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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTB-02/15/2022 PH 1 COUNTY OF SUFFOLK : STATE OF NEW YORK TOWN OF SOUTHOLD -------------------------------------------------- TOWN OF SOUTHOLD REGULAR TOWN BOARD MEETING -------------------------------------------------- Southold, New York February 15 , 2022 7 : 00 P . M . B E F 0 R E : SCOTT A . RUSSELL, SUPERVISOR LOUISA P . EVANS , JUSTICE JILL DOHERTY, COUNCILWOMAN BRIAN 0 . MEALY, COUNCILMAN GREG DOROSKI , COUNCILMAN SARAH E . NAPPA, COUNCILWOMAN 2 SUPERVISOR SCOTT RUSSELL : I would like to invite anybody who would like to address the Town Board on any issue, please feel free? MS . CARRIE FRIEND : Carrie Friend . If you haven ' t heard of me before, I reside on Peconic Bay Boulevard . I am the volunteer representative that I represent the residents on Peconic Boulevard Bay, Maurleen and Sigby . I have been speaking on their behalf for over 2 years now . 2 years , 3 months . And I have bombarded you with e-mails , Council Nappa . Your mailboxes are probably full , and it ' s based on me alone . I speak on behalf of everybody else . They e-mail me, I e-mail you . This time I have to say it ' s personal . And I do not get raddled very easily but this is going to take about 7 minutes of your time and actually I apologize . I have been watching the traffic on Peconic Bay Boulevard now for over 2 years . I have been there for over 2 years . And I have been watching the traffic . We all know that the drivers are aggressive . They ' re erratic . And yet 3 again, I witnessed it, another fatality on ( inaudible ) Avenue, where another car hit a bus head-on . This is due to the obvious impact on the amount of people that are moving out here . We are a very small area with a lot of people living out here, but more on a personal note . My daughter is 17-years-old . She just learned how to drive . She had my son 15-years-old in the car . She was pulling in and I guess after listening to me several times , she needed to learn how to back into the driveway . So she saw that nobody was there . She decided that she was going to back into the driveway . And as she did it, she realized she was a little bit crooked . She moved all the way up on the apron and she saw cars on Peconic Bay, right on the corner on Delmar . So she sat there and she waited, and she flashed her lights . "Go ahead . Go ahead . " Didn ' t move . So she decided to inch out . As soon as she started to inch out, that car proceeded to hit the gas . Quickly . Almost hitting the side of her car . She is not experienced driver . She did not know to put the car in 4 reserve and back into the driveway . Her first reaction then was to pull all the way out, turn into you, you know -- into our neighbors driveway . The car was so close to her, she could not even hit the brake . He was riding her bumper very, very close . She sped up to 35 . He sped up to 40 . She almost hit 45 . She was scared to death because I tell her ( inaudible ) she knows that . He went all the way down to Laurel Wood, where I know there is that little roundabout . And my son was scared, and he said just go down to the roundabout and go all the way around . He followed her all the way down there . And as soon as she was able to pull off, he hit the gas and he continued to go . We all that this is dangerous . And I don ' t know if all of you have children, but it ' s very scary, one, that they ' re on the road . So two, that this has happened right in front of my home . I was in my house . I was unaware of the situation . I know you all have empathy . I am not asking for response . I am not asking for you to respond to me at this time . All I am asking 5 is for you to listen . A response e-mail to my e-mail that went out . It was stated that you have encountered erratic aggressive behavior that made you pull your car over to the side . At this time, if we keep pulling our cars over, we still let these people fly by us and think that they have a right to do so . Me personally, I would say at 30 miles an hour . And if they chose to pass me, they ' re the one ' s breaking the law . It was stated that this is an epidemic . This is all over Long Island . It all over . People drive aggressively . They drive erratically . Every epidemic . Every pandemic . We have heard this word over and over again . They all have a recourse . Whether it ' s hidden or in our face, if we are proactive -- if we are proactive, we could have stopped this . We saw this coming . It is stated that we are not unique