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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTB-08/12/1998-S,FISPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING A Special Meeting of the Southold Town Board was held on August 12, 1998, with the Fishers Island Ferry District, at Fishers Island, New York. Supervisor Cochran opened the meeting at 12:00 P.M. Present: Supervisor Jean W. Cochran Justice Louisa P. Evans Councilwoman Alice J. Hussie Councilman William D. Moore Councilman Brian G. Murphy Councilman John M. Romanelli Town Clerk Elizabeth A. Neville Town Attorney Gregory F, Yakaboski SUPERVISOR COCHRAN: The Ferry District requested this meeting, and we donSt have an agenda. May I first do introductions? I am sure some of us know one another, but not every one knows everyone, so I will introduce for the Town. Betty Neville is our Town Clerk. Brian Murphy, Councilman, Alice Hussie, Councilwoman, John Romanelli, Councilman, Louisa, you all know. Greg Yakaboski is our Town Attorney, and Bill Moore, Town Board member. John Cushman does all the check writing downstairs, and takes care of all our finances. Jim McMahon is Community Development, so if someone on your side would like to introduce everyone. REYNOLDS duPONT, JR.: I am on the Board of the Ferry District, and George Esser is our newly elected Ferry Commissioner, as of yesterday. I have David Burnham, a Commissioner, Tom Doherty a Commissioner in the Ferry District, and John Spofford from the Fishers Island Civic Association. Serge Doyen, whom everyone knows. SUPERVISOR COCHRAN: He belongs to all of us. Louisa, I am going to turn this over to you so we can get this going. JUSTICE EVANS: It is actually I talked to the previous Town Attorney, who suggested that the Town Board and the Ferry District sit down and talk about the property that the Town owns out here, and the management. The property has come up at Town Board meetings, who owns that? What goes on with it? What is going on? No one really knows, and I am not sure that there has ever been any perimeters put on it, but it would seem that it would be a good idea to clarify, one, exactly what properties the Ferry District does manage for the Town, and what that means, what the Ferry District expects from the Town Board, and what the Town Board expects Ferry District. Alice sometimes has questions. from the COUNCILWOMAN HUSSIE: Often. I read your bible, and I see that it says that you can do whatever you have to do in order operate the ferry including raising and lowering fares, given the timetable. JUSTICE EVANS: You are talking about something a little bit different. You are talking about the Ferry District. COUNCILWOMAN HUSSIE: But I am going to get to that. Also. you have to do with the Airport. and whatever. ~ 2I AUGUST 12, 1998~ SUPERVISOR COCHRAN: Different properties, right. COUNCILWOMAN HUSSIE: My question originally was, long ago when I first got on the Board, there are a bunch of buildings down below the old metal dump. I call it below. I don't know what the name of that road is. Prospect Road. There are a lot of places, and I understand they are rented. Is that property part of the airport property. REYNOLDS duPONT, JR.: Yes, it is. COUNCILWOMAN HUSSIE: It is, therefore it is owned by the Town. REYNOLDS duPONT, JR.: Correct. COUNCILWOMAN HUSSIE: Then I have to say the next question, which is not going to make me very popular. It says, the operation of the ferry, the operation of the airport, the funding that you get from the rental of those properties, what is that money used for, who gets it, and why? REYNOLDS duPONT, JR.: The Ferry District gets the money, and it goes into, I guess, our account, and the expenditures that we have incurred are offset against that income. COUNCILWOMAN HUSSIE: wash. So you are telling me in essence that it is a REYNOLDS duPONT, JR.: It is a wash. We are believers in the process of updating the number of properties we actually have, and also rent. There is a single family house we rent out. It is rented to a year-round resident. There are two but the house is not rented to anyone. COUNCILWOMAN HUSSIE: Is that also Town property? REYNOLDS duPONT, JR.: Yes. Previously the State Trooper house was our manager's house, and when that manager retired, and ultimately died, the Troopers moved in there for one summer, and we said, well, you have to pay rent. They said, we won't be back. So, they get it rent free. COUNCILWOMAN HUSSIE: You carry insurance on everything? REYNOLDS duPONT, JR.: Yes. COUNCILWOMAN HUSSIE: My question was really concerns about, number one, I didn't realize that there is properties down in Mosquito Hollow, it sounds like the Hatfields and the McCoys. Down in Mosquito Hollow is Town property, number one. Number two, the insurance thing bothered me a little bit, because I thought of people going in there, and