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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTB-09/20/2022 PH 1 COUNTY OF SUFFOLK : STATE OF NEW YORK TOWN OF SOUTHOLD -------------------------------------------------- TOWN OF SOUTHOLD TOWN BOARD REGULAR MEETING -------------------------------------------------- Southold, New York September 20 , 2022 4 : 30 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 September 20, 2022 Regular Meeting 2 PUBLIC COMMENTS MS . NANCY BUTKUS : I realized you asked for comments before this started, but I didn ' t get a chance to look through this until I sat down . Is it too late to make comments? SUPERVISOR SCOTT RUSSELL : Of course , not . Now that the agenda is -- COUNCILWOMAN JILL DOHERTY : It ' s not . SUPERVISOR SCOTT RUSSELL : Oh, yeah . MS . NANCY BUTKUS : It ' s about the Nelson Pope contract . I am sure you all have been following what has been happening on the South Fork involving Southampton . Someone found a contract in which Nelson Pope talked about neutralizing the opposition . And basically not being a neutral representative of the fact . And Southampton immediately got rid of them and hired a new firm. And now Sag Harbor is going over all their Nelson Pope & Voorhis to make sure that, you September 20, 2022 Regular Meeting 3 know . And I don ' t understand why Southold is moving ahead with this firm that has proven to be compromised . That they ' re more working for developers and really have a vested interest in getting the developers and not listening to all of us who have been complaining about the various issues and you know -- one of our local Civic leaders went through it and found a Traffic Study, and has a Master ' s in Engineering and found all these mistakes . And yet , Nelson Pope stood behind it , even though she was an expert from a so called-expert . And everybody is going away, Nelson Pope Voorhis and I don ' t understand why Southold -- when they proved to be not a credible company . That is basically why I am here . I am Nancy Butkus by the way . COUNCILMAN GREG DOROSKI : Good to see you . So this is for the community housing fund plan that is being put together . And we put out a bid package and they were the only firm to respond September 20, 2022 Regular Meeting 4 to it . MS . NANCY BUTKUS : Now apparently Sag Harbor has found another firm and also does a lot of the other projects -- I am not sure -- COUNCILMAN GREG DOROSKI : So for us MS . NANCY BUTKUS : To stop -- COUNCILMAN GREG DOROSKI : So for us -- if I could just answer . We felt like it was an urgent enough need that we really needed to get this done . And you know, the election is how many days around the corner . They have been working on this already . We have had some meetings with them. We have had the Housing Board together that is meeting for the first time with this consultant . It feels like to train is already going down the track already . And for us , it felt like as we reviewed the contract , it didn ' t have any of those stipulations in it . This is a very limited scope plan that they ' re putting together for us . We felt September 20, 2022 Regular Meeting 5 confident in their ability to execute the plan and give us a new plan . And it felt like it was worth moving forward . COUNCILWOMAN JILL DOHERTY : And if I can add a comment too -- MS . NANCY BUTKUS : In terms of future projects with them, I guess my fear is , that they may not have put the language -- let ' s just face it , somebody made a terrible mistake with that language in the contract , "neutralizing . " So obviously they ' re not going to do that again . That was a mistake . I still think their credibility is an issue . And I wonder if the Town Board is considering that and thinking of -- as Sag Harbor is doing, reviewing the work that they have done . I mean, of course , you all probably know that I have been very involved ( inaudible ) and the fact that this traffic study was accepted when it was found to be faulty, it just seems like it ' s the same thing . And we ' re willing to take them at their word, even September 20, 2022 Regular Meeting 6 though they have proved to not ne a neutral party . COUNCILWOMAN JILL DOHERTY : So if I could give you my personal opinion? I have been involved in Town Hall in various positions for over 30 years and Nelson Pope has done many projects along the years . And I have never had any bad thing or experiences with them . So yes , from what I read