re clear on that and I’ve said that at several different meetings that I understand
that we don’t have to, we’re not required by the law although some people would, may try to argue
that in court. But I will believe that that was the rest of the advice that our attorney gave us, is that it
was not required by law. But we, you know, the example that came up, I said, well when wouldn’t
the town grandfather an application, if it’s not always the rule, what is the, and the most common
exception of the rule as explained to me by Mr. Schachner was adult uses. A town didn’t plan in
it’s zoning ordinance to address the question of adult uses, an adult use comes to town says, hey, it’s
allowed in this zone, we’re going to put here and everyone in the town is up in arms about it, that’s
the most commonly used example of when they would say, hey, we’re not going to grandfather.
But, beyond those sorts of examples, typically they do. So, for the past several months, myself and
other members of this Town Board have had to listen to people and read letters to the editor and
have people come to this microphone and speak some times very eloquently, sometimes less so
about the appropriateness of grandfathering and giving an exception to the rule and then in the last
few weeks it’s, people have become even more confused as to whether or not the change was more
restrictive or less restrictive. And with that, Bob, I know I asked you to research this question and
you said that you talked it over with both Cathy Radner and Mark Schachner and if you wouldn’t
mind, just briefly summarizing, no change right now means, according to the law, how does it read?
What would be allowed? And again, this Town Board is not a Planning Board, we don’t do Site
Plan Review, we’ve been put into a position where we’re talking about an application and I’m not
sure that that’s a hundred percent appropriate either but you know, we’re trying to do our jobs the
best we can. So, Bob, if you could just enlighten us please.
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-Yes, we’ve been asked, after the last Town Board Meeting that I was
at which was three weeks ago, there was a lot of discussion about the PO Zone and what it currently
says. I went back to my office and the next day I pulled out the ordinance and looked at it. It does
say a lot of things that was said at that meeting but it does not say that residential uses are prohibited
within the thousand feet of Bay Road. It does have other language that one could read that the
Planning Board could consider that in any Site Plan Review because any multifamily residential
project is subject to their Site Plan Review and that’s the process that I believe is currently going on
and it’s something that’s before them. But our current Town Code does not prohibit multifamily
residential within a thousand feet of Bay Road or the other corridors. There has been a lot of
discussion this year by the Town Board, I believe it was lead by Councilman Strough earlier in the
year with the property that’s up Gurney Lane saying that we’d like to look at to, as I understood it,
to make the law consistent with some of the goals that you’ve cited many times as being in our
Town Ordinance. But our reading of the law is that the, those goals that the Planning Board gets to
consider when they’re reviewing an application, while those are things they can consider, they do
not prohibit the multifamily residential within that thousand feet. So, the Town Board went through
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 412
this discussion that Councilman Boor discussed of, you know, thinking about distance from the
Town Board and we, as Town Counsel said, that’s your call, you come back to us when you have a
number. We prepared, well with Marilyn Ryba prepared the proposed local law to change the
current law to make it more restrictive then was, is currently there. I don’t want to undercut the
Planning Board’s right to consider exactly those things that all five of you have cited about
considering the look of the road, the look of the overlay zone, those types of considerations but our
current law does not prohibit that.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Alright, thank you.
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-Does that clearly answer the questions that have been around?
SUPERVISOR STEC-Is that clear to the Board? Alright, again, you know these accusations of
collusion, the only time and not that it’s anyone’s business Roger
COUNCILMAN BOOR-Well, I’m going to continue when you’re done.
SUPERVISOR STEC-The only time that I can recall being with Mr. O’Connor on a Sunday was I
sat next to him in Church one day about three rows ahead of, in front of Mr. Strough and that’s the
only time that I can recall. Now, do I
COUNCILMAN BOOR-Don’t say the only time.
SUPERVISOR STEC-That’s the only time I can recall. Well, Roger, you know, I’m not saying
COUNCILMAN BOOR-Okay, no, no, you said it, you’re on the record, you ‘re on the record,
that’s fine.
SUPERVISOR STEC-I can’t recall another time.
COUNCLMAN BOOR-Okay.
SUPERVISOR STEC-But anyways. So, there’s four examples of the Town always grandfathering.
Now, we’ve been said, well, there’s Town Board Members that are looking to make an exception
for a property owner. Well, if that’s true it’s the same exception that the Town’s been making for
sixteen years for every other property owner. Now, I’m not saying that that’s right or wrong but I
just want to make sure that we’re all fair, that it’s not a special exception, it’s the same exception
that we’ve made for everyone before. No one sat here, John and criticized whether or not people
that signed one petition knew what they were signing or not and so I kind of thought it was a little
off the wall for you to, you know say that people that signed the petition that you didn’t like didn’t
know what they were signing. Yea, I could go on and on and this is getting ridiculous, there was an
opportunity there to improve the zoning and I believe it was an improvement, I was the swing vote
in the middle. You know, there are two Town Board Members that I was trying to bring along and
for a while there we had them and then a couple of questions came up as to whether or not it’s
appropriate to grandfather and not grandfather but now with this, the petition is, that was the other
question that I had for staff, the petition, a couple of people mentioned this Protest Petition. Is it
valid Bob, just for the record?
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-Again, let me, I’ll bore you, bear with me for a second. The State
Law provides that someone who can put together what’s called a Protest Petition which has to be
signed by at least twenty percent of the area of the affected property. Mr. O’Connor filed that
petition with the Town and gave us a copy, I forget three weeks ago, a little bit more then that,
around the fifteen of September and we were asked to look into whether the Protest Petition was
validly put together, whether it met the threshold that’s in the Statute and whether some of the
claims that Mr. O’Connor made in the enclosure letter were accurate. It, the law under this is kind
of complicated but the bottom line is one, that property owners do have a right to say you can’t
change the zoning for our property without having more then just a three-two vote, it would require
four votes. The threshold is twenty percent of the affected properties. We found out from Marilyn
Ryba’s Department last week they, you know calculated the percentages and it’s somewhere around
thirty percent. So, the bottom line is that any vote to change the current law to affect the PO Zone
properties on Bay Road will require four yes votes.
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 413
SUPERVISOR STEC-Okay, thank you.
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-Is that clear?
SUPERVISOR STEC-Yea, it’s clear to me.
COUNCILMAN BREWER-Dan, do you want to give Ted a chance.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Ted, do you have anything that you wanted to say?
COUNCILMAN TURNER-No, I’m all set.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Alright.
COUNCILMAN STROUGH-Dan?
SUPERVISOR STEC-Yea, I wasn’t finished but go ahead.
COUNCILMAN STROUGH-Go ahead, finish.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Marilyn, you had the two Planning Board from the County and the Town and
their recommendations, please.
MS. RYBA, Executive Director-Correct. I’ll read the County recommendation first which was
th
signed on September 15 by Bennet Driscoll, Jr. who is the Warren County Planning Board Chair.
County Planning Board recommendation, no county impact. Warren County Planning Board
recommends no county impact with the comment that the Town of Queensbury should evaluate the
advantages slash disadvantages of the zone amendment where as some mixed uses are a benefit to
st
an area. The Queensbury Planning Board Record of Resolution dated September 21 this year,
Resolved, motion for the Town Board, at the request of their recommendation to revise the
Professional Office Zone, our recommendation was that we don’t feel needs to be changed at this
time. We feel that the way that the zone is written adequately serves the needs of the planning
issues for Professional Office zones in the Town. That was introduce by Craig MacEwan,
Chairman moved it’s adoption, seconded by Richard Sanford and it was approved by Mr. Sanford,
Mr. Metivier, Mr. Ringer, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Anderson, Mr. MacEwan. No one voted no and Mr.
Hunsinger was absent.
SUPERVISOR STEC-So, there was six yes votes just for, it was six to zero that evening.
MS. RYBA, Executive Director-Correct.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Unanimous of those that were present.
MS. RYBA, Executive Director-That’s correct.
SUPERVISOR STEC-And you were present at that meeting?
MS. RYBA, Executive Director-Yes, I was.
SUPERVISOR STEC-And I assume that they’ve got a grip on what the zone says or what the
change, I mean I assume that they understood the change but did you have the impression and Bob,
I know you weren’t there but you’ve talked with Mark Schachner, they understood the
repercussions of the recommendation?
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-I was not there, I talked with Mark, he said he was there ready to
answer any questions. I don’t believe they asked any questions of him at the meeting. I know that
afterwards, he had discussion with Councilman Strough about the law but I don’t know, I’m sorry, I
was not at that meeting.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Okay, Marilyn?
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 414
MS. RYBA, Executive Director-I was at that meeting and I think there were, and this is purely my
opinion but that there were different opinions yet the recommendation from everyone was the same
which is a nominally but that’s what they came out with. I was also present to answer any questions
and they did ask questions and everything is on the record and answered to the best my ability and
knowledge.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Just to wrap up my preliminary comments. I think it’s important for the
public to know and I think we’ve made it clear I think as possible that at least according to Town
Counsel and I haven’t heard any Board Members strenuously disagree that right now, we’re not
talking about making a change that would allow apartments. Right now, as written apartments are
allowed. I think Tim Brewer hit the nail on the head, I’m not saying that that’s my scheme for the
Bay Road Corridor or even that property but I agree a hundred percent with Tim that that’s the
purview of the Planning Board. Now, with that said, the history of the Professional Office Zone
created in 2002 and I believe that that motion was introduced by Councilman Brewer and seconded
by myself was that the underlying zone of that entire length of Bay Road or at least the portions that
we’re talking about tonight was multifamily residential. It was originally all apartments. I can tell
you that it was my rational and I’m going to guess it was the rational of those that voted in favor of
the change that night in August or April of 2002, that when we were moving forward, when we
change zones like that, we’re very sensitive to the rights of the existing property or affected property
owners and in moving forward, yes, we want to encourage offices and the Planning Board has
managed to do that on Bay Road going back much before 2002. I mean, this was, this isn’t a
phenomenon that happened when we created the Professional Office Zone, this was going on for
years before that. But we have, the zone out there is, was originally all apartments and we wanted
to allow as an allowed use, offices and we created a Professional Office Zone and I can tell you that
my rational and Tim and Ted, correct me if it wasn’t your rational was that we were adding offices
as an allowed use to everything else that was already there. Now, whether or not that was wise in
hindsight or whether or not that should be a call for hey, don’t we want to make it better and maybe
make it a little more tougher to make sure that we’re doing more then just giving lip service to
encouraging professional office, yes and I think that’s the direction that the Town Board was trying
to go. But it was zoned for multifamily residential and that’s what was allowed before. Now,
we’ve added, offices as an allowed use, whether or not it’s going to fly is probably likely going to
end up being a call for the Planning Board. I’ve got a lot of faith in the Planning Board’s ability to
get through this. They’ve managed to get through Bay Road before and in fact, they’re telling us so
and I think John paraphrased probably the sentiments of a lot of them very well when he said that
they feel comfortable that they understand the code and that’s fine. I have no interest whether or not
it’s approved, not approved. My mission is that I need to make sure, and I think it’s every Town
Board Member needs to make sure that we are trying to find that balance between the benefits or the
needs of the community and the protection of individual’s rights whether we like their project, don’t
like their project, like their politics, don’t like their politics. I mean these calls for the last six weeks,
we managed the Town Board to calm down a little bit and to be a little more professional and a little
less attacking and I see that unfortunately it looks like it has eroded somewhat tonight. I haven’t sat
here and accused the two Town Board Members that are accusing the rest of us of having an axe to
grind with a property owner and being on a vendetta or having a personal conflict of interest
because of their dislike of politics, warranted to unwarranted by other individuals. I haven’t made
that accusation and I’m trying not to but it’s really hard when I sit here and I have Town Board
Members that have known me for a few years and should know that you know that I’m pretty much
a straight shooter, I think most people believe that. It really bothers me a great deal that a couple of
you guys, one in particular this evening is really attacking that. It’s a fine line that we’re trying to
walk, it’s a balancing act, a juggling act and I was the guy in the middle of the five of us trying to
move this forward in a way that we could live with, maybe not as aggressively either on a timeline
for some or in a language change for others as you would like. But anyways, I just I really resent
the personal attack and I don’t think it was warranted and frankly, I think an apology is warranted
but I won’t ask for it.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-I wouldn’t count on it.