on Peconic Bay Boulevard . Absolutely not . I am not saying we are . I am looking at all the residential areas . People driving 45, 50 , 60 plus miles an hour . We saw a motor cycle that exceeded 80 miles an hour with their friends filming it 6 at those times . I am not saying that we are unique into that aspect of it, but when you coupled with the heavy abundance of traffic, it makes it extremely dangerous on our roadway . We have a very dense population of residents . Also we have people that have beach rights that need to cross Peconic Bay Boulevard with their family, and they have their pets , which I consider family as well , and their own lives . You have put forth -- and Council Nappa, after hearing me plea for help, you were the first one to step up and say, all right . Enough is enough and something has to be done . And I thank you for that . I know you went above and beyond and did that, and I thank you from the bottom of our hearts but we need to know how to enforce that . Because we still see everybody coming down . The Hampton Jitney is blatantly disregarded because it ' s non-stop to the Riverhead sign . Chief Flatley put a little device to count the cars and the speed last year, but unfortunately it was too cold . It didn ' t work and then it ran out of solar power 7 batteries . So we don ' t have significant data on that . Then we had Mr . Russell who came down and was so gracious to take time out of his day to sit on the corner of Delmar and he sat there doing a tally . He did it the old fashion way with a piece of paper . And he did ( inaudible ) noted people speeding and he noticed a lot of traffic . People were going faster but not at the speed of which we see . Why? There was a police officer about a quarter of the mile down the road doing radar . It did slow them down, but as soon as they passed the officer, boom. They ' re gone again because they know there are no consequences . Peconic Bay Boulevard is not meant to ease the congestion on Main Road . This is a residential road . This is a populated residential road . And we know that nobody really wants to do too much about it because it does help the ease the congestion so people don ' t have to sit in traffic . And a lot of the traffic stems from the light at ( inaudible ) Avenue . Right now we are not in tourist season . People that work out here 8 get stuck at the factory traffic light and they go down Bay and they want to bypass and they drive as fast as they want down Peconic Bay Boulevard, so that they don ' t have to sit in traffic as well . I am going to put it to you this way, I work for the taxpayers as well . I have been in education for 23 years . If I had a classroom and I had a handful of students that didn ' t follow the rules and I did not give them any consequences , what would happen, that would spread like wildfire . The first week it ' s going to be 5 students . The next week it ' s going to be 10 students and then you have 900 of the students that is not listening . It is my job to ensure the safety of the students and to provide them with an education . If I do not stop it when it needs to be stopped, I am going to lose control of my classroom. I will have administrators in my classroom if I still don ' t fix the situation, I will be put on a Teacher Improvement Plan . If I still cannot fix that problem with the parents calling, I will be removed from my classroom. It is my 9 job to ensure the safety of these students . It is your job to ensure the safety of the residents . So let me ask you, where does lawlessness begin? In my classroom, if I am not following the rules and I am letting everything happen, that lawlessness begins with me and I take responsibility . In this situation, I appreciate the things that you do . I appreciate you putting a stop on a lot of the wineries being brought out here . But again, it ' s a small area and it ' s still a little out of control . We have the drunk drivers that come down after the bars . After the wineries , to avoid the traffic . It ' s not happening in front of your home . It ' s happening in front of mine . 