doing something that ultimately the buck stops with the Town Board, even though you all are managing it. REYNOLDS duPONT, JR.: That stems from the metal dump being cleaned out, and all of a sudden we hav~ a large pit. I am concerned about fencing that in. We have leased, rented in some way, that property to a garden company. They said it was going to use it for storage of bulk material, mulch, and that kind of thing, so it iS~a little bit more attended to than just sort of a great big huge old emplacement, that kids can go wandering around forever. COUNCILWOMAN HUSSIE: Is there a fence there now? REYNOLDS duPONT, JR.: Yes, the fence is up. JUSTICE EVANS: That was dOne. That Town actually paid for the material. That piece of property actually was not under the management of the Ferry District, until after we cleaned it out, and then we asked the Ferry District to take over the management, since they had all the property around it. I don't know if we put direction on it, except that the property was contiguous with the others that they take care of. AUGUST 12, 1998 REYNOLDS duPONT, JR.: Originally, I think, we did have control of that piece, and ~then I don't know if it goes back as far as Al Martocchla or not, but when we decided that is where the metal was going to go, he said, don't worry about it. COUNCILWOMAN HUSSIE: The people who were sorely abused by the view of the metal dump, are they happy now? REYNOLDS duPONT, JR.: Boy, .are they ever much happier, because honestly .they were overlooking a b g mess. They had legitim~{e gripes, now it is just concrete, and some mulch, which they can't see. It is a lot better. COUNCILMAN MOORE: My concern is that I think it is great, that the job the Town needs to be done is done by you guys. Whether you guys can legally do that, or not, the Town Attorney can figure it out. I don't really care. The job is gettin~ done. The only concern I had as a Councilman was that when you rent out to a third party, or you have work done on the property, the town is the underlying property owner, that appropriate insurance is in place. Not just that you have that insurance, but whoever is coming onboard to do work, or to rent from you, or through the town is insured. Assuming that would be in your powers, you can manage properties for the town, that needs to be formalized. JUSTICE EVANS: I don't know if Phil is coming. REYNOLDS duPONT, JR.: He will be here. JUSTICE EVANS: He didn't realize that the Town hadn't been getting copies of the insurance policies, which the Town will now hopefully get. SUPERVISOR COCHRAN: What about copies of leases? REYNOLDS duPONT, JR.: I don't believe you get copies. SUPERVISOR COCHRAN: We don't get copies of leases, which we would like to have copies, so it is kept in the Town Clerk's office, and files. REYNOLDS duPONT, JR.: I didn't realize you were that much in the dark. That sounds like tidying up the house. We can do that. COUNCILWOMAN HUSSIE: I don't know if this is something that you do. It just doesn't ever arrive in my box, but it hasn't in all the years I have been 'on the Board. Section six, a line says, the Ferry Commissioners shall on or before the tenth day of each month file with the Town Clerk a report of their activities during the proceeding month. Do we get that? REYNOE,DS duPONT, JR.: That is more on the idea of just before a Board, usually the week before, we pass on our bills and send over all that. TOWN CLERK NEVILLE: We used to years ago, but I haven't seen it. SUPERVISOR COCHRAN: Betty said we used to get it years ago, but in recent years we haven't received it. JUSTICE EVANS: minutes that.. Do you send a copy of all your minutes, or just the REYNOLDS duPONT, JR.: over copies of the minutes. This does have the minutes. We could send SUPERVISOR COCHRAN: It keeps the Board updated on what is going on. COUNCILWOMAN HUSSIE: It might be more than we want to know. · ~ AUGUST 12, 1998 REYNOLDS duPONT, JR.: Trust me, it ~s a lot more than you want to know. It would be like reading the Town Board minutes. There are an awful lot of Town Board minutes I could probably not bother reading. As I think you all know we have had a lot of projects going on. One, we are replacing the dock down at where you tied up, and also, are trying to expand our facility in New London, which has become a nightmare for us, as far as Connecticut's regulators. You all are aware of the stage right now where we think we are going to get some approvals out of the State of Connecticut, and that means our 'documents are pretty mUch intact, and aren't going to Change a whole lot. COUNCILWOMAN HUSSIE: Did you get more property there? REYNOLDS duPONT, JR.: No. Getting more property and moving disappeared. We were finally turned down on that notion. We didn't really have our. hearts in i.t anyway, so we are going .to expand where we are, and that ~s the rub with