HomeMy WebLinkAboutTB-08/03/1994-FI443
SOUTHOLD TOWN BOARD
FISHERS ISLAND
AUGUST 3, 199u,
2:00 P.M.
A Regular Meetin~l of the Southold Town Board was held on Au~lust
3, 199[t ,at 'the Fishers ISland, New York. Supervisor Wickham opened the
meeting at 2:00 P.M., with the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag.
Present: ~'Supervisor Thomas H. Wickham
Councilwoman Alice J. Hussie
Councilman Joseph L. Townsend, Jr.
Councilwoman Ruth D. Ollva
Justice Louisa P. Evans
Town Clerk Judith T. Terry
Town Attorney Laury L. Dowd
Absent: Councilman Joseph J. Lizewski
SUPERVISOR WICKHAM: It's always a pleasure for the Board to make our
annual visit to Fishers Island. Some of us are fortunate to be here
several times this year already, and it's a particular pleasure for me to
be here, and to have Louisa EvansI active participation, and support, and
preparation, and all, for this meeting. We have about twenty-five meetings
a year in the Long Island portion of Southold Town, and Louisa comes over
and helps us with it, and today, Louisa, is our one day that she~s here,
and we're basically joining her here. It's been a great pleasure to have
her on the Board, and she's contributed to the entire workings of the
Board far more than some of you may realize from here on Fishers Island.
So, Louisa, iris a pleasure to be with you today here. lid like to take
just a couple of moments, and introduce some of people who came over with
us on the boat this morning. Todayls format was a little bit different
from previous years. In previous years we met, as you know, in the
American Legion, and we~ve launched into our regular meeting. Today we
had a mixing session. We~ve had various people. I think there's been.a lot
of activity, and involvement, and explanations, questions and answers in
those different groups over there. So, lid like to take just a couple of
minutes, and outline who we are, who came over here today. I have to say
Pm rather new at this game, as SUpervisor. Some of these people i don~t
honestly know very well myself, so Pll refer to them. lid like to begin
with those of us on the Town Board. Starting off on my right is Alice
HussJe, next to her, Louisa, who you all know, Ruth Oliva, and Joe
Townsend. All of them, plus Joe LJzewski, who~s not here today, who
couldn't come, we comprise the six member Town Board of the Town of
Southold. Flanking us on either end is Laury Dowd, our Town Attorney.
Welre very fortunate to have Laury, a ,d shews just a wonderful asset to the
Board. She has helped us in many ways. A person who has been here
more often than any of us, Judy Terr
her long tradition of competence an
different ways. So, who you're Iookin,
Board with the Town Clerk, and ti
audience are other people representin
? as our Town Clerk, who continues
assistance to the Board in many
at up here is basically is the Town
e Town Attorney. Sitting in the
the Town of Southold, and I would
just like you to stand very briefly. I'm not going to try to go through
every single 'person that came over on the boat. It would take too long,
but I would like to recognize first, two of the people from our Assessors
Office, the Chairman of the Board of Assessors, Scott Russell, and behind
him another AsSessor, Bob Scott. The third Assessor, Darlene Duffy,
isn't here with us today. We also have representative of the Trustees,
John Holzaphel. John; what happened'to John? He was here, and he
will be coming back. -Many of you saw him at the table over there.' John
is our Trustee with us today. In addition to 'the Trustees we have. a
mem. ber of our CAC, Conservation Advisory Committee of the Town, which
assists the Trustees, and We have Mr. Hagerty. Is he here? He must be
off with JOhn looking at something to do with the Trustees. Several other
Board we have. We have several people from our Zoning Board of Appeals.
I see Jim Dinizio, and Dick Wilton, and Gerry Goehringer, who's the
Chairman. All three sitting together of our Zoning Board of Appeals. We
have a member of our Planning Board Office, Valarie Scopaz, and i
don't think' we have anybody fr0n~' the Planning Board itself, is that right?