15 and 17 years-old, my children were put at risk from an erratic driver . I hope and pray that never happens to you or you never have to feel that . We have a small town and we have a small government . This town is growing . And it ' s growing beyond anyone ' s control . And the only I can think of it, this is mayhem. And it ' s a recipe for disaster . I do not want to see one more death . I do not 10 want to see one more hit and run and it ' s bound to happen . There is a car running into a bus head-on in Riverhead . Children weren ' t hurt . Someone was killed . That could have been a lot worse . We know what happened in Quoque . We know what happened to all the hit and run ' s and have happened here . There are choices that need to be made . That ' s either to expand our police department, to protect our residents from erratic, aggressive drivers and we need to enforce a zero tolerance policy . I am not talking about driving on Long Island Expressway . I am not talking about driving on Sunrise Highway, where people do exceed the speed limit and some people do go slower . We are talking about narrow roadways with no shoulders . And it is windy . And it is dark . Or we need to have self-enforcing traffic devices . Having moved two times on Long Island on the North Fork, I have had to pay the Peconic Land Preservation tax twice . How about the wineries , the breweries and I hate to say it, but the hotels that are coming out here, 11 take a residential preservation tax and this ' s money would then go to preserve our roadways , to put up traffic devices that will force people to slow down . I don ' t think I am asking a lot, but we are entitled to our rights of safety and our quality of life . I can go on and say that I cannot open my windows because it sounds like I live on the expressway . I am not focusing on that . I am focusing on the safety of people that live there and want to walk there and have their deeded beach rights that want to go to the beach . They want to walk with their families . They want to be a witness -- a gentleman he was walking down and I received a text that he was literally thrown off the side of the road and into the bushes early in the morning . This is not how we want to live . This Town is growing exponentially and we were supposed to be proactive rather than reactive . I did mention that you were taking municipal steps . I understand that everything is a process , but if we look at it, in two years and three months , which is the equivalent of 12 117 weeks . We have a 4 ton limit in size coming up . To tell people that they ' re speeding when they know that they are doing so . And if there are no consequences , there are no reason for it . But I will take what we can get . We really need your help . I never come to these meetings . I bombard you with e-mails . Now that it ' s happening to my family, it ' s personal . My kids lives were put at risk . I never want you to experience that . I never want your children to have to experience that . And if it ' s too much to ask, I really need your help . We really need your help . And I appreciate your time . And if you don ' t mind, I have this -- traffic and what is allowed in New York State . I know it ' s dated -- I highlight everything that is relevant to us . COUNCILWOMAN JILL DOHERTY : Can you give it to the Town Clerk and he will make copies for us . Thank you . MS . CARRIE FRIEND : Thank you . SUPERVISOR SCOTT RUSSELL : In two weeks , I am going to put on the Town Board agenda asking the Town Board to move forward 13 with installing the signs of the speed indicators . The blinking signs . I have studied them and I realized they have not been realized . I researched the junk out of it, and they work . MS . CARRIE FRIEND : It ' s going to work definitely for the tourist . There is no doubt . The locals are driving it and there are no consequences and we need a zero tolerance policy, if there are no consequences , it ' s all right, I know I am speeding . Nothing is going to happen . So if we can enforce it, that would be fantastic . Otherwise, I know what is going to happen . Somebody that lives near it . Every time somebody speeds they are going to taking pictures of it and sending it to me while I am at work . SUPERVISOR SCOTT RUSSELL : Look, I told you a long time ago and just some history, I proposed a 4 ton limit under a different Board and didn ' t get anywhere . When Sarah came, she took charge of the transportation commission . She really put a lot of work into it . I said, Sarah, why 14 don ' t you investigate this ? Maybe I was wrong . Maybe I was write . Maybe it will work . She put forward something we were able to pass ; however, I have made it clear that there are things -- there is no single solution . Unless you want to put a police officer every 100 feet . There is nothing that is going to stop that aggressive driver . Unless a cop saw him right then and there, there is nothing that he could have done on it . Based on State Law, he would have had to