SUPERVISOR STEC-With that said, the public hearing is still open, is there anyone else that would
like to speak? Mr. O’Keefe.
COUNCILMAN STROUGH-I’ve got a couple of things.
SUPERVISOR STEC-We’ll come back, we’ll come back.
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 415
COUNCILMAN BOOR-I’ve got a couple of things too and it’s still Town Board, I thought.
COUNCILMAN BREWER-No, the public hearing is still open.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Well, it’s still, the whole hearing is open, we’ll come back.
MR. FRANK O’KEEFE-My name is Frank O’Keefe at 67 Surrey Field Drive in Queensbury and I
want to thank the Board for listening to us and the attorney. My question is to Mr. Hafner, the
attorney, you said that Mr. O’Connor filed a petition of landowners and how many landowners were
there, eighteen?
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-I didn’t say. We went through to make sure we had the right
number.
MR. O’KEEFE-Well
COUNCILMAN BOOR-That’s a ballpark.
MR. O’KEEFE-A number of landowners.
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-Yes, a number of landowners. More then twenty percent of those
who own the area within the PO Zone along the Bay Road Corridor.
MR. O’KEEFE-And that would require four-fifths of the Board to turn down the
COUNCILMAN BOOR-To change the zoning.
MR. O’KEEFE-To change the zoning.
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-To vote to change the zoning as it affects Bay Road.
MR. O’KEEFE-My question is we have over six hundred signatures from landowners here, what
does our petition do to Mr. O’Connor’s petition? Don’t we have, don’t we have the same right as
Mr. O’Connor because we are all landowners?
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-Okay, you’re not, I didn’t make myself clear enough, I guess. It’s
landowners within the PO Zone. It is people who own property within the PO Zone. Even if your
petition included more then twenty percent of the PO landowners within that zone, it would end up
at exactly the same result that we’ve already described which is to make any change takes four yes
votes. So, if you’re petition had that and met that threshold, it still would require four yes votes to
move forward.
MR. O’KEEFE-I really don’t understand your reasoning but, or your interpretation.
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-I mean most things take three votes on the Town Board this because
of that petition requires four votes.
SUPERVISOR STEC-If I could and I don’t want to put words in your mouth Frank, I think the
question here that maybe Frank is asking or others may have, is that the difference between, there is
a legal differentiation or legal difference between the Petition of Protest which is a creature of
statute and a petition similar to the one that most people in the room signed tonight saying, hey
we’re opposed to this. This one that we have has a certain level of legal standing that forces by law
that Town to have four votes instead of the normal three.
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-Yes.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Whereas another petition signed by hundreds is certainly politically savvy,
you know I mean is political pressure but no legal pressure.
MR. O’KEEFE-But it doesn’t have the legal weight of the homeowners?
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 416
SUPERVISOR STEC-Correct.
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-What is it that you want your petition to do?
COUNCILMAN BREWER-We know what we want them to do, Bob.
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-I mean, no, let me take a step back, I didn’t say that.
MR. O’KEEFE-It’s not my petition, it’s
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-What’s before the Town Board is a resolution considering changing
the PO Zone. The petition that was filed that’s called a Protest Petition under the Town Code
Section 265 requires that in order for that local law changing the current zoning requires four yes
votes. I mean, if you had a petition that said we don’t want you to change the PO Zone currently
and you came in with twenty percent of the property owners within the PO Zone it would also
require a four yes vote to change the current law.
MR. O’KEEFE-So our petition has as much weight as Mr. O’Connor’s then?
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-It would if it was signed by that many owners in the PO Zone but we
don’t need to get there, we already are requiring four yes votes.
MR. O’KEEFE-Okay, thank you.
COUNCILMAN STROUGH-But Frank, those five hundred, six hundred, seven hundred or a
thousand, whatever they might be carries a lot more weight then Mr. O’Connor’s petition in front of
the Planning Board.
MR. O’KEEFE-Okay, thank you very much.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Alright thank you. Hold on a second, other Board Members wanted to
comment and again, the public hearing is still open but if there’s more
COUNCILMAN STROUGH-Yea but I think Mr. O’Connor wants to go.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-I want to get one correction in.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Yes, sir.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-And that was, Dan you said that we really shouldn’t be talking about a
particular application and the reality is, the only reason we’re talking about a particular application
is because of the wording of your resolution that you want to grant an exemption. If it wasn’t for
the exemption we would not be talking about a specific application. And the other thing, and I want
to get this clear, the law does not require that we honor what we have done in the past and that’s
when an
SUPERVISOR STEC-I said that.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-Let me finish, please. When an application is complete that we typically
let it go through. My bone of contention is Dan that, I went eight months arguing, pleading saying
we’ve got to get this done forewarning, doing as much as I could. Two weeks after his application
is in, we’ve got it on the agenda. That’s my problem and a day after you have a conversation with
him we hear about the exemption. It’s so well choreographed it makes me ill.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Roger, and I’m at a loss to explain that.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-Well
SUPERVISOR STEC-I mean, other then I assure you that whatever you’re seeing is pure
coincidence.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-Yea, sure is.
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 417
SUPERVISOR STEC-Well, Roger, I feel bad that you disagree or don’t believe me but I’m not
going to lose sleep over what you think.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-That’s the problem Dan, I don’t think you do lose sleep over anything.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Well, trust me when I tell you that I give a great deal of thought in trying to
take care of all of the Board Member’s needs Roger and
COUNCILMAN BOOR-Okay, I’ll keep it professional. I’ll keep it professional for you.
SUPERVISOR STEC-And maybe it didn’t move fast enough for you but I apologize if it didn’t.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-Obviously it wasn’t fast enough cause now we’re talking about an
exemption that we didn’t
COUNCILMAN BREWER-Roger, you keep saying exemption, it’s not an exemption. We’re not
picking out one person and making them exempt. You’re misstating it.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-We’re not?
COUNCILMAN BREWER-No any more then I said you brought
COUNCILMAN BOOR-Well good, get rid of your resolution and we’re all set.
COUNCILMAN BREWER-When you brought Mr. Meath’s property to us to rezone it, if you want
to be fair
COUNCILMAN BOOR-Yea
COUNCILMAN BREWER-You brought
COUNCILMAN BOOR-There was one application
COUNCILMAN BREWER-You brought, Roger Boor brought Rick Meath’s property to this
Board.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-No.
COUNCILMAN BREWER-Yes you did.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-I said, I said
COUNCILMAN BREWER-You made a deal with Mr. Meath.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-I don’t know Mr. Meath.
COUNCILMAN BREWER-And two other people in the conference room to change his property
from Residential SR Zone to Professional Office which in essence
COUNCILMAN BOOR-There was
COUNCILMAN BREWER-Let me finish
COUNCILMAN BOOR-Okay.
COUNCILMAN BREWER-In essence what it does is it makes Mr. Meath’s property, was available
to build thirteen houses on, now he can build eighty houses on and now in this application, you’re
trying to cut a guy off at the knees
COUNCILMAN BOOR-Tim
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 418
COUNCILMAN BREWER-That has no chance in my mind of getting it approved.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-Mr. Meath had no complete application before any Board.
COUNCILMAN BREWER-He did, he had a rezoning application in here Roger.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-He had no complete application before the Board.
COUNCILMAN BREWER-Tell the whole story, if you want to tell a story. I don’t want to argue,
we’ve been sitting here for two hours now and we’re
COUNCILMAN BOOR-That’s our job, Tim.
COUNCILMAN BREWER-going no where because we have a difference of opinion.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-That’s our job to sit here and take care of business.
COUNCILMAN BREWER-Yet the Planning Board asked us not to change anything, the County
Planning Board asked us not to change anything, five hundred residents asked us not to change
anything. There’s a very big misunderstanding, Roger and I don’t know why everybody keeps
trying to complicate it.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Alright, if the Town Board and again, there will be more comment for the
Town Board unless somebody has something, I’d like to try to wrap up the public hearing.
COUNCILMAN STROUGH-Well, I’ve just got two points. I don’t want to put anybody on a hot
spot but two questions and I think everyone on this Board would agree, wetland use would be best
for the Town’s economic health, Professional Office or Residential on this Bay Road Corridor?
COUNCILMAN BOOR-Professional Office.
COUNCILMAN STROUGH-Okay.
COUNCILMAN BREWER-Nobody disputes that John.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Yea no on, we’ve never argued that.
COUNCILMAN STROUGH-Wetland use would be most beneficial in reducing taxes.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-Professional Office.
SUPERVISOR STEC-We agree with you, John.
COUNCILMAN STROUGH-Well, then what’s the best thing to do for the Town?
COUNCILMAN BOOR-Professional Office.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Yea.
COUNCILMAN BREWER-And it is Professional Office.
COUNCILMAN STROUGH-Alright.
COUNCILMAN BREWER-And that’s what you’re missing.
COUNCILMAN STROUGH-And as far as the existing furnace, grandfathering that, there was
SUPERVISOR STEC-Well, we still have that question. That’s, I mean that’s what we’re arguing
over.
COUNCILMAN STROUGH-Well, we didn’t grandfather any furnaces that were being proposed,
we only grandfathered furnaces that were already there.
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 419
COUNCILMAN BOOR-Grandfathered existing.
COUNCILMAN STROUGH-And if these apartments were already there, this wouldn’t be an issue.
But anyhow, just a little thing.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Okay.
COUNCILMAN BREWER-You can spin it any way you want it, John.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Anyone else from the public? Sir, in the back.
MR. JOHN BUECKING-Hi, can you hear me?
SUPERVISOR STEC-Yes, sir.