Excuse me.. Of course, Ken Edwards. That's the problem you see, when
we're on Long Island we tend to forget about the key people here on Fisher
Isla.nd. Ken Edwards,.~and of .course, Serge Doyen, who's a member of our
Zoning Board of Appeals. Serge~ Wl~ere a~re you? Right by door, you're
not sitting, with .th~ rest of the zoning B6ard~ In addition, .we have, as I
mentioned.~.~Valerle Sco.P.az~ wh° is"the Town Senior Planner in .support of
the Plannlt~g Board of~lce~ and now, I'm going to .~.efer to my hst to see
the other ~3eople I might have Overlooked. We ~ave with us to~tay the head
of the department of our Building Department, Building Inspector Tom
Fisher, a.nd there he is at the end 'there. Tom is the guy who we need to
took at in terms of Building' .'Permits', Certificates of Occupancy, and
enforcement of the Code, and a key person who has a very important role
to play in the Town of SouthOId'. We have Ve McKeighan, who is head
of our Human Resource Center. I'm going to have to assume that most of
you know who the people are who already live here on Fishers Island. I'm
sur. e .you Enow yourselves mU(~h better than i do. BOb Wall, the Assistant
Buddi~lg Insp,e~t~)r, who as.sistS Tom on matters here on Fishers Island. We
have James` R~Cht~r, who is the Town Engineer, and' the liaison for the
Highway Department doing most of our engineerlng work, and some work
for the Highway Department.~ The Police Chief was unable to be here
today, but we have the Lmutenant Joe Conway, and we have John
Raynor, who's in charge Of the Dispatching, (he Emergency Services,
.with the green colored shirt is' Joe C~nway, our Lieutenant, ~nd next to
h~m is JOhn Raynor in charge of communications, telephone service, and
radio service, and dispatching. The Town of Southold now no longer
finances, 0i~ in any significa.n~t way, garbage disposal out of General Fund
Budget. Rather the Town if divided up i~to two districts. One district
be~n~ the ~Fishers Island District~, The other district be.!ng the Long
Islar{d portion,~ and we have with us the Solid Waste Coordinator for the
Long Island portion, Jim Bunchuck. Jim, who is here in the front row,
Jim has beCo~ne, t~e garbage c~zar for the Long Island portion of the Town
of Southold. Gmng down my ~list we have Fred Tedeschi of the Justice
Court of the Town of Southold. Those are the key people. There are
others-of us. I really have to mention Lauren Grant in the yellow blouse
there, who: has helped prepare us for all of this, and brought some of the
things, my offi~e. has been a tremendous help in getting all
of this ~ shaking head, but, anyway, there she is. In
additio the Southold Town people, some of whom I may not have
acknowledged, but to move on there are a number of others of us today,
that who ! woUld llke to very briefly mention, and I'll start with your
Assemblyw0man in the Assembly of the State of New York, Pat Acampora,
who is .a ipleasure to, have with us today. We have John Kre.u. tz. John is
the Assist~ht tO the County EXecutive, who is unable to be w~th us today,
bbt he'll r~port back to the CObnty Executive, and has been a very useful
person to !have with us. V~ry briefly we have several people from the
Department of Environmental Conservation. The DEC is a key agency with
whom the Town is engaged on a number of issues, Ray Cowan, and Ray
has a number of his people here. He is the Regional Director of Region I,
and we're very grateful and pleased to have you with us, Ray. Number
four, Steve Jones. Steve is the Director of Planning in the County of
Suffolk. Steve, in the back seat sitting next to the Planners, and Vito
Minei, who is the Program Manager of the Depart[ment of Health Services.
Vilo, also responsible for the Peconic Estuary's Program in the Town.
Tom Martin the Drinking Water Bureau of Suffolk County. There's lots of
AUGUST 3, 1994
445
additional people I' could acknowledge, and I wish there was time for
everybody, but gives you flavor of those who are here. I hope you had a
chance to visit with some of them. At Louisa's suggestion we tried to
structure the' meeting so you'd have a chance to meet with as many people
as possible before we get started. You'll notice today we're meeting in
the school. We're not meeting the American Legion. The American Legion
was a very congenial,place. We always felt very comfortable there, but a
school has. an educat|~nal purpose, and the purpose of our meeting with
~ is 'basically educational, education for the Board, and I hope
;, who show up here, and interact with us. This
is our opportunity to meet with people of Fishers Island, whom we scarcely
see, wino even ~he television cameras really don't properly help us to
relate to, to get an idea of how people here feel, and for you people to
get a sense of where the Town Board is coming from. ! don't think we have
any real formal business to undertake today. Am I correct? There are no
resolutions for us to. adopt. It's an opportunity for us to outline where
I from, what we're doing, outline what the future is as we see
it, to listen to the comments, the concern: and the
I to our attention. I've lis four
, have an interest in. OnE obviously
Metal Dump, and What the . and
Dump. There are three
important to you, and I'll just mention them very
legislation, that the', Towr to
:h we can have B&Bs, Bed and B
the Zoning Ordinance~ that are CUrrently
have been ma(
that wilt be an II
~sion on,. The COunty tuning
part from, I believe, and
has basically completed a Watershed ion
and I
come up with.
a story to tell, that t of
YO~ progress on an
.and if we have a chance we m~g~t into some
ics. That's not exhausted, lots of
~u'll bring them to
think of what to say, !ruer,
be of interest. I would like ~ry
in regard to the Metal. D two
the pleasure to come over
has .been rivaled, maybe., or
the tenms court. But~ the
of years. I would
the cuff summary since
we were here last to that
!.'~now the Town Board of has
)er resolution, some Cl~ or
continuation of that (
ago was to close
I.t's no longer receiving iand
rigidly implemented.
res ponslbility repeated.
the Board, in one fashion
behalf of the