tl~e Environmental P~otectlOn AgenCy. COUNCILWOMAN HIJSSIE: Does Cross Island Ferry abut your property, or is there some other owner? REYNOLDS duPONT, JR.: No, the City of New London owes the piece in between us. COUNCILWOMAN HUSSIE: They own that parking lot? REYNOLDS duPONT, JR.: They own the parking lot, that Cross Sound rents, or leases from New London, and New London owns the city pier, which is right where our ferry goes. There are pretty much that the plans for expansion was doubling the real estate there to an acre and a third, as opposed to two-thirds of an acre. It is on track. It is ready to be sent over to the Town Board, just to familiarize you all with what we are up against. It is expensive. COUNCILWOMAN HUSSIE: Do we have to bond, or do you have the money? REYNOLDS duPONT, JR.: No, we don't have this much. From start to finish we think it is going to 5.5 million dollars, and we don't have that in our budget,' needless to say. SUPERVISOR COCHRAN: We don't either. REYNOLDS duPONT, JR.: Mr. Cushman has been asked a couple of times, how do we do this? He said with the respond!ng authority that the districts has through the town, and it would be easy to do it, if you had to do that, but we have applied for Federal funding. COUNCILWOMAN HUSSIE: with the .airport? Would the FAA be helpful, somehow tied in REYNOLDS duPONT, JR.: If they brought the airplane down to the ferry dock. We are right in the heart of trying to get financial backing, and we have someone in Connecticut that will help us out trying to find other areas of grants other than the ISTEA Funds, and the NEXTEA Funds, and the future TEA funds. .COUNCILMAN ROMANELLI: Are you expanding bulkhead or something there? REYNOLDS duPONT, JR.: It is about 700 linear feet of steel bulkheading, fill, a new building, and new ramps, and it's a pretty intense thing. We will send over a package of documents. JUSTICE EVANS: They Originally wanted to do that, and they got stopped. It has been how many years no? REYNOLDS duPONT, JR.: Four. JUSTICE EVANS: Four years in alternative.. AUGUST 12, 1998 COUNCILMAN ROMANELLI: Alternative site, alternative location? REYNOLDS duPONT, JR.: Our application, the one they are looking now, has been on file with the DEP since 1994. I declared that we are going to outlive the DEP. COUNCILWOMAN HUSSIE: your fl~th birthday. I understand congratulations are in order for REYNOLDS duPONT, JR.: That was a long time ago. COUNCILWOMAN HUSSIE: Wasn't it in 1948 this service was first performed? REYNOLDS duPONT, JR.: Actually it was 47. We don't like to make note of fiftieth anything. SERGE DOYEN: The ferry began operations on Memorial Day, 1948. The Act was enacted in 1947. COUNCILWOMAN HUSSIE: Happy birthday. SUPERVISOR COCHRAN: Chip, coming over I was chatting with Ray Cowan, and he is over to check an oil spill on the island. Anyone know anything about it? REYNOLDS duPONT, JR.: Unless that is the airport. SUPERVISOR COCHRAN: I have no idea. REYNOLDS duPONT, JR.: There was a fuel spill when an airplane crashed. That has been cleaned up as far as I know. SERGE DOYEN: It was sinking. There is no oil there now. SUPERVISOR COCHRAN: Nothing that you are aware of? SERGE DOYEN: Beginning o3 the week it was nothing. SUPERVISOR COCHRAN: I'll check with him on the way back. We didn't have time as we were getting off the boat. SERGE DOYEN: They only fuel spill that I know we were involved with, because it was on the airport, was down at the airport, and that has been cleaned, and there may be final inspection. SUPERVISOR COCHRAN: Another answer I need is how many bunkers do we have here that need closing up? REYNOLDS duPONT, JR.: I suppose you are referring to bunker #17 SUPERVISOR COCHRAN: I don't know. I am referring to $600.00 a bunker, and who's responsibility is it, the Town's, or the people that manage? REYNOLDS duPONT, JR.: That is a good question. The one that sort of brought all this to the surface, the one that the Navy rents down by Race Point, and somebody from the Navy came out, and said, this ~s not acceptable. SUPERVISOR COCHRAN: The Navy wants to give it up. JUSTICE EVANS: Are they going to give up their lease? TOWN ATTORNEY YAKABOSKI: The last I heard, they were in touch with the Building's Inspectors trying to arrange time when the Building Inspector could come in. COUNCILWOMAN HUSSIE: Is that on our property? REYNOLDS duPONT, JR.: Yes. It is on the airport property. Almost all the bunkers are. Some of them are rented. One of them was used for the AUGUST 12, 1998 Fire Department practice. It was filled with oil on purpose, and they had cleaned that out. SUPERVISOR COCHRAN: If you could get that information, we would llke to see that they are closed up. REYNOLDS duPONT, JR.: The one the Navy rents it has steel doors on it. They close and open. JUSTICE EVANS: The Navy was staying there. REYNOLDS duPONT, JR.: Phil