MR. BUECKING-My name is John Buecking, I say my name is John Long Buecking, the Longs
have been around here for a long time. My grandfather ran a hardware store in Glens Falls for years
and years and sent kids into the professions, had a place on the lake and I can put your grandfather
question to sort of, to rest with what my grandfather said. All the time he used to say this, all the
time, he said, ‘good managers do things right and leaders to the right thing’.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Thank you, sir. Anyone else from the public would like to address us on this
rezoning, proposed rezoning? Anyone at all? Yes, Mr. Auer, yes sir.
MR. AUER-This question is for Bob. What’s the number of residences in the PO Zone? Do you
know what that number is because you must have to calculate the twenty percent?
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-It’s by area. It’s tax map parcels and
SUPERVISOR STEC-By acreage.
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-It’s acreage.
MR.AUER-Okay, did you include all of Bay Bridge because there’s eighty-six residential units in
there?
SUPERVISOR STEC-He didn’t calculate, actually Marilyn did or Marilyn’s department did.
MR. AUER-Okay.
COUNCILMAN BREWER-It’s not the residence, it’s the area.
MR. AUER-Within that area.
SUPERVISOR STEC-It’s in acreage, it’s by acreage.
MR. AUER-Okay.
COUNCILMAN BREWER-Not by residence.
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-It’s property owners of that acreage.
MR. AUER-Property owners, okay, property with a discreet tax map number.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Yes.
MR. AUER-Okay.
MS. RYBA, Executive Director-Right, I have that information if you want me to
SUPERVISOR STEC-Yes, please. Please Marilyn. Thank you.
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 420
MS. RYBA, Executive Director-Okay. There are two hundred and forty-four parcels consisting of
five hundred and fifty-seven point six-two acres and the petition included one hundred and seventy-
one acres which was more then twenty percent of the land area.
MR. AUER-Okay, so it’s not one man, one vote?
SUPERVISOR STEC-No, it’s by acres. By acres.
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-Right, I didn’t write the statute.
COUNCILMAN BREWER-No, it’s be acres and Baybridge, I believe Doug is
MR. AUER-Well, because if you run the numbers on it, if you run the numbers on it that is really
egregiously unfair, egregiously because you’ve got eighty-six residences in Bay Bridge.
COUNCILMAN BREWER-But they’re outside the affected area.
MR. AUER-Oh, no they’re not, they’re in PO Zone.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Well, no, they are but
COUNCILMAN BOOR-That’s PO Zone.
MR. AUER-Get the facts straight, Tim, it would be good.
COUNCILMAN BREWER-They’re within a thousand feet of Bay Road?
MR. AUER-They’re outside the thousand feet.
COUNCILMAN BREWER-That’s my point.
SUPERVISOR STEC-But this isn’t our rule, this is, I mean, Bob what is the
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-I didn’t write this statute, the statute talks about area.
COUNCILAMN BREWER-We’re talking about within a thousand feet, that change.
MR. AUER-See, what you, what you’ve succeeded in doing is confusing this issue, very clever,
very, very clever. This is not good government, this is part of the reason why New York State is
overwhelmingly been determined to have the worst government in the Eastern United States, the
worst. I didn’t make that analysis, that’s been done by other people. It starts right here and you
folks are apprenticing to go to Albany, give me a break.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Thank you, sir. Mr. O’Connor.
MR. MIKE O’CONNOR-I’m Mike O’Connor and I really wasn’t going to speak tonight, I think I
spoke long enough at the last meeting so I’m not necessarily going to repeat all those facts. I think
what’s unfortunate is that some people to make their message more credible try to attach to it
personal attacks. This is basically a question of rezoning and it’s not an underhanded trick or task
for property owners to try to protect their right. Now, Marilyn is correct as, Marilyn and Bob are
correct as to the percentage of the total acreage which I believe is in the Bay Road Corridor of the
PO Zone. Is that your five hundred and sixty or did you include the other two parcels as well?
MS. RYBA-It was the total acreage of the PO Zone in the Town of Queensbury.
MR. O’CONNOR-So, it also included land on Sherman Avenue, it included the land up on West
Mountain Road.
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-We did it both ways.
MR. O’CONNOR-Okay.
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 421
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-And even the most restrictive reading, it was more then twenty
percent.
MR. O’CONNOR-Alright. We had other people who owned property and again, that’s not Mike
O’Connor’s Protest Petition, that is a Protest Petition of sixty-seven percent of the acreage owners
on Bay Road that would be directly affected by the proposed change. We disagree with the
interpretation and I think Town Counsel has agreed that the present rule which we’re not asking to
be changed, the present rule says you can do multifamily apartments. All we’re asking for, or what
we started to ask for was the opportunity to have somebody else and again, it is not my application
be presented and go through the process with the Planning Board. And I really take exception to the
personal attacks and Roger, I’ll have to say, I know I sit in front of John occasionally at Church and
I sat by accident in the pew with Dan and his wife Hillary and we may have spoke when we left
Church but I don’t know of any other occasion that Dan and I have talked and he’s been very
careful when he has spoken to me as to what he has spoken about. I guess I do disagree because of
the way you approach things. Everything is not a conspiracy, most people are very honest. I take
great pride in my integrity. I’m a volunteer. I spend a great deal of time as a volunteer in an unpaid
position. I get nothing but a lot of, I get some joy out of it, the people I’ve met, I would not have
met except the fact that I’m in this position, I’ve met some very good people and I take some joy
and some, enjoy the relationships that I’ve established. But I don’t wake up in the morning and try
and figure out who I’m going to get mad at or not get mad at.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-Can I ask you a question, Mike?
MR. O’CONNOR-And I try to approach everybody in an honest manner. I’m always very
outspoken
COUNCILMAN BOOR-And I
MR. O’CONNOR-And I don’t necessarily have any hidden agendas. I’m not into conspiracies but,
and I’d like to stick to just the question that’s before the Board which I think is the appropriate
question. What is the rezoning of this going to do? One thing that I have philosophically is a
problem with the conversation that John had last week that if you have seven or eight more offices
on Bay Road, that’s going to promote having a Town Center on Bay Road or it’s going to give the
feeling of a Town Center on Bay Road. I really don’t think it will be. It’s a sidewalk from where to
where? And if you’re going to somebody’s professional office whether it be on that property or on
a couple of other properties that you could avail, you could build that are vacant, I don’t think it’s
going to promote that. People don’t like to have the feeling that probably the way all the roads are
set up and all your non-for-profits are set up and everything else, the Town Center of the Town of
Queensbury is the City of Glens Falls but that’s my opinion, you may disagree with it. The other
thing which I think I take exception to and probably people are, people have concern right now
about the level of traffic on Bay Road. Any traffic engineer will tell you that the residential use is
seventy-five percent of office use as far as generation of traffic and maybe some people don’t
understand that. And besides simply a multiple as to the creation of traffic, the duration of traffic
from office is a lot longer during the day period then the duration of traffic from residential. So you
know, I’m not sure who asked what or everybody can get petitions to be signed. I know I went out
and got the petition signed, I know what I said to people. I didn’t tell anybody that their horse farm
was going to go away as you insinuated, you’re talking about the property of Jim and Tina
Marshall. I did ask them what was their plans if they were ever going to do away with their horse
farm. Right now, they have two options. In the future, they might not have two options if this
change were put through. All those people that signed, signed with Notaries. The Notaries were
typed so that you could read them, you didn’t have to read their hand signatures and certainly those
people are available. So, I take exception to questioning how the signatures were obtained and
again, it was not, that is not my Protest Petition. That is the Protest Petition of sixty-seven percent
of the people that own property on Bay Road within a thousand feet. By coincidence, it falls into
the fact that if, not coincidence I knew what it was it qualifies under the State Statute and to infer
that property owners shouldn’t exercise the rights, the same as everybody else here, I think is
inappropriate for a public official. I really think it’s inappropriate.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-Mike, where are these people?
MR. O’CONNOR-It’s a balancing act.
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 422
COUNCILMAN BOOR-Where are these people? I mean, I ask that in seriousness.
MR. O’CONNOR-They have filed with you a legal document.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-I know, but where are, where is the support, this overwhelming support for
your position?
MR. O’CONNOR-Should they have to come here and take the
COUNCILMAN BOOR-I know these people feel that if they don’t come here, you know, if they
don’t come here you will prevail.
MR. O’CONNOR-No.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-Yes.
MR. O’CONNOR-I disagree with you.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-Really, you think?
MR. O’CONNOR-You don’t, you don’t understand the legality of what is before you. This is not
something that you do by popularity vote.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-This is what Elected Officials do, they serve the constituency and the
constituency are the voters and the voters is the population.
MR. O’CONNOR-They should serve all of their constituency.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-That’s what we’re doing here.
MR. O’CONNOR-I disagree with you Roger, obviously.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-I know you do, Mike, it’s pretty obvious.
MR. O’CONNOR-Okay.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-You know, I think we’ve made our case.
MR. O’CONNOR-Thank you.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Thank you, sir. Anyone else? Yes, in the back, yes ma’am.
MS. DONNA HAANAN-My name is Donna Haanan, I just have a little thing, Mike said sixty-
seven percent of the people signed that but what I think he meant was the people who own sixty-
seven percent of the property. Now, that’s a difference because one person or five persons or ten
persons can each have large amounts of property but that’s not sixty-seven percent of the people
who live around here.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Right, you’re correct. You are correct.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-Thank you.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Thank you. Yes, ma’am.
MS. HELENA VIOLA-My name is Helena Viola and I live in Surrey Field. I would just like to say
that you people sitting on the Board are most likely professional people, probably engineers,
lawyers or
UNKNOWN-Louder.
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 423
MS. VIOLA-I’d just like to say that I’m sure most of the people that are sitting on the Board are
professional people, lawyers, engineers or whatever. I would say that the majority of people sitting
in the audience are just simple homeowners who feel that at the end of the day the people who build
the apartments and or even the office buildings, go home maybe to a different area but we are the
people at the end of the day who are sitting a short distance from possibly one hundred and seventy-
four units and we are the ones who are going to be impacted. This is the reason we’re here, not to
deal with the semantics of what is, is. Simply the fact that we are opposed to having an apartments
built because it has an impact on us, not on the builders who are applying for the variance or
whatever.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-Thank you.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Thank you. Anyone else? Anyone else at all? Yes, Mr. Valente.
MR. DAN VALENTE-Good evening, Dan Valente. Obviously I’ve been here many times in front
of you guys and I wanted to first of all state for the record that I signed Mr. O’Connor’s petition, I
own twenty-six acres that front Bay Road. I’m hugely affected by this potential change. The reason
and I’ll make it clear, the reason why I did sign that petition is because in my past I submitted a
fourteen lot professional park subdivision for that parcel and was denied and I know they didn’t, the
Planning Board didn’t particularly care for the layout of the lots but ultimately it would have been a
beautiful professional park there and I would have had a number of people already within that park.