in the paper and what you ' re telling me, it was a mistake . I don ' t think that one blemish cuts them out of everything . We put an RFP out . We put a contract -- MS . NANCY BUTKUS : -- facilitated COUNCILWOMAN JILL DOHERTY : Unsatisified with the contract that we have with them on this project . MS . NANCY BUTKUS : So everything is okay . We ' re going to keep using them -- COUNCILWOMAN JILL DOHERTY : I -- MS . NANCY BUTKUS : That is your experience . Nothing -- COUNCILWOMAN JILL DOHERTY : You ' re September 20, 2022 Regular Meeting 7 asking us and I am just giving you my answer . You don ' t have to agree with it . MS . NANCY BUTKUS : -- facilitate public input around controversial development . But to target , humiliate and neutralize anybody from that point of view . And that is what we have experienced in many meetings . Lines of people were told that our opinion was not expert . I mean, obviously that is what I was most involved with . I don ' t understand why other Towns have realized that this is not a best consulting firm to do this work because they ' re working for the developers . At the same time they ' re working for the Town . It ' s a conflict . COUNCILMAN GREG DOROSKI : It ' s important to note here -- the Town Attorney ' s office can correct me if I am wrong here . But we actually draft our own contracts with these consultants . So what they ' re agreeing to , are our terms . I don ' t know what happened in September 20, 2022 Regular Meeting 8 this case . Was this coming from a Town Board that drafted a contract in that way? MS . NANCY BUTKUS : No . Nelson Pope ' s contract talked about neutralizing the position of the local . Using -- COUNCILMAN GREG DOROSKI : But for us in Southold Town, we write our own contracts . MS . NANCY BUTKUS : I know, you write the contract but can these people be trusted? They have proved to be untrustworthy . COUNCILMAN GREG DOROSKI : I can tell you in this particular case, as it relates to the housing plan that we ' re looking at here , I trust them to use it . I trust their ability to execute on the contract . And that is what is before us tonight -- MS . NANCY BUTKUS : I was just talking about future contracts . COUNCILMAN GREG DOROSKI : And I can agree with you that I do think we need September 20, 2022 Regular Meeting 9 to take a hard look at you know, what we ' re having them do for us . And previous work experience views into these sort of things . MS . NANCY BUTKUS : I would really like someone to review really the entire chain that happened, within this traffic study, in which many, many mistakes were made by a woman who has an engineering degree . She is an expert . And yet, we are set with a faulty study . SUPERVISOR SCOTT RUSSELL : I don ' t want to -- I understand what the individual did and the position that she raised for this study . But I will tell you, she has expertise as well , and I think it was a disagreement between experts on what the findings should be . MS . NANCY BUTKUS : They were neutral . Obviously, they were defending themselves . SUPERVISOR SCOTT RUSSELL : They put a study out there and gave a right to respond and then they respond . Let me just say, that it ' s not the consultant September 20, 2022 Regular Meeting 10 that accepts their own study . It ' s not the input . It ' s the Planning Board that ultimately decides and accepts the findings . So it would be for the Planning Board to say, you know what , you raised some excellent issues . Nelson, Pope & Voorhis , take those and go back and revise and come back to us . I have to assume that was done . Nelson Pope found that her -- I guess suggestions weren ' t -- MS . NANCY BUTKUS : She said that the restaurant said that they would have 18 employees whereas , actually it ' s going to be more like 35 . And there were consistent problems . SUPERVISOR SCOTT RUSSELL : You know, I got to be honest . That is not a traffic issue . MS . NANCY BUTKUS : People coming and going . It ' s not 7/ 11 . SUPERVISOR SCOTT RUSSELL : And they also have to have a good understanding of what the industry . Again, those are -- she -- her presumption and their September 20, 2022 Regular Meeting 11 presumption are just that, they ' re presumptions . I don ' t know that a traffic engineer is in a position to say how many employees are going to be at a restaurant at any one time or total payroll . MS . NANCY BUTKUS : There was the data that they looked at . Anyway -- SUPERVISOR SCOTT RUSSELL : You