witness it . To have a cop there every minute is simply unobtainable . But we have put ideas on the table that seem to get rejected . So it ' s no one singular solution . Let ' s get those signs up to see at the very least if they make a difference . And in all of the studies if they make a conclusion of the opposite ( inaudible ) not just seasonal people . On local traffic it does have an impact . Even after they come down . Not going to solve the problem. Again, it ' s not going to be one singular solution . More so people are not going to want to hear this but on Peconic Bay Boulevard, we don ' t own a 15 narrow country road . We own a very wide one . And if there is no shoulder and it ' s presenting risk and safety issues who people are pedestrians and bicycle riders , then let ' s get an engineer out there and start pricing out to widen the road a little bit . All of those things might have to be implemented to make a fundamental difference on a busy road . All no simple solutions . You have to look at all of these things here . MS . CARRIE FRIEND : I am not here to argue . SUPERVISOR SCOTT RUSSELL : I am not arguing but I am frustrated too . MS . CARRIE FRIEND : You ' re frustrated and I am frustrated . But when it comes down to it and you have people traveling up to 60 miles an hour, it ' s -- it ' s horrible . We need to enforce a zero tolerance policy . Start handing out tickets or -- it has been discussed . Get the cameras . That will ticket people . The money that you will generate as a town will be insane . Because if you put four of them out, five of them 16 out on that stretch, one, people don ' t want to be ticketed but you put it up there and people are now speeding, they will learn to slow down . If we can self regulate -- I know you don ' t want to pay for more police officers . I know that is more health insurance . I know how expensive it is , but if we can put up something that is going to force people to slow down, you know, that might be an idea . I am just looking at something that is going to possibly save a life of somebody or curb the volume of traffic going through there and not to be used as a bypass or a thoroughfare . And believe me, it happens all the way throughout . I go to Southampton . They drop the speed limits to 25 miles an hour . You don ' t dare go over 25 miles an hour there . I don ' t know what they did but as soon as you head in through Southampton, and you go through that Village where you can go down that Village to head through Shinnecock, that is a wide road . And everybody drops down in speed . When it was started, the police were right there and they were 17 writing tickets left and right . You know, I don ' t know . This is not my position . This is not my role . I am coming to you and asking we have a right to safety . And we can all work together . And from a very reasonable person, it ' s not -- I might be a little tired . I wake up at 4 : 30 in the morning . I travel an hour and a half to work . I work all day . I come home . An hour and a half home . You know, and I am doing this on the side . I don ' t want to do this . I am taking away from my family because I want to ensure their safety . I want to ensure your safety . I don ' t want you to have to be pulled over for an erratic driver . I don ' t want your family to be scared driving . And what we see and what you see, we live it . So I know that these are little steps that we have to take . I have many solutions and if it ' s a matter of the State, have them come talk to me . I don ' t care . I am ready . Because you know what, when it comes down to people ' s safety, quality of life, the State doesn ' t live here . The State doesn ' t know our small time 18 community and they don ' t know the problems that we face . So if we can say, this is what we need, I am sure they ' re going to be more than reasonable . If they can provide evidence of it . I don ' t want to have to make another video . I could . It takes a lot of time . I put that video together to show you what we see and that was just in two days . One day, but I had a few things -- two days in it . But I was looking out for the safety . It ' s dangerous . It ' s Peqoush . It ' s New Suffolk . Shouldn ' t have to be like that . So if we can ramp it up . Zero tolerance policy, people will slow down . You know what happened to me, a police officer is not going to be there . If they know they should be doing that or they could possibly be caught, you know, if it saves a light, then so be it . But I am sorry, momma bear had to come out . It ' s been 117 weeks and it finally hit my family . This time, my babies . So take it for what it is . I don ' t need you to respond . I need an empathetic ear and listen and hear me . I am usually that voice for the people, but I 19 am sorry, this time it ' s me . So I apologize, I took up a lot of your time . I know everybody wants to go to bed . I really don ' t want to start an argument . I am not here to do that . I just want a solution . So we are all safe and we can navigate this mayhem. COUNCILWOMAN SARAH NAPPA: Just as an update, those signs are ready to go up . And the Highway Superintendent has been looking at locations . And we are going to discuss that at the Transportation Commission on Thursday, the places that you have flagged and where they are going to go . MS . CARRIE FRIEND : The ground is frozen right now . COUNCILWOMAN SARAH NAPPA: That too . MS . CARRIE FRIEND : And we don ' t have too many sunny days . SUPERVISOR SCOTT RUSSELL : And more so, please don ' t feel like you have to apologize for taking our time or sending e-mails . That is what we are here for . Whether they are effective or not, please, we are here to listen . 20 MS . CARRIE FRIEND : I am not here to cause a problem. Life and death situations COUNCILWOMAN SARAH NAPPA: We are here representing you . SUPERVISOR SCOTT RUSSELL : This room is your room. MS . CARRIE FRIEND : I have done an exorbitant amount of work on it . A lot of research . So if you want to sit down, ( inaudible ) I will help you rectify and come up with solutions . I don ' t every claim to be a local . I have only been on the North Fork for 20 years . I know locals are here from the 1600 ' s . But you know, I am a part of the community and if I could be that voice, so be it . Thank you everyone . COUNCILWOMAN SARAH NAPPA: Thank you . SUPERVISOR SCOTT RUSSELL : Robert? MR . DUNN : Good evening . Robert Dunn, Peconic . Just a followup comment, there is nothing ( inaudible ) than getting a ticket in the mail . Those cameras work . Absolutely . I mean, if a cop pulls you over, you got a chance . You smile . You 21 went to school with his brother . You know his last name . He ' s Irish like you, whatever . You got a chance . You got a ticket in the mail , you got no chance . SUPERVISOR SCOTT RUSSELL : I asked the previous Town Attorney on whether he could look into any, I know the Red Light Cameras and the rolling stops like that -- MR . DUNN : The Red Light Cameras and speeding, that is another deal . SUPERVISOR SCOTT RUSSELL : I asked him to research it . Unfortunately, we had a transition and I didn ' t get that to be picked back up . I think that would work well if it ' s allowed to be implemented . MR . DUNN : I think if we had a big sign coming into town on 25 and Peconic Bay Boulevard that said you are subject to a camera -- SUPERVISOR SCOTT RUSSELL : I would love it . MR . DUNN : People would react . Question . On today ' s work session, there was an update on the Justice Court . I didn ' t hear that . Did I miss it? 22 COUNCILWOMAN JILL DOHERTY : Yeah . It was just a brief, to let everybody know that I filled in the two new members on the details of what we had done in the past six years and the properties that we looked at . And then they ' re looking at the properties and the buildings and they spoke to the engineer for -- MR . DUNN : So there wasn ' t a big discussion? COUNCILWOMAN JILL DOHERTY : No . No . Just a continuation on what we said we were doing . MR . DUNN : Anyway, two things . Both issues that Sarah brought up today . The special events , we are coming into that season . You can smell it already . You know, and my -- by here you can smell it . Their work is months off . Sarah made a point today about considering some changes maybe to the wineries . I have to say that is something you might really want to look into . Number one, if we ' re going -- I made a point when we were discussing the hotel over here . He had in his business motto 23 that he was going to do special events . Those are not special events . He didn ' t even get a contract . He didn ' t have plans and you are already talking about special events . So it kind of dilutes that whole concept of special event if they are just handed out like White Castle hamburgers . So but on the other side of it, I have been coming here since 1951 . Longer than most of you alive . And it ' s -- I saw the town going down . Really in my teen years . You have a lot of housing . You have a lot of commercial . There is a lot more than Riverhead . The wineries have given the Town -- the kind