Now, my dilemma is, what do I come back with if I’m denied a fourteen lot professional park? I
didn’t feel it was economically feasible to do much of anything else that I had there other then now,
to maybe put professional offices right up against Bay Road and then do multifamily behind them,
with this five hundred foot restriction that will limit me from that possibility. So, that’s the reason
why I signed that petition so that the public knows I tried to do something that I thought would be
good there and it wasn’t accepted and I’m not blaming the, you know the Planning Board obviously
had their reasons for that but I would like the public, the public needs to get out and support a
petition like that rather then always bashing petitions for all kinds of subdivisions.
COUNCILMAN STROUGH-Now Dan, you own that property and how many acres?
MR. VALENTE-Twenty-six acres, I have over seventeen hundred feet on Bay Road.
COUNCILMAN STROUGH-Twenty-six acres, seventeen hundred feet on Bay Road within that
one thousand foot zone?
MR. VALENTE-Correct.
COUNCILMAN STROUGH-Now does Pam own any of that?
MR. VALENTE-My wife owns, my wife and I own it together.
COUNCILMAN STROUGH-Okay, because you didn’t sign it but Pamela did.
MR. VALENTE-Yes, we are partners in everything. So, I mean that’s my dilemma. Alright, if
I’m not allowed to do multifamily, there is an economics to this whole thing, I am a property owner
that’s paid a substantial amount of money for that parcel and I’ve carried it and if I can’t do what I
need to do with it and I do, we always look out for the best interests of everybody, we’ve never
maxed out our densities as far as it goes with, we don’t, I don’t build apartments but townhouses so
to speak. So, this is more information for the public then I think anybody else. There other reasons
then to just sign a petition other then just to allow quote, unquote apartments.
COUNCILMAN STROUGH-But don’t you think that professional offices would be better there,
Dan because you know the water table and professional offices, you don’t have the need for a
basement like you do with a residence.
MR. VALENTE-John, originally that subdivision which my father started the Baybridge Complex
was approved for over two hundred and fifty town homes there. There’s eighty-six there now
which we reduced the density over the years from what was approved and the conceptual was
approved for another seventy-two on that front parcel which I proposed fourteen professional lots
and I was denied.
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 424
COUNCILMAN STROUGH-Now Dan, how come you put professional offices there, why didn’t
you just put apartments there?
MR. VALENTE-I’m not, number one, I’m not an apartment guy, I don’t want to be a landlord but
I’m not interested in that. I felt that was what was right for the Bay Road Corridor and I agree with
you and if I came back now, I would still have professional lots that ran abutting the front of Bay
Road but then I would have potentially done some town homes behind that. Now being limited five
hundred feet, that really takes a good piece of that parcel up.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-Dan, if I could ask too also, it’s highly unlikely that we’re going to pass
anything, I’m guessing it’s just going to go to the Planning Board as recommended but if we had
passed it at five hundred you would probably be able to, probably not anywhere near as many as
you’d like but you would have been allowed to build some apartments. But my take is the way the
Planning Board is going to view this, you probably will not. So it’s a double edge sword here in a
way, signing that was probably not going to get you apartments.
MR. VALENTE-I’m not looking for apartments anyway.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-I know but I’m just
MR. VALENTE-But Roger, what I’m saying, you know where I’m heading with this but
COUNCILMAN BOOR-Yes, I do.
MR. VALENTE-If you go five hundred feet into that parcel, there’s not a whole lot left that I can do
with.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-Right, you’ve got about two hundred and fifty
MR. VALENTE-Yea, I’m dead in the water there so, you know.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-I do understand.
MR. VALENTE-And for me to subdivide and get eight professional lots out of that parcel, the lots
are going to be three hundred thousand dollars a piece or better, you know.
COUNCILMAN BREWER-Are you going to buy them Roger?
MR. VALENTE-Yea, well, you know that’s it, I have to put in roads, infrastructure, so on and so
forth.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-Right.
MR. VALENTE-It’s just not economically feasible, so. I hope that helps the public a little bit.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Alright, thanks. Thanks Mr. Valente.
MR. VALENTE-Thank you.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Anyone else? Something new, anyone else from the crowd? Yes, ma’am.
MS. SONNABEND-Kathy Sonnabend, Cedar Court. I just wanted to clarify one thing because I
and a lot of other people were at the Planning Board Meeting where they discussed what their
recommendation was going to be to the Board and I know that Roger Boor and John Strough were
there but I didn’t see anyone else from the Town Board there. There was an attorney but it was a
different Town Attorney.
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-It was my partner.
MS. SONNABEND-And what was very interesting to me was that most of the discussion among
the Town Board was that they believed only professional offices were allowed in the thousand feet
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 425
beyond on the front, beyond the road. So, when it came time for the resolution and they looked at
each other and said how should we word this and then they looked to the Town Attorney and said,
what should we say and he said well, if you don’t think the zone, the code needs to be clarified then
just say it’s fine as it is. But the impression that was given tonight by you Dan and Tim was that the
Planning Board was saying the Zoning Code is fine as is which does allow multifamily within that
area. So
SUPERVISOR STEC-That’s why I asked the Attorney to clarify it cause I knew that that perception
was out there.
MS. SONNABEND-Yea, but it’s not a perception. That’s what the Planning Board indicated in
their conversation.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Correct, their perception or some of their perception perhaps.
MS. SONNABEND-I know it’s not what our Town Attorney is telling us but when you say that the
Planning Board is telling you, you’re leaving the impression to the public that the Planning Board
supports your position, that there’s no problem with this apartment complex.
COUNCILMAN BREWER-No, no, no. If I may ma’am, when I look at this, I don’t look at that
apartment complex because that’s why you don’t see me at the Planning Board because that’s not
my job. That’s the Planning Board’s job. We have different functions. We’re legislative, they do
the planning and whatnot. We approve the laws.
MS. SONNABEND-So, I didn’t mean to
COUNCILMAN BREWER-So, I think we should be at length from them.
MS. SONNABEND-I didn’t mean to indicate that you should have been there.
COUNCILMAN BREWER-No, no.
MS. SONNABEND-I’m just saying that since you weren’t there
COUNCILMAN BREWER-No and I understand that.
MS. SONNABEND-I wanted to make sure that it’s clear what they said.
COUNCILMAN BREWER-And what my point was I think, the way the Planning Board has acted
even when I was on the Planning Board and I got appointed in 1991 on the Planning Board and
served until 2000 was that the Planning Board has done what you have seen right there with the
existing law and they have done a wonderful job and that is my impression. So, I don’t know that
we need to fix something that’s not broke. They’re doing their job as they are and I can honestly
tell you that we had applications in for apartments, Guido Passarelli had over three hundred, an
application for three hundred apartments. You don’t see them.
MS. SONNABEND-Good thing.
COUNCILMAN BREWER-That’s my point. So, what I’m saying is, we’ve wasted a hundred
hours of staff time, debates between us, getting mad at each other, all for not. I search my mind to
know who needs a clarification. It’s not the Planning Board because they know what they’re doing.
MS. SONNABEND-I just wanted to make sure the public understood, the Planning Board believes,
the majority at least
COUNCILMAN BREWER-And I understand that.
MS. SONNABEND-Clearly believe that only professional offices should be there.
COUNCILMAN BREWER-I understand that.
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 426
MS. SONNABEND-And also the five hundred, well actually close to six hundred now that, actually
have signatures for in our petition also are saying they don’t think multifamily should be there, they
think that the professional offices is what should be in that corridor.
COUNCILMAN BREWER-I understand exactly what you were saying to us and I think the
appropriate place for that is the Planning Board.
MS. SONNABEND-And we will, will be providing them with copies too.
COUNCILMAN BREWER-You know what, a PUD, I can tell you a story, a PUD when Betty
Monahan was on the Board was proposed by where I live. I was against what they were proposing
to do. I went to the Planning Board, my family went, my neighbors went and you know what, it’s
not a bad project now because we went. We didn’t come to the Town Board saying don’t let them
do it.
MS. SONNABEND-Right.
COUNCILMAN BREWER-Well, I might have had a little bit of that, I won’t lie to you but.
MS. SONNABEND-Well, this is gotten confused and I just wanted to make it clear where the
public stands and I don’t know how you guys are going to vote because no matter what you do, it’s
possible the public is going to get the wrong impression where each of you stand.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-One final point, Kathy and I think I’ve said it two or three times tonight,
now this will be the last time. This was not about Mr. O’Connor’s project, this was about
Professional Office Zoning throughout the Town.
MS. SONNABEND-Right.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-That’s why we were going for clarification because Professional Office
Zoning other then the Bay Road Corridor is very non-descript, very hard to interpret, that’s what we
we’re trying to correct.
MS. SONNABEND-And I regret that when I drafted this petition I wasn’t knowledgeable enough
about that because we should have included that.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-It’s okay.
MS. SONNABEND-Because we should have included that because it is a general concern
throughout the community and if more people understood that detail it would have been helpful.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-Well apparently, yea, never mind.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Thank you.
COUNCILMAN STROUGH-Well and I also when you do go to the Planning Board in addition to
the multitude of references to the Bay Road Corridor in the Comprehensive Land Use Plan
describing Professional Offices and the multiple references in our Code 179 discussing the Bay
Road Corridor making multiple references and descriptions of professional office. Now, maybe the
language itself has a loop hole in it but there’s many references that, there’s one more and just so
that it’s on the record, if you take a look at Diagram 7 which is on page 18087
COUNCILMAN BREWER-In what?
COUNCILMAN STROUGH-Of our 179 Zoning Code, the diagram shows, the layout, Professional
Offices next to Bay Road and then it says one hundred foot buffer to residential, pointing an arrow
in the back. There’s another clear indicator of what was intended in this corridor.
MS. SONNABEND-It’s unfortunate it wasn’t drafted better I guess.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-That’s what we were attempting to do.
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 427
MS. SONNABEND-Yea, thanks.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Anyone else from the public? Yes, one more from Ms. Monahan, please and
then we’re going to try to get off this and come to some sort of resolution.
MS. MONAHAN-This is probably going to surprise you.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Nothing surprises me anymore, Betty.
MS. MONAHAN-Cause when it’s necessary you know I try to hold your feet to the fire.
SUPERVISOR STEC-You do a good job.
MS. MONAHAN-But I think a while ago you guys took some fire that you didn’t deserve and I’m
going to talk about the super majority a little bit and I wish I had my book with me, All You Ever
Wanted To Know About Zoning, by Dick (Boose?) who was a zoning guru with the State
Department of New York. And I think Bob there’s at least three times when you have to have a
super majority when you talk about zoning and it’s very clearly expressed in that book and I want
the people to realize that these times that you acquire a super majority is not anything that you’ve
set.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Right.
MS. MONAHAN-This is set by the State of New York Town Law that you have to follow. So, I
don’t want them to think you guys have been up here trying to do some maneuvering.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Well, thank you for the clarification. With that, I will close the public
hearing and see if there’s any more discussion from the Town Board Members as to what their
druthers would be this evening and try to get to some sort of closure at least for the public hearing
tonight.
PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED
9:20 P.M.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Is there anything more to add? Anything more from staff to add?