have a right to answer . Everybody is an expert that brings their perspective to the table . Ultimately it is the Town . The Housing Plan that they ' re working on, it ' s not going to say this is the scope and do it for us . We are going to be part of the process every step of the way . And ultimately, it ' s going to be up to us to accept that . If we ' re not happy and if we think for any reason it ' s not objective , we can reject it . COUNCILWOMAN JILL DOHERTY : The Board that we had for this is community members . MS . NANCY BUTKUS : I mean not objecting to that . September 20, 2022 Regular Meeting 12 SUPERVISOR SCOTT RUSSELL : Everything you raised is fair consideration for future engagement . Absolutely . We got a time clock that we ' re trying to do . MR . ROBERT DUNN : Can I just add to that conversation? SUPERVISOR SCOTT RUSSELL : Okay . I am sorry . MR . ROBERT DUNN : Tabling that would be a good thing . The fact of the matter is , if you passed this -- and I want to see that half percent pass . I really do . I think it ' s a very wise move . I think you should do it . 1000 . But I think your kind of diminishing it ' s value when you use a consultant that has a lack of credibility . Clearly, that is a lack of credibility . They were stupid in putting that in writing . It was bad enough they thought but to put it in writing? Tells that they ' re not only not professional but stupid . That is who you ' re hiring and expect people to agree with a tax September 20, 2022 Regular Meeting 13 increase based on a non-credible consultant . That is just what you ' re doing there . So I don ' t to see that half percent go down . I want to see it pass . And this takes credibility with it . Don ' t do that . That is the Town wasting your money again . If you want to go through with it , go through with it . I am just giving you my opinion and an opinion that seems to be with a number of people already, taking about this over the last few days . Overall they were stupid and we shouldn ' t hire stupid people . COUNCILMAN GREG DOROSKI : You know, I guess with all due respect to the elected officials who signed this contract, you know, it ' s not Nelson, Pope & Voorhis did that . They were hired as a consultant by a municipality to do this . MR . ROBERT DUNN : They turned around and said, we will attack the people who disagree with it . They were stupid . September 20, 2022 Regular Meeting 14 COUNCILMAN GREG DOROSKI : Under who ' s direction? I think this is the broader question -- MR . ROBERT DUNN : Does that make it the Town Board there? COUNCILMAN GREG DOROSKI : I don ' t know . MR . ROBERT DUNN : Quite possible . Quite possible . They did it . COUNCILWOMAN SARAH NAPPA: They signed it . I will personally say that I am going to be more involved then it appears that they were . MR . ROBERT DUNN : I am not going to say spend your money frivolous . COUNCILWOMAN SARAH NAPPA: Even in the details and the plan that they come up with, I am not just going to sign it . And say, okay . Thanks so much for doing that . MR . ROBERT DUNN : I certainly appreciate that . But the thing is , whatever happens at this point with Nelson, Pope & Voorhis , there is a lack of credibility there . And if you pass September 20, 2022 Regular Meeting 15 anything with their name on it , you ' re passing something with a lack of credibility . And the key is -- I mean, if you want go give them a general contract to go study something, I am fine with that . Go ahead . That is your decision . I think you all do a good job . But the bottom line here is , you ' re going to ask the public to increase their taxes based on something someone who has a lack of credibility . COUNCILWOMAN SARAH NAPPA: Just a clarification, it ' s an increase on real estate taxes . Not the every day taxes that people pay . You know that, but I just want to make that clear . It ' s a transfer tax . MR . ROBERT DUNN : It ' s a one shot affair . But the truth of the matter is , if you sell a house for $200 , 000 and the Town is going to charge a half of a percent to do the transfer, then the people who are selling that house are aware that the Town gets that half percent . So the bottom line, it ' s money September 20, 2022 Regular Meeting 16 out of somebody ' s pocket . Whatever somebody pays for a house, they pay for a house . And it doesn ' t -- to them it doesn ' t matter who it goes to . So if they didn ' t pay it to the Town, they pay it to the owner . I just -- COUNCILWOMAN SARAH NAPPA: Not necessarily . I don ' t agree with that as far as real estate transfers go . I just wanted to make that clarification . It ' s not a tax that ' s going to be added to everyone ' s tax bill every year . This is a real estate -- MR . ROBERT DUNN : It ' s not a real estate tax . It ' s a real estate transfer . It ' s still money going somewhere where it could have gone somewhere else . And it ' s based on now a group that has no credibility . Has a lack of credibility . I am not going to say has no credibility . They still may be the best company in the world, just somebody did something stupid . But now they have to account for being stupid . COUNCILMAN GREG DOROSKI : I guess September 20, 2022 Regular Meeting 17 what I am saying, what is really important to realize here, not defending Nelson, Pope & Voorhis , but they were working for -- MR . ROBERT DUNN : You are , if you ' re going to give them -- COUNCILMAN GREG DOROSKI : Hold on a second . Hold on a second . Nelson, Pope & Voorhis was not working for themselves here . They were working for a municipality that hired them to do a tax . MR . ROBERT DUNN : No . They were working for taxpayers of that municipality . COUNCILMAN GREG DOROSKI : Yes . Absolutely . But the elected officials who hired them, right , they put out an RFP . Nelson, Pope & Voorhis responded to that RFP . There was a contract that came in that was reviewed and approved . There is blame to be shared around to all of this . What I can assure you, and I think what this Board has tried to assure you here , is that we ' re reviewing September 20, 2022 Regular Meeting 18 these contracts and at least as it relates to this specific contract to do our housing plan, we feel confident in the work product that they ' re going to give us . That it meets the needs . That ' s it ' s going to put together a plan that we ' re going to get behind . That the public is going to get behind . And that you know, I have faith that with any issues that we have with Nelson, Pope & Voorhis in the future are not going to impact this plan . The scope of this plan is pretty limited . The enabling legislation -- pretty clearly defines what you can and can ' t spend money for . What we ' re hiring this consultant to do is help gather input from the community . We ' re not looking to neutralize anything . We ' re looking to gather input . Have some graphics . Have it in a nice package that we can put out there to the public as soon as possible . I think we all support -- I hope we all support this referendum. MR . ROBERT DUNN : You can make it September 20, 2022 Regular Meeting 19 1% . I am fine with it . COUNCILWOMAN JILL DOHERTY : And to add onto what Greg said, the legislation specifically spells how we have to do this and what we have to do . Including the people on the community board . We have to have a banker . We have to have a real estate person . We have to have somebody from construction . We are not making that up . This is the legislation that we have to follow . So there is very little room for Nelson & Pope to go off on their own . And we ' re having a stakeholder meetings and things . So it ' s a community based plan that is coming . They ' re basically putting it all together for us . MR . ROBERT DUNN : I am going to say it one more time and only one more time . You ' re asking people to accept a tax based upon resulting from a company -- a consulting company that has loss their credibility . COUNCILWOMAN JILL DOHERTY : Thank you for your opinion . September 20, 2022 Regular Meeting 20 SUPERVISOR SCOTT RUSSELL : I understand the concern . Just from my opinion, we ' re asking the public to support our housing plan . At the end of the day, it ' s our plan and at our feet . Our responsibility . That is what it gets down to . But I understand everything you ' re saying . COUNCILMAN GREG DOROSKI : Absolutely . MR . ROBERT DUNN : The Town recently dismissed somebody because of an alleged crime that they committed . COUNCILMAN GREG DOROSKI : We haven ' t dismissed them. MR . ROBERT DUNN : That was completely outside of the realm. And I understand why you did that . And I am not debating that you did it . COUNCILWOMAN JILL DOHERTY : That is misinformation you just said but we can ' t really talk about it . Wen didn ' t dismiss anybody . MR . ROBERT DUNN : Okay . Suspended . Whatever . What I am saying is , when you September 20, 2022 Regular Meeting 21 lose credibility, you lose it . Doesn ' t matter how you lose it . Whether it was credible or just a stupid mistake . You lost credibility . And again, you ' re asking people to pony up more money based upon . JUSTICE LOUISA EVANS : We will look at the plan itself . After the consultants have finished, we will look it over and hope that what we present and what the Town Board plan, that the public will look at it and accept it . COUNCILMAN GREG DOROSKI : We have already hired Nelson, Pope & Voorhis . What we are doing right here is just putting the funding in place to pay them. We already hired them to do the work . We hired them a month ago . This is just -- MR . ROBERT DUNN : I get what you ' re saying . COUNCILMAN GREG DOROSKI : This is an important point . Now we ' re taking money from the inclusionary zoning by our fund, the housing fund, where September 20, 2022 Regular Meeting 22 ( inaudible ) to get around the Affordable Housing . It goes into a fund . We ' re using that money to pay for this . That is what we ' re approving here . That money in that fund to something else we can pay for . MR . ROBERT DUNN : I understand that . COUNCILWOMAN SARAH NAPPA: I also want to state that before this article even came out, we had already hired Nelson, Pope & Voorhis . We had already passed a resolution . MR . ROBERT DUNN : I just think you ' re asking -- COUNCILMAN GREG DOROSKI : I agree with you, on an ongoing basis -- this is something that we need to look at . The references is just as you ' re hiring the employee, you check the references . MR . ROBERT DUNN : They ' re no good right now . COUNCILMAN GREG DOROSKI : We need to consider the references . COUNCILWOMAN JILL DOHERTY : So we September 20, 2022 Regular Meeting 23 have a few add-on resolutions . (Whereupon, the Meeting continued on to the resolutions . ) SUPERVISOR SCOTT RUSSELL : So I would like to invite anybody that would like to comment on any item, please feel free? MR . ROBERT DUNN : Just a little comment . I just -- just a problem with -- you know, you ' re going to feel really uncomfortable if you guys come in here on November 18th and it failed . I just wanted to give you an update on Goldsmiths . Last year, we didn ' t do anything . We didn ' t need to . Fully supportive of that . Just giving you a little heads up . ( Inaudible ) . It has gotten very long . I think you have to follow Jamie ' s plan, because absolutely the shoreline is 15-20 feet further out as of 2 years ago . If we follow it like Tim did, the last one was done 2 years ago ( inaudible ) where you prefer it ' s going to be . It ain ' t going no where . It ' s going to sink in the sand . So the September 20, 2022 Regular Meeting 24 best we can hope . And this is a followup to that . I communicated with ( inaudible ) Willy, who is Lee Zeldin ' s local guy . And there was prior to COVID, there was a concept to a study going on Goldsmith ' s . And they have arranged $ 100 , 000 for financing for that . It ' s going to wait until -- basically he said he can ' t do anything until Election Day because it will be a new member . Either way . It ' s going to be a new member . So just letting everyone now . SUPERVISOR SCOTT RUSSELL : I will get an estimate on the dredging from Tim and see what we can do for this year . I don ' t remember what our cost was 2 years ago . I will make sure -- MR . ROBERT DUNN : And just, I don ' t know what the status of the renewal of the permit is? SUPERVISOR SCOTT RUSSELL : Last year . We had a ten year permit . COUNCILMAN GREG DOROSKI : Should we put this on for our joint meeting for September 20, 2022 Regular Meeting 25 the Trustees ? SUPERVISOR SCOTT RUSSELL : Yes . MR . ROBERT DUNN : There is no hurry . January 13th, the last year . You just get the best bang for your buck . SUPERVISOR SCOTT RUSSELL : Is that all ? MR . ROBERT DUNN : That ' s it . SUPERVISOR SCOTT RUSSELL : Anyone from Zoom Land? BOARD ROOM : No . JUSTICE LOUISA EVANS : I make a motion to adjourn . COUNCILWOMAN SARAH NAPPA: Second . SUPERVISOR SCOTT RUSSELL : All in favor? COUNCILWOMAN JILL DOHERTY : Aye . COUNCILMAN BRIAN MEALY : Aye . COUNCILWOMAN SARAH NAPPA: Aye . COUNCILMAN GREG DOROSKI : Aye . JUSTICE LOUISA EVANS : Aye . SUPERVISOR SCOTT RUSSELL : Aye . (Whereupon, the meeting concluded at this time . ) September 20, 2022 Regular Meeting 26 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 September 20 , 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 2nd day of October, 2022 . essica DiLallo