was saying, are we going to clean that up? There is a lot of stuff. It's only what kids can carry in there, and flop down. It's not a garbage dump. SUPERVISOR COCHRAN: Okay, it's a mattress. REYNOLDS duPONT, JR.: Beer cans. JUSTICE EVANS: Stuff from parties. SUPERVISOR COCHRAN: We are concerned with the liability involved, and so we want to know who is responsible for what, and how many'are there. REYNOLDS duPONT, JR.: I assume that other than the Navy's lease, trying to figure out what we would be permitted to do. SUPERVISOR COCHRAN: Great. Follow through on that. JUSTICE EVANS: I think George may know. He was one of the, and still is the leaders of the Fort Wright celebration. They did a lot of mapping of that kind of stuff. GEORGE ESSER: One of the things in the map updated is some were built in different periods, World War I, Spanish American War. We don't really have a good map of what is there. We don't have any good records, maybe that is something we could try to do, understanding some of the interstructure, some of the drainage. Which ones are dangerous, and which ones aren't as well. That one down there, I don't know. I haven't been down there, but that was a fairly recent. REYNOLDS duPONT, JR.: Navy ever used it? I believe there Ts electrical power, Has the GEORGE ESSER: They used to have a building up on top of it that they did use. TOWN ATTORNEY YAKABOSKI: That is what happens. The use of these are gone, and we have to get rid of it. REYNOLDS duPONT, JR.: I think it would be logical for, certainly, the district to take over. We can go down there, and take a look and inventory what has got to be done. TOWN ATTORNEY YAKABOSKI: This is part of the airport property? REYNOLDS duPONT, JR.: They all are. There are two, one is connected to the transfer station and the old ferry boat dock, and there are two beyond that. JUSTICE EVANS: TOM DOHERTY: REYNOLDS duPONT, District? Who;s property is that, the two beyond? The Garbage District. The ones that are abandoned. JR.: Are they still FIDCO, or they the Garbage TOM DOHERTY: The Garbage District. One of the Commissioners of the Garbage District said that they don't need them, and they were willing actually to donate them to the Museum. They are in very nice condition. They would be considered a historic element that could be brought back. It AUGUST 12, 1998 would be that they are willing to give it to the Town, or whoever would want to take care of it. I think it is actually a lovely site. JUSTICE EVANS: I think, Tom, no one wants to take the financial responsibility, and the legal liability. SUPERVISOR COCHRAN: I just think we should know how and who is responsible for what, so it is not a Township liability. CHIP ESSER: I think a good thing would be to just get a survey and map it out. It would provide us with all with the facts. TOWN ATTORNEY YAKABOSKI: The airport 'might have some old maps or records. JUSTICE EVANS: The Navy sent us maps with a letter. They sent us the map.~ When they zeroxed' it they overlaid or somethi'ng. It shows you totally the .wrong places. CHIP: ESSER: Actually we have that wonderful aerial photograph that shows it better than anything. REYNOLDS duPONT, JR.: There are some people that are in the Department of Defense kind of study group. They have copies of maps. It is really done more by agencies than by officials. JUSTICE EVANS: shows. Can you mark up something for the Town Board that REYNOLDS duPONT, JR.: I am sure we have one. I will get it and have it copied. There are several that are on these maps that are the septic system. Four bunkers were carried there. SUPERVISOR COCHRAN: Is there anything else of mutual concern that we should be discussing? COUNCILWOMAN HUSSIE: 'Why are you expanded in New London? Are you going to be getting more boats? JUSTICE EVANS: No. REYNOLDS duPONT, JR.: That is absolutely not being planned. Our big concern right now is the high speed train. They are going to increase the number of trains that run up and down the east coast. They are going to double them, and our property is about, well, there is one portion, Mark Easter's Office, is about two feet from' the railroad tracks. When I am talking to him once tn awhile you can hear the train rumbling through his office. We don't have enough room to stage our cars, people on the ferry on our-property, and we have at times have to hold the traffic up on the other side of the tracks, and that offends the local police. That was the safety issue that we wanted to start to expand our facility, so that we can take freight in, and store it if it comes in late. Right now our freight deliveries stop at three o'clock. We won't accept any freight on any day after three, because we have no place to put it. It has to come over on the boat:. Our warehouse over there is big enough to put a fork lift inside, and that is about it. So, what we are intending