of things that they are doing with these special events , they are really not in competition with some of the restaurants . Very few restaurants here that can handle those large crowds . You guys get into the long conversations . I am just throwing out some things that I thought about . I don ' t necessarily 100% agree with what you said, but I 100% agree it should be discussed deeper and all the way . On the other side of that coin ( inaudible ) that is 24 all you need to say . Second thing, you spoke about lights . Something near and dear to my heart . That picture results of all above my pillow . You see in the lower left corner of the lighted area . That little corner there is my pillow . These are lights that shine directly into my window . And I don ' t want to discuss my personal issue there, but I am just talking about lighting in general . It ' s very disruptive . It has been going on for 15 months now . Fortunately, we bought very ( inaudible ) venetian blinds . It shouldn ' t have to be that way . Nobody should have to live -- going back to when I first came here again, when I was 4-years-old, I could remember clear as a bell , I was amazed at the stars . Never clearer . We got stars . I doubt any of you have ever seen them. COUNCILWOMAN JILL DOHERTY : I have . MR . DUNN : Here? I doubt here . COUNCILWOMAN JILL DOHERTY : Here I have . MR . DUNN : No one was here in 1950 . COUNCILWOMAN JILL DOHERTY : Not 1950 . 25 I grew up in Port Washington and I couldn ' t wait to come out here . MR . DUNN : This whole thing was lights and ( inaudible ) and officer enforcement to check lights , we have code enforcement problems . If an officer goes out, should be a neutral cause for writing a ticket . It ' s kind of a neutral thing . If he doesn ' t produce tickets , then there is no need and no code problems . It ' s kind of something that evens itself out . Our lighting code is $250 . 00 a day after the offense . Same thing with our noise code, it ' s $250 . 00 an hour after the offense . So people aren ' t stupid . There is ways to stop that . I will say ( inaudible ) beaches at Coney Island . So there is no need . I am not talking about ( inaudible ) and you see it all over town . It ' s just some things that shouldn ' t be based on complaints because if you wait for everything to be resolved by complaints , you are going to get overwhelmed from it . I saw that . I saw it go down . I saw the lack of stability . I grew up with it . I learned it at a very young age . My 26 father was run down across the street in front of our house . It was a speeder . A dumb kid . It was just a dumb kid doing what he wanted . So you got to control these things . Whether it ' s lights , whether it ' s speeders , it ' s got to be done . And the lights are a personal note . I am not going to discuss my personal , at some point we would, but not now . Thank you . SUPERVISOR SCOTT RUSSELL : Thank you . COUNCILWOMAN JILL DOHERTY : Thank you . SUPERVISOR SCOTT RUSSELL : Robert, I did go out there a couple of times at night . I tried to take pictures at night . My camera just doesn ' t work well at night, the light there . It was just too bright dots on my screen . I did go out and look . The problem is the building is so bright too . The light makes it so stark . I went to -- MR . DUNN : I know you have been there . I know Sarah was there . I didn ' t want to get into -- SUPERVISOR SCOTT RUSSELL : I am just saying -- 27 MR . DUNN : -- Suffolk County District Attorney . You shouldn ' t see light like in an academy ever . There is no need for it . And that is what kills the stars . Thank you . SUPERVISOR SCOTT RUSSELL : That ' s it . JUSTICE LOUISA EVANS : Motion to adjourn . COUNCILWOMAN JILL DOHERTY : Second . SUPERVISOR SCOTT RUSSELL : All in favor? COUNCILMAN GREG DOROSKI : Aye . COUNCILWOMAN JILL DOHERTY : Aye . COUNCILMAN BRIAN MEALY : Aye . JUSTICE LOUISA EVANS : Aye . COUNCILWOMAN SARAH NAPPA: Aye . SUPERVISOR SCOTT RUSSELL : Aye . (Meeting Concluded . ) 28 C E R T I F I C A T I O N I, JESSICA DILALLO, a Court Reporter and Notary Public, for and within the State of New York, do hereby certify: THAT the above and foregoing contains a true and correct transcription of the Meeting held on February 15, 2022, via videoconference, and were transcribed by me. I further certify that I am not related to any of the parties to this action by blood or by marriage and that I am in no way interested in the outcome of this matter. IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this 28th day of February, 2022 . 4Jeica DiLallo t