COUNCILMAN STROUGH-I’ll make the same recommendation I did for the previous one which
we since have Section 8, this Local Law shall take effect immediately, we’ll leave that Section 8 in
and we’ll drop Section 7, just like we did for the other one.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-I could go for that.
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-John, if you do that you just leave it unclear as to what your
intention is.
COUNCILMAN STROUGH-Well, no Section 8 says this Local Law shall take effect immediately.
COUNCILMAN BREWER-But you can’t, you have to file it don’t we.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Is that a motion?
COUNCILMAN STROUGH-Well, let’s read the Board here Mr. Stec?
SUPERVISOR STEC-You’re in favor of that, I thought I overheard Roger saying
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-You have, well when they have a resolution you have to do SEQRA.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Pardon me?
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-Before you can act on your resolution, you’re going to have to do
SEQRA.
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 428
SUPERVISOR STEC-So we need to do SEQRA tonight. Okay.
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-If you have a move and a second, we can.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Alright, we need a motion and a second before we can go into SEQRA.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-Do we have enough information to do a SEQRA, that’s my question.
COUNCILMAN BREWER-What more information do we need?
COUNCILMAN STROUGH-Well this is only on amendments to the zoning change.
COUNCILMAN BREWER-Right.
COUNCILMAN STROUGH-But the thing about it is, it’s all going to fall apart when we talk about
Section 7 anyways, right with the big or.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Well, do you want to address the or, I mean I think that’s where we’re at now
if we’re going to move forward, we need to address the or in Section 7.
COUNCILMAN STROUGH-Well you know where I stand.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Has anyone changed their positions on Section 7?
COUNCILMAN STROUGH-In the sake of good community planning, I think we’ve got to stick to
our guns on this and Mr. O’Connor will do just fine down the road.
COUNCILMAN BREWER-Let me see what you want to omit? No, I don’t agree with that.
COUNCILMAN STROUGH-You don’t agree with what?
COUNCILMAN BREWER-Taking that out.
COUNCILMAN STROUGH-Well, there’s two parts, what part are you talking about?
COUNCILMAN BREWER-I don’t agree with the whole resolution, John. So, I’ll tell you where I
stand right now. I’ve told you in the beginning.
COUNCILMAN STROUGH-Okay, well you can abstain.
COUNCILMAN BREWER-I’m not going to abstain, I’m going to say no.
SUPERVISOR STEC-I’m not hearing any, I’m not hearing support for taking it out. I polled the
Board while you two were talking.
COUNCILMAN STROUGH-Alright, so we leave it in. Now it comes down to which part of that
are we going to leave in for the resolution.
COUNCILMAN BREWER-It depends on who introduces it.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Well, he wants to know what way we’re going.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-I’ll introduce it.
SUPERVISOR STEC-What version Roger?
COUNCILMAN BOOR-The version I prefer, the version that does not grant an exemption.
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-Can I just read it to make sure that it’s clear for everyone?
SUPERVISOR STEC-Yes.
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 429
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-It’s the second to last Resolved and it says that this local law shall be
effective immediately and shall apply to all properties in the Town’s Professional Office Zone that
have not received all necessary approvals and has not begun construction prior to this local law’s
effective date.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Okay, so you’re introducing that. Do I have a second?
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-It would also in the local law in Paragraph 7 take out the first
bracketed language in the or.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Correct. Understood.
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-I just want to make sure that if you do act that it’s clear which
version you acted on.
SUPERVISOR STEC-I have a motion, do I have a second?
COUNCILMAN STROUGH-Roger’s version as this applies for anything, there’s no exemptions.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-Unless somebody has already started a project in a Professional Office
Zone.
COUNCILMAN STROUGH-I’ll second that.
RESOLUTION ENACTING LOCAL LAW NO.: __ OF 2004 TO AMEND
QUEENSBURY TOWN CODE CHAPTER 179 “ZONING” TO AMEND
LANGUAGE CONCERNING THE PURPOSE AND ESTABLISHMENT OF
PROFESSIONAL OFFICE (PO) ZONES AND THE AMENDMENT OF
TOWN CODE TABLES 1, 2 AND 4 CONCERNING RESIDENTIAL USES
DEFEATED
RESOLUTION NO.: 481, 2004
INTRODUCED BY: Mr. Roger Boor
WHO MOVED ITS ADOPTION
SECONDED BY: Mr. John Strough
WHEREAS, the Town Board wishes to consider adoption of Local Law No.: __ of 2004 to
amend Queensbury Town Code Chapter 179 entitled “Zoning,” to:
§
1) amend language in Town Code 179-3-040 entitled “Purpose and establishment of
zoning districts,” concerning the purpose and establishment of the Professional Office
(PO) Zone;
2) amend Town Code Use Tables 1 and 2 to require setbacks for residential uses within the
PO Zone to be sited a minimum of 500 feet from Bay Road, Sherman Avenue, Western
Avenue or West Mountain Road;
3) amend Town Code Use Tables 1 and 2 to require non-residential uses within the PO
Zone to be sited within 1,000 feet of Bay Road, Sherman Avenue, Western Avenue or
West Mountain Road;
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 430
4) amend Town Code Use Table 2 to provide that personal service businesses are allowed
as accessory and subordinate to a professional office and that any service facilities shall
be located/housed within the professional office building; and
5) amend Town Code Use Table 4 to clarify the density for multi-family dwelling units and
clarify the floor area ratio requirements for office uses; and
WHEREAS, this legislation is authorized in accordance with New York State Municipal
Home Rule Law §10 and Town Law Article 16, and
WHEREAS, a copy of the proposed Local Law has been presented at this meeting and
is in form approved by Town Counsel, and
th
WHEREAS, the Town Board duly held a public hearing on September 13, 2004 and left
th
the public hearing open for the October 4, 2004 meeting and heard all interested persons, and
WHEREAS, as SEQRA Lead Agency, the Town Board has reviewed a Short
Environmental Assessment Form to analyze potential environmental impacts of the proposed Local
Law,
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT
RESOLVED, that the Queensbury Town Board, after considering the proposed Local Law,
reviewing the Short Environmental Assessment Form and thoroughly analyzing the Local Law for
potential environmental concerns, determines that the Local Law will not have a significant effect
on the environment and the Town Board hereby authorizes and directs the Town Supervisor to
complete the Short Environmental Assessment Form by checking the box indicating that the
proposed action will not result in any significant adverse impacts, and
BE IT FURTHER,
RESOLVED, that the Town Board approves a SEQRA Negative Declaration and authorizes
and directs the Town Clerk’s Office and/or Community Development Department to file any
necessary documents in accordance with the provisions of the general regulations of the Department
of Environmental Conservation, and
BE IT FURTHER,
RESOLVED, that the Queensbury Town Board hereby enacts Local Law No.: __ of 2004 as
presented at this meeting to amend Queensbury Town Code Chapter 179 entitled “Zoning,” to:
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 431
§
1) amend language in Town Code 179-3-040 entitled “Purpose and establishment of
zoning districts,” concerning the purpose and establishment of the Professional Office
(PO) Zone;
2) amend the Town Code Use Tables 1 and 2 to require setbacks for residential uses within
the PO Zone to be sited a minimum of 500 feet from Bay Road, Sherman Avenue,
Western Avenue or West Mountain Road;
3) amend the Town Code Use Tables 1 and 2 to require non-residential uses within the PO
Zone to be sited within 1,000 feet of Bay Road, Sherman Avenue, Western Avenue or
West Mountain Road;
4) amend Town Code Use Table 2 to provide that personal service businesses are allowed
as accessory and subordinate to a professional office and that any service facilities shall
be located/housed within the professional office building; and
5) amend the Town Code Use Table 4 to clarify the density for multi-family dwelling units
and clarify the floor area ratio requirements for office uses; and
BE IT FURTHER,
and shall apply to all
RESOLVED, that this Local Law shall be effective immediately
properties in the Town’s Professional Office zone that have not received all necessary
approvals and has not begun construction prior to this Local Law’s effective date, and
BE IT FURTHER,
RESOLVED, that the Town Board hereby authorizes and directs the Queensbury Town
Clerk to file the Local Law with the New York State Secretary of State in accordance with the
provisions of the Municipal Home Rule Law and acknowledges that the Local Law will take effect
immediately upon filing with the Secretary of State.
th
Duly adopted this 4 day of October, 2004, by the following vote:
AYES : Mr. Strough, Mr. Boor
NOES : Mr. Brewer, Mr. Stec, Mr. Turner
ABSENT: None
BEFORE VOTE:
MS. RYBA, Executive Director-The SEQRA Form that was completed was the Short
Environmental Assessment Form. A couple of reasons for that. One is that, it is considered an
unlisted action. There are no use changes here and that’s the first question on Part II, Impact
Assessment of the SEQRA Form, does the action exceed any type I threshold in 6 NYCRR, Part
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 432
617.4. If we were doing use changes that affected twenty-five or more acres then that would be
considered a Type I threshold but that’s not the case here. So, the answer to that would be no but of
course this is something that the Board needs to concur with. I’m just telling you how it was
evaluated. (lead the Town Board through the following)
NO
A, Does action exceed any type I threshold in 6 NYCRR, Part 617.4?
B, Will action receive coordinated review as provided for unlisted actions in 6 NYCRR, Part 617.6?
NO
MS. RYBA, Executive Director-And just for the audience’s edification, in this case the only action
that’s being taken is by the Town Board. I also wanted to mention for educational purposes that the
only action that’s being considered here is the action of rezoning and not any, because there isn’t an
actual project that’s going along with this rezoning. So, when you answer these questions you need
to keep that in mind.
C, Could action result in any adverse effects associated with the following:
C1, Existing air quality, surface or groundwater quality or quantity, noise levels,
existing traffic patterns, solid waste production or disposal, potential for erosion,
NO
drainage or flooding problems?
C2, aesthetic, agriculture, archaeological, historic, or other natural or cultural
NO
resources; or community or neighborhood character?
C3, Vegetation or fauna, fish, shellfish or wildlife species, significant habitats, or
NO
threatened or endangered species?
C4, A community's existing plans or goals as officially adopted, or a change in use
NO
of intensity of use of land or other natural resources?
C5, Growth, subsequent development, or related activities likely to be induced by
NO
the proposed action?
C6, Long term, short term, cumulative, or other effects not identified in C1-C5?
NO
C7, Other impacts (including changes in use of either quantity or type of
NO
energy)?
D. Will the project have an impact on the environmental characteristics that caused the
NO
establishment of a CEA?
E, Is there, or is there likely to be, controversy related to potential adverse environmental impacts?
NO
MS. RYBA, Executive Director-Okay. So, in terms of a Determination of Significance then there
would need to be a resolution I believe for a Negative Declaration.
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-And we included that, that’s in the first Resolved on page 2 of the
Resolution.
COUNCILMAN BREWER-So, the SEQRA Resolution is included in this resolution.
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-Yes, it’s combined, it’s the first and second Resolved.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Alright, any further discussions on the resolution that we have a motion and
second for? Alright, Caroline let’s go ahead and vote…
(vote taken)
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 433
SUPERVISOR STEC-Motion fails. Since there are multiple versions, at this time I’ll, opportunity
if anyone wants to make another motion regarding this at all?
COUNCILMAN BOOR-I just have one question, because there is an application associated with
this next one, this is why we’re doing the long form?
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-No, this is a short form.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-I mean, nope, this is a, now we are talking about a
COUNCILMAN BREWER-No, we’re not talking about a specific project.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-Am I missing something here?
SUPERVISOR STEC-It would be the same SEQRA just with the opposite language.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-It is exactly the same even though there is a project?
COUNCILMAN BREWER-Yes.
SUPERVISOR STEC-And can we use the same SEQRA we just went through if we move the next
one?
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-This is not affecting a particular application and your change is
either between the current application going under current law, if you don’t act or the current
application going under current law if you act.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-But I mean it is about an application, isn’t it? Isn’t that the essence of it?
COUNCILMAN BREWER-No see that’s what everybody is making it Roger, is about an
application.
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-This is a zone change.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-Right.
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-And whether or not to grandfather, it’s the same SEQRA that you’ve
gone through.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-Okay.
SUPERVISOR STEC-So, the same SEQRA would be valid?
COUNCILMAN BREWER-Right.
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-Yes.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Okay.
COUNCILMAN BREWER-There’s no need for the second resolution if we intended to
SUPERVISOR STEC-Well it depends on people, changed their minds, Tim.
COUNCILMAN BREWER-I’m not changing my mind.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-There will be a vote, Tim.
SUPERVISOR STEC-So, I’ll entertain a motion if there’s a motion to be made. If there’s not, just
let me know.
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 434
COUNCILMAN BOOR-I would make the motion that we accept the SEQRA, if there’s no
difference between the two SEQRA’s that we accept the SEQRA for the second one as we did the
first rather then go through this rigamarole again.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Yea, we can do that right Bob, that’s what I just asked you?
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-Yes.
SUPERVISOR STEC-So, the question is, is there a motion to go with reverse language? I’m not
hearing a motion. Is there a motion for the reverse language?
COUNCILMAN BREWER-No.
SUPERVISOR STEC-So, it was all or none. Alright, I just want to make sure. Councilman Brewer
needs to excuse himself and I would like to jump to the two appointments to the Ethics Board and
get them out of the way before he leaves because it will require four votes.
RESOLUTION REAPPOINTING PAUL ABESS TO TOWN OF
QUEENSBURY ETHICS BOARD
RESOLUTION NO.: 482, 2004
INTRODUCED BY: Mr. John Strough
WHO MOVED FOR ITS ADOPTION
SECONDED BY: Mr. Daniel Stec
WHEREAS, the Town of Queensbury previously established the Town of Queensbury
Ethics Board and the term of current member Paul Abess recently expired, and
WHEREAS, Mr. Abess has expressed interest in reappointment to the Ethics Board and the
Town Board wishes to reappoint Mr. Abess for a new four (4) year term,
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT
RESOLVED, that the Queensbury Town Board hereby reappoints Paul Abess to serve as a
rd
member of the Queensbury Ethics Board until his term expires August 23, 2008.
th
Duly adopted this 4 day of October, 2004, by the following vote:
AYES : Mr. Brewer, Mr. Stec, Mr. Boor, Mr. Turner, Mr. Strough
NOES : None
ABSENT: None
RESOLUTION REAPPOINTING GORDON OSTRANDER TO TOWN OF
QUEENSBURY ETHICS BOARD
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 435
RESOLUTION NO.: 483, 2004
INTRODUCED BY: Mr. John Strough
WHO MOVED FOR ITS ADOPTION
SECONDED BY: Mr. Theodore Turner
WHEREAS, the Town of Queensbury previously established the Town of Queensbury
Ethics Board and the term of current member Gordon Ostrander recently expired, and
WHEREAS, Mr. Ostrander has expressed interest in reappointment to the Ethics Board and
the Town Board wishes to reappoint Mr. Ostrander for a new four (4) year term,
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT
RESOLVED, that the Queensbury Town Board, by a vote of at least four (4) members,
hereby reappoints Gordon Ostrander to serve as a member of the Queensbury Ethics Board until his
rd
term expires August 23, 2008.
th
Duly adopted this 4 day of October, 2004, by the following vote:
AYES : Mr. Stec, Mr. Boor, Mr. Turner, Mr. Strough, Mr. Brewer
NOES : None
ABSENT: None
(Councilman Brewer left meeting)
CORRESPONDENCE – NONE
INTRODUCTION OF RESOLUTIONS FROM THE FLOOR - NONE
OPEN FORUM
9:40 P.M.
MR. PLINEY TUCKER, 41 Division Road-Questioned Resolution 6.14, “Resolution Authorizing
Transfer Of June Maxam Case(s) From Queensbury Town Court To Another Justice”.
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-There’s an ongoing series of cases dealing with June Maxam that
our Town Judges have recused themselves, they can’t hear the cases anymore. So, that means it
needs to get sent to another court. It seems that she’s having trouble finding courts that Judges can
hear her case and we had received a letter from the court system saying do a resolution to authorize
transferring the cases to another court. It’s the court system, there’s an Administrative Judge who
makes those determinations. We did exactly what their letter said, they got our resolution and they
said please do this resolution instead so we now came back, it basically is the same resolution it now
has new changes that they asked for that they didn’t ask for in their first letter, the substance is the
same. We need to get these heard by a Judge, we need to get it down there so that the
Administrative Judge can transfer them to a court that can hear her case.
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 436
MR. TUCKER-Questioned Jennifer, the Budget Officer as to whether the town has received the
quarterly sales tax report?
MS. JENNIFER SWITZER, Budget Officer-No.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Pliney, that usually comes about three weeks into the next month, sometimes
the third week of October. I can tell you briefly that Bill Thomas told me last week that the
Treasurer’s Office told him that the third quarter was up, last he saw eleven percent…
MR. DAVID STRAINER, 1124 Ridge Road-Referred to the opening of the new Warren County
Jail and noted that he felt it was a beautiful project and Larry Cleveland should be commended on
what he did there. Congratulations to the County Board for helping Larry and giving him the
authority to just make the change orders, he came in way under budget and what a project, it is state
of the art and it is something that the taxpayers could be proud of. The second thing I have is,
about a couple of weeks ago, there was a letter to the editor and it mentioned Dan and John and
Roger and it was talking about affordable housing in the Town of Queensbury and it kind of lead
people to believe that the reason the affordable housing is not going in the favor of the consumer is
because the Town Board here turns down projects that would be used to build affordable housing. I
thought that was shameful because for one, the Town Board does not tell a developer what he can
charge or what kind of houses he can build, the developer builds expensive houses because he
makes more money, you know plain and simple. So, I kind of felt that you guys got a bad rap on
that also…. Referred to the Ethics Board and noted that there’s no diversity of members, they’re all
republicans and if you were to go to a trial, you would get a jury of your peers. And I’ll just take
John for instance because he’s the loan democrat, if somebody were to have a complaint against
John, that would just lead people to believe what Mike O’Connor said, there’s no special favors for
the party affiliates. I really think, and again, I don’t have a problem with any of the members but
the perception and you know, as they say, perception is reality, the perception of that if anything
ever comes up against John or say an Independent or a Conservative, that they possibly could get
the appearance that they will not get a fair shake. So, just something I thought I’d bring up and
advise you of.
SUPERVISOR STEC-The people that we appointed tonight were actually people that had been on
the Board and their terms had expired and you’re absolutely right, I was sensitive to that and John
and Tim could concur with that cause we did interview three candidates, the two that we
reappointed and one new person whom I did not know and I can tell you that I did not check their
party registration. But you’re right and I was sensitive to that and I made sure to ask John if he was
aware of all this which he was and too, if he was comfortable with reappointing the two members
that we did tonight which he was and indeed he voted for them.
COUNCILMAN STROUGH-Yea, I was and that other candidate was an excellent candidate.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Yes, he was an excellent candidate.
MS. MONAHAN-Questioned whether Craig MacEwan is Chairman of the new planning
committee that’s looking at overall planning in the Town?
SUPERVISOR STEC-To my knowledge, I don’t think they did go through the exercise of selecting
and officially appointing one, I think that he was the defacto one at the first one. Since we’re on the
st
subject, the next Planning Ordinance Review Committee Meeting is scheduled to be the 21?
th
MS. RYBA, Executive Director-The 27 of October.
th
SUPERVISOR STEC-The 27 of October and I did point out that night actually to Lew Stone that
they did not appoint a chairman, I think he was acting as chairman. I think what I was gathering
from the by language is that the members of that committee were comfortable with that but they did
not officially appoint him and I expect that they’ll take that up at the next meeting.
MS. MONAHAN-I just ask because they ask for comments and suggestions and so I didn’t know
who to address them to.
MS. RYBA, Executive Director-Typically it ether comes to the Community Development Office or
the Town Clerk or even the Town Supervisor and it always gets referred to our office.
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 437
COUNCILMAN BOOR-Does it have to say PORC on it?
MS. RYBA, Executive Director-It often does say the Planning Ordinance Review Committee. We
have received comments so far.
COUNCILMAN STROUGH-Marilyn, public comment period will be open for, I’m talking about
the PORC Committee, any public comments that the public wants to make has to make them prior
th
to the 15?
MS. RYBA, Executive Director-That’s correct. I’m sure there will be other times for people to
make comments but the goal was to have one public comment period on the zoning, one comment
period on the subdivision, one comment period on the Comprehensive Land Use Plan and my
th
understanding was that the written comments through October 15 was just for the zoning.
MS. MONAHAN-Questioned Resolution 6.1, “Resolution Setting Public Hearing On Proposed
Local Law To Amend Queensbury Town Code Chapter 179 ‘Zoning’ To Convert All Land
Conservation Zones – Ten Acres (LC-10) To Land Conservation Zones – Forty-Two Acres (LC-
42)”.
SUPERVISOR STEC-That’s been pulled for this evening, but feel free to comment.
MS. MONAHAN-I just wanted to ask where this land is?
COUNCILMAN BOOR-I’m going to give you this map and I’ll get another one.
SUPERVISOR STEC-All the dark green.
MS. MONAHAN-Okay thank you and how many acres are we talking about?
SUPERVISOR STEC-Eight thousand five hundred, plus or minus.
MS. MONAHAN-And how many property owners?
SUPERVISOR STEC-Dozens and dozens and I think Marilyn may have some of that.
MS. RYBA, Executive Director-I do have that information. Four hundred for LC-10 and that was
to go from LC-10 to LC-42. So, four hundred property owners and eight thousand four hundred and
eighty-six acres.
MS. MONAHAN-I know that’s a lot of property owners but still, out of courtesy, are they going to
be notified?
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-Well, the problem is, if you start and miss one then you open
yourself up for a lawsuit. We let people know by the public hearing, by public notices in the paper.
SUPERVISOR STEC-We can post it on our website if it isn’t already there and again, we’re the
only municipality in the region that televises our meetings and it’s been in the paper and I’m sure
it’ll be in the paper again. So, I think we’re making reasonable efforts to make sure that the public
is aware.
MS. MONAHAN-Questioned Resolution 6.8, “Resolution Authorizing Engagement Of C.T. Male
Associates, P.C. For Additional Design Services And Preparation Of Engineer’s Report Relating To
Bay Road Water Main Replacement”.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Next year before the county repaves Bay Road and re-stripes it and does all
kinds of traffic improvements, there’s a significant portion of Bay Road waterlines that are starting
to give us problems. This past winter we had, I think two separate evenings that we had water main
breaks down here by, north of Stewart’s by Bayberry on the east side of the road where the
waterline is. So, that’s what the purpose of that project is for, to replace sections of the water pipe
on Bay Road.
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 438
MS. MONAHAN-Will it be resized at that time?
MR. RALPH VANDUSEN, Water/Wastewater Superintendent-Actually the waterline is now
twelve inch, it will continue to be twelve and that’s sized for the future growth of both within the
district and possible growth up towards Sunnyside.
MS. MONAHAN-How old is that pipe that’s there now?
MR. VANDUSEN, Water/Wastewater Superintendent-The pipe was originally installed in early
70’s, actually, that portion was late 60’s, 1968.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-You peaked my interest now, you said you were going to extend this up
towards Sunnyside.
MR. VANDUSEN, Water/Wastewater Superintendent-No, I didn’t. I said, no the pipe is sized large
enough to enable future growth up to Sunnyside.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-Do you see anything like that in the foreseeable future?
MR. VANDUSEN, Water/Wastewater Superintendent-A Feasibility Study was done in 1998 and it
was not cost effective at that point in time.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-But wasn’t that coming at a totally different route around Glen Lake or
something?
MR. VANDUSEN, Water/Wastewater Superintendent-Glen Lake was looked at separately but
Sunnyside and Jenkinsville were lumped together to try to make it more cost effective and at that
point, I think the average property owner was looking at a bill of, between a thousand and twelve
hundred dollars a year for twenty years. One thing I would mention on that, this specific proposal
also includes something that we talked about with the Board is a connection of a dead-end that
exists on Wincrest Drive connecting into Country Club, and that will eliminate that dead-end and
significantly improve the hydraulic capacity in that area.
TOWN BOARD DISCUSSIONS
COUNCILMAN STROUGH-There’s a serious need for EMS and Volunteer Fire Department
Volunteers. Please volunteer, the EMS and Volunteer Fire Departments are all short of volunteers
and we really could use some help, especially the EMS Squads.
SUPERVISOR STEC-Would like to thank our sponsor for televising the Town Board Meetings.
Glens Falls National Bank has generously paid for the editing and the camera time here to get this
out to our public and it will be funded for just about another year. So, I wanted to thank them and
also remind the public the town’s website is second to none, our IT Director is in the room tonight,
Bob Keenan does a wonderful job managing our site but it’s www.queensbury.net , the transcripts
of all these meetings and others are available as well as a lot of other good information.
COUNCILMAN BOOR-Questioned the status of the Salvation Army issue?
SUPERVISOR STEC-I don’t know if we’ve heard back yet but I’ll call on that…. The only thing I
wanted to point out, although Dave Strainer stole a little bit of my thunder but John Strough and I
both went Sunday to tour the, we got the before grand opening tour which included portions that the
public didn’t see. There was a very good turnout at the ceremony and Sheriff Cleveland did a nice
job with that project, it’s a twenty-four million dollar public safety building project that came in
about two hundred fifty thousand dollars under budget. So, one percent under budget, that’s pretty
good planning and I know that he was very happy to be under budget and he was on time. They
really did a nice job and it was a nice even Sunday. I wanted to just point out to the public, the
Hovey Pond Trail, it’s finished, they’ve got the railings up and the bumpers up and I think the only
thing left is they want to put some signage up about wildlife and I think they’ll be doing that in the
next couple of weeks. Please go down to Hovey Pond and check that trail out, they had a lot of
volunteers working, a lot of different organizations and departments here at the Town put some time
in and we’re appreciate of but it’s a very nice addition to Hovey Pond Park. The only thing that I
felt I wanted to do, I’ll report to the Town Board that before this meeting, I went to the calling hours
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 439
for Chuck Kelly and Charlie Wood. I think most people that are watching and most people in our
public know that those two names are mainstays of a lot of goodness that’s been done by both of
them over many years in the area and in the Town. So, I did go and pay our condolences
collectively both personally and on behalf of the Town.
MR. STROUGH-And I went to the Chuck Kelly funeral too and the reason why is I worked four
years with Chuck Kelly on the Queensbury Glens Falls Memorial Day Parade Committee and what
a heck of a guy, we’re going to miss him.
RESOLUTIONS
10:00 P.M.
SUPERVISOR STEC noted that Resolution 6.1 has been pulled.
RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING PURCHASE OF ANTIVIRUS AND SPAM
FILTERING COMPUTER SOFTWARE
RESOLUTION NO.: 484, 2004
INTRODUCED BY: Mr. Roger Boor
WHO MOVED ITS ADOPTION
SECONDED BY: Mr. John Strough
WHEREAS, the Queensbury Town Board previously adopted purchasing procedures which
require that the Town Board must approve any purchase in an amount of $5,000 or greater up to
New York State bidding limits, and
WHEREAS, the Town’s Director of Information Technology has requested Town Board
approval to purchase Antivirus and SPAM filtering computer software for all Town servers and
desk-top machines, and
WHEREAS, moneys for such purchase have been included in the Town’s 2004 Budget,
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT
RESOLVED, that the Queensbury Town Board hereby approves of the Town’s Director of
Information Technology’s purchase of Antivirus and SPAM filtering computer software from
Sophos, Inc., for an amount not to exceed $6,873.93 to be paid for from Computer Software
Account No.: 01-1680-2032, and
BE IT FURTHER,
RESOLVED, that the Town Board further authorizes and directs the Director of Information
Technology, Budget Officer and/or Town Supervisor to take such other and further action as may be
necessary to effectuate the terms of this Resolution.
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 440
th
Duly adopted this 4 day of October, 2004, by the following vote:
AYES : Mr. Boor, Mr. Turner, Mr. Strough, Mr. Stec
NOES : None
ABSENT: Mr. Brewer
RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING TRANSPORTATION AGREEMENT
BETWEEN CITY OF GLENS FALLS AND TOWN OF QUEENSBURY
PULLED
RESOLUTION NO.: 485, 2004
INTRODUCED BY: Mr. Roger Boor
WHO MOVED FOR IT’S ADOPTION
SECONDED BY: Mr. John Strough
TOWN BOARD held discussion and agreed to pull resolution until further clarification of
agreement.
RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING OUT-OF-DISTRICT AGREEMENTS
BETWEEN THE TOWN OF QUEENSBURY AND CERTAIN CUSTOMERS
OUTSIDE OF QUEENSBURY TECHNICAL PARK SEWER DISTRICT
RESOLUTION NO.: 485, 2004
INTRODUCED BY: Mr. Roger Boor
WHO MOVED ITS ADOPTION
SECONDED BY: Mr. John Strough
WHEREAS, by Resolution No.: 433,2003, the Town of Queensbury established and
created the Queensbury Technical Park Sewer District Extension No. 5 and consolidated it with the
Queensbury Technical Park Sewer District (District), and
WHEREAS, certain Town residents wish to obtain sanitary sewer service from the District’s
facilities but their properties are located outside the District’s boundaries, and
WHEREAS, the Town of Queensbury wishes to supply these Town residents with such
sanitary sewer service in accordance with Town Law §198(1), and
WHEREAS, a proposed Agreement for sanitary sewer service is presented at this meeting
and is in form approved by the Town’s Wastewater Director, Deputy Wastewater Director and
Town Counsel,
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 441
RESOLVED, that the Queensbury Town Board hereby authorizes the Town Wastewater
Director and/or Wastewater Deputy Director to enter into Out-of-District Agreements concerning
the Queensbury Technical Park Sanitary Sewer District with those users to be designated by the
Town Wastewater Department, and
BE IT FURTHER,
RESOLVED, that the Town Board further authorizes the Wastewater Director and/or
Deputy Wastewater Director to make all necessary arrangements, including collection of any fees
from the residents and signing the Agreements, in accordance with Town Law §198(I), to effectuate
the terms of this Resolution.
th
Duly adopted this 4 day of October, 2004, by the following vote:
AYES : Mr. Turner, Mr. Strough, Mr. Stec, Mr. Boor
NOES : None
ABSENT: Mr. Brewer
RESOLUTION SETTING PUBLIC HEARING ON CENTRAL
QUEENSBURY QUAKER ROAD SEWER DISTRICT
BENEFIT TAX ROLL FOR 2005
RESOLUTION NO.: 486, 2004
INTRODUCED BY: Mr. Theodore Turner
WHO MOVED ITS ADOPTION
SECONDED BY: Mr. John Strough
WHEREAS, the Queensbury Town Board wishes to adopt the proposed Central
Queensbury Quaker Road Sewer District Benefit Tax Roll for 2005 as presented at this meeting,
and
WHEREAS, the Town Board must conduct a public hearing prior to its adoption,
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT
th
RESOLVED, that the Queensbury Town Board shall hold a public hearing on October 18,
2004 at 7:00 p.m. at the Queensbury Activities Center, 742 Bay Road, Queensbury to hear all
interested parties and citizens concerning the proposed Central Queensbury Quaker Road Sewer
District Benefit Tax Roll for 2005, and
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 442
BE IT FURTHER,
RESOLVED, that the Town Board hereby authorizes and directs the Queensbury Town
Clerk to post on the Town’s bulletin board and publish in the Town’s official newspaper a Notice of
Public Hearing not less than ten (10) days prior to the hearing date.
th
Duly adopted this 4 day of October, 2004, by the following vote:
AYES : Mr. Strough, Mr. Stec, Mr. Boor, Mr. Turner
NOES : None
ABSENT: Mr. Brewer
RESOLUTION SETTING PUBLIC HEARING ON ROUTE 9 SEWER
DISTRICT BENEFIT TAX ROLL FOR 2005
RESOLUTION NO.: 487, 2004
INTRODUCED BY: Mr. Roger Boor
WHO MOVED ITS ADOPTION
SECONDED BY: Mr. John Strough
WHEREAS, the Queensbury Town Board wishes to adopt the proposed Route 9 Sewer
District Benefit Tax Roll for 2005 as presented at this meeting, and
WHEREAS, the Town Board must conduct a public hearing prior to its adoption,
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT
th
RESOLVED, that the Queensbury Town Board shall hold a public hearing on October 18,
2004 at 7:00 p.m. at the Queensbury Activities Center, 742 Bay Road, Queensbury to hear all
interested parties and citizens concerning the proposed Route 9 Sewer District Benefit Tax Roll for
2005, and
BE IT FURTHER,
RESOLVED, that the Town Board hereby authorizes and directs the Queensbury Town
Clerk to post on the Town’s bulletin board and publish in the Town’s official newspaper a Notice of
Public Hearing not less than ten (10) days prior to the hearing date.
th
Duly adopted this 4 day of October, 2004, by the following vote:
AYES : Mr. Stec, Mr. Boor, Mr. Turner, Mr. Strough
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 443
NOES : None
ABSENT: Mr. Brewer
RESOLUTION SETTING PUBLIC HEARING ON SOUTH QUEENSBURY –
QUEENSBURY AVENUE SEWER DISTRICT
BENEFIT TAX ROLL FOR 2005
RESOLUTION NO.: 488, 2004
INTRODUCED BY: Mr. John Strough
WHO MOVED ITS ADOPTION
SECONDED BY: Mr. Theodore Turner
WHEREAS, the Queensbury Town Board wishes to adopt the proposed South Queensbury
– Queensbury Avenue Sewer District Benefit Tax Roll for 2005 as presented at this meeting, and
WHEREAS, the Town Board must conduct a public hearing prior to its adoption,
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT
th
RESOLVED, that the Queensbury Town Board shall hold a public hearing on October 18,
2004 at 7:00 p.m. at the Queensbury Activities Center, 742 Bay Road, Queensbury to hear all
interested parties and citizens concerning the proposed South Queensbury – Queensbury Avenue
Sewer District Benefit Tax Roll for 2005, and
BE IT FURTHER,
RESOLVED, that the Town Board hereby authorizes and directs the Queensbury Town
Clerk to post on the Town’s bulletin board and publish in the Town’s official newspaper a Notice of
Public Hearing not less than ten (10) days prior to the hearing date.
th
Duly adopted this 4 day of October, 2004, by the following vote:
AYES : Mr. Boor, Mr. Turner, Mr. Strough, Mr. Stec
NOES : None
ABSENT: Mr. Brewer
RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING ENGAGEMENT OF C.T. MALE
ASSOCIATES, P.C. FOR ADDITIONAL DESIGN SERVICES AND
PREPARATION OF ENGINEER’S REPORT RELATING TO
BAY ROAD WATER MAIN REPLACEMENT
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 444
RESOLUTION NO.: 489, 2004
INTRODUCED BY: Mr. Theodore Turner
WHO MOVED ITS ADOPTION
SECONDED BY: Mr. John Strough
WHEREAS, by Resolution No.: 169.2004, the Queensbury Town Board authorized
engagement of C.T. Male Associates, P.C. (C.T. Male) for design phase, contract administration
phase, construction observation and easement preparation services in connection with the Bay Road
Water Main Replacement Project, and
WHEREAS, the Town’s Water Superintendent has advised the Town Board that it is
necessary for C.T. Male to prepare an Engineer’s Report regarding the improvements to the existing
District and design an additional connection between the water main on Country Club Road and the
water main on Wincrest Drive resulting in additional, engineering design services in the amount of
nd
$5,600 as delineated in C.T. Male’s September 22, 2004 letter to the Water Superintendent
presented at this meeting,
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT
RESOLVED, that the Queensbury Town Board hereby authorizes and directs engagement
of C.T. Male Associates, P.C. for the additional design services described in the preambles of this
nd
Resolution as delineated in C.T. Male’s September 22, 2004 letter to the Water Superintendent
and presented at this meeting, and
BE IT FURTHER,
RESOLVED, that the Town Board further authorizes and directs that payment for C.T.
Male’s additional services shall be paid for from Account No.: 40-8340-2899, and
BE IT FURTHER,
RESOLVED, that the Town Board further authorizes and directs the Town Water
Superintendent, Budget Officer and/or Town Supervisor to execute any documentation and take
such other and further action as may be necessary to effectuate the terms of this Resolution.
th
Duly adopted this 4 day of October, 2004, by the following vote:
AYES : Mr. Turner, Mr. Strough, Mr. Stec, Mr. Boor
NOES : None
ABSENT: Mr. Brewer
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 445
RESOLUTION TO AMEND 2004 BUDGET
RESOLUTION NO.: 490, 2004
INTRODUCED BY: Mr. John Strough
WHO MOVED ITS ADOPTION
SECONDED BY: Mr. Roger Boor
WHEREAS, the attached Budget Amendment Requests have been duly initiated and
justified and are deemed compliant with Town operating procedures and accounting practices by the
Town Budget Officer,
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT
RESOLVED, that the Queensbury Town Board hereby authorizes and directs the Town
Budget Officer’s Office to take all action necessary to transfer funds and amend the 2004 Town
Budget as follows:
WATER
FROM: TO: $ AMOUNT:
40-8340-2899 40-8310-4080 831.
(Cap. Constr.) (Advertisement)
th
Duly adopted this 4 day of October, 2004, by the following vote:
AYES : Mr. Strough, Mr. Stec, Mr. Boor, Mr. Turner
NOES : None
ABSENT: Mr. Brewer
RESOLUTION APPROVING AUDIT OF BILLS –
TH
ABSTRACT OF SEPTEMBER 30, 2004
RESOLUTION NO.: 491, 2004
INTRODUCED BY: Mr. John Strough
WHO MOVED ITS ADOPTION
SECONDED BY: Mr. Theodore Turner
WHEREAS, the Queensbury Town Board wishes to approve the audit of bills presented as
thth
the Abstract with a run date of September 30, 2004 and a payment date of October 5, 2004,
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 446
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT
RESOLVED, that the Queensbury Town Board hereby approves the Abstract with a run
thth
date of September 30, 2004 and payment date of October 5, 2004 numbering 24-444100 through
24-455003 and totaling $370,615.31, and
BE IT FURTHER,
RESOLVED, that the Town Board further authorizes and directs the Budget Officer and/or
Town Supervisor to take such other and further action as may be necessary to effectuate the terms of
this Resolution.
th
Duly adopted this 4 day of October, 2004, by the following vote:
AYES : Mr. Stec, Mr. Boor, Mr. Turner, Mr. Strough
NOES : None
ABSENT: Mr. Brewer
RESOLUTION ADDING ELLSWORTH LANE EXTENSION TO LIST OF
TOWN PRIVATE DRIVEWAYS AND ROAD NAMES
RESOLUTION NO.: 492, 2004
INTRODUCED BY: Mr. Theodore Turner
WHO MOVED ITS ADOPTION
SECONDED BY: Mr. Roger Boor
WHEREAS, by Resolution No. 434.95, the Queensbury Town Board adopted a list of
names for private driveways and roads in the Town in connection with the 911 addressing system,
and
WHEREAS, the Town Board wishes to add “Ellsworth Lane Extension” located off
Ellsworth Lane, off Bay Road, to the Town of Queensbury’s list of private driveways and road
names,
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT
RESOLVED, that the Queensbury Town Board hereby adds “Ellsworth Lane Extension” to
its list of private driveways and roads in the Town of Queensbury, and
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 447
BE IT FURTHER,
RESOLVED, that the Town Board further authorizes and directs the Town Highway
Department to arrange for installation of the necessary poles and street signs identifying “Ellsworth
Lane Extension,” and
BE IT FURTHER,
RESOLVED, that any expenses associated with this Resolution shall be paid for from the
appropriate account.
th
Duly adopted this 4 day of October, 2004, by the following vote:
AYES : Mr. Boor, Mr. Turner, Mr. Strough, Mr. Stec
NOES : None
ABSENT : Mr. Brewer
RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING TRANSFER OF JUNE MAXAM CASE(S)
FROM QUEENSBURY TOWN COURT TO ANOTHER JUSTICE
RESOLUTION NO.: 493, 2004
INTRODUCED BY: Mr. Roger Boor
WHO MOVED ITS ADOPTION
SECONDED BY: Mr. John Strough
WHEREAS, June Maxam recently filed a motion to vacate her conviction out of
Queensbury Town Court, and
WHEREAS, the Queensbury Town Justices have disqualified themselves in any cases
involving June Maxam, and
WHEREAS, the matter of Maxam v. Cleveland is currently on the Town’s Docket, and
WHEREAS, the Town’s Justices have advised the Town Board that the New York State
§
Uniform Justice Court Act 106(2) provides that the only way to transfer June Maxam case(s) to
another Justice is by the Town Board’s adoption of a Resolution requesting the Chief Administrator
of the Court or his designee to assign the case(s) to another Justice and the Town Board’s agreement
to pay the Town or Village supplying the Judge such expenses and compensation as may be
approved by the Chief Administrator of the Court or his designee, and
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 448
WHEREAS, the Queensbury Town Board wishes to approve the transfer of the case(s) and
forward the request and consent to the Chief Administrator of the Court or his designee,
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT
RESOLVED, that the Queensbury Town Board, in accordance with New York State
§
Uniform Justice Court Act 106(2), hereby consents to the transfer of case(s) involving June
Maxam from Queensbury Town Court to another Justice and hereby requests the Chief
Administrator of the Court or his designee to assign the case(s) to another Town or Village Justice,
and
BE IT FURTHER,
RESOLVED, that the Town Board further authorizes payment of any expenses and
compensation as may be approved by the Chief Administrator of the Court or his designee to the
Town or Village supplying the Judge, and
BE IT FURTHER,
RESOLVED, that the Town Board hereby authorizes and directs the Queensbury Town
Court to forward a certified copy of this Town Board Resolution to the Chief Administrator of the
Court or his designee and take any and all action necessary to effectuate all terms of this Resolution.
th
Duly adopted this 4 day of October, 2004, by the following vote:
AYES : Mr. Turner, Mr. Strough, Mr. Stec, Mr. Boor
NOES : None
ABSENT : Mr. Brewer
ACTION OF RESOLUTIONS PREVIOUSLY INTRODUCED FROM FLOOR – NONE
ATTORNEY MATTERS
TOWN COUNSEL HAFNER-I had given each of the Town Board Members a Memo about a
certain easement that’s been requested dealing with utilities along Meadowbrook and we made the
recommendation but I need some direction from the Board, no formal resolution at this time but just
a consensus of what response you want me to give.
TOWN BOARD held discussion and agreed to Town Counsel’s recommendation that the Town
needs further clarification; the area needs to be staked, surveyed, and provide a meets and bounds
description.
Regular Town Board Meeting, 10-04-2004, Mtg #45 449
RESOLUTION TO ADJOURN TOWN BOARD MEETING
RESOLUTION NO.: 494, 2004
INTRODUCED BY: Mr. Theodore Turner
WHO MOVED FOR IT’S ADOPTION
SECONDED BY: Mr. Roger Boor
RESOLVED, that the Town Board of the Town of Queensbury hereby adjourns their
Regular Town Board Meeting.
th
Duly adopted this 4 day of October, 2004, by the following vote:
AYES: Mr. Stec, Mr. Boor, Mr. Turner, Mr. Strough
NOES: None
ABSENT: Mr. Brewer
No further action taken.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
DARLEEN M. DOUGHER
TOWN CLERK
TOWN OF QUEENSBURY