to do is have a freight and reception area, a passenger reception area. paSsengers actually come down early, if the boats not in yet, to be inside. The only other place to hide ~s in the train station. That say that is inadequate as well. It's fine except it is across the tracks, so if the ferry boat comes in, and you run outside, and a train comes by, and the ferry boat leaves. When things are running too smoothly the ferry leaves either early, which it never does, or leaves when there is a train in the station. That is the idea. We don~t intend to have anymore ferry boats. There are two that run five times a day ~ SUPERVISOR COCHRAN: The only other thing I have is the wetland project, and it has been expressed to me there has been some concern by the ferry district in relation to not having been invited to be involved in the beginning, and so on, and so forth, and I just wanted to clarify that we Certainly apologize, if an invitation wasn't extended. It was kind of a 8 AUGUST 12, 1998 partnership between the DEC, and Ducks Unlimited, and they thought it was a good project, and something worthwhile. It has taken a year to get the permits from the DEC, which we finally have gotten, so if we move ahead, but certainly we don't want go around doing something if you people.. REYNOLDS duPONT, JR.: Actually I talked to the fellows at a Duck Unlimited dinner a couple of weeks ago. I asked them about this. This is a wonderful project, you never bothered to ask the folks who are really in charge of that piece of property. He looked at me, and said, that would be the town. I' said, no, that would be the ferry, district; I said, would you please call us up,. and. set a meeting up, .and we can .all meet with you, and find out what is going on. If you are thinking of raising the level of that pond down, the swamp, whatever is, that it has a direct correlation with the level of the water in the basement of the movie theater, and going to the movie theatre, and watching a movie, and knowing that you are greeted by a crowd of mosquitos. Usually you gO CloWn there with two cans of Raid, and a can of Off to survive the movie. There is a sump pump down there that runs continuously. We would love to see the plans. We haven't seen that. They are cleaning out a drain that is plugged, and then are building a dam to plug up the drain that they free. SUPERVISOR COCHRAN: It is DEC, and there are plans. We shall see that you shall see them, if that will cement relations, and build up lines of communication. REYNOLDS duPONT, JR.: Those people don't want to create any further wetlands on our property that the DEC is going to yell at us someday. SUPERVISOR COCHRAN: No. They are not going to create more. It is not building more. It is a matter of rehabilitating what is there. GEORGE ESSER: Whether it is good or not, we don't know, but that is the point, there is no information out there, and all of sudden somebody is going to come in and fill it in, 'and the people who live there are saying, why will it benefit? SUPERVISOR COCHRAN: been a year. I am surprised you weren't made aware. It has GEORGE ESSER: Maybe it is a benefit for some ducks, but what about the people? JUSTICE EVANS: The information has gone to him. JIM MCMAHON: He received a copy of the plans, Mr. Thatcher, but this was something that was presented over here two years ago (tape change) it seemed like everybody was in favor of the project, so DEC and Ducks Unlimited were kind of going back and forth with the design of the thing, and then they finally said, well, the Town, as the owner of the property, has to submit the application. They were going back and forth with the design of the thing as to whether or not it was going to be batten board, where you could just remove it, and who was going to remove the boards, and what was the level of the water that was going to be tried to maintained for what length of time, and. I think one of the, obviously, the information was sent. It should obviouSly be sent to the ferry district. SUPERVISOR COCHRAN: Send a copy of the plans to Chip. REYNOLDS duPONT, JR.: We just didn't understand just what was going on. SUPERVISOR COCHRAN: We certainly want you to know what is going on. Jim has a set of plans. You-guys can look at them. If you have any questions or input, work through Jim. Right? Okay. Anything else? This is a good start. We will have to do this every year I think. I think it is fine that we communicate. AUGUST 12, 1998 TOM DOHERTY: It is good idea to keep the lines of communication open. REYNOLDS duPONT, JR.: Generally speaking, we don't do anything that is so controversial, that we would get you guys all in hot water, but it is always to touch bases. SUPERVISOR COCHRAN: It is. We certainly don't want to do anything to aggravate over here. Meeting was adjourned at 12:40 P.M. Elizabeth A. Nevil~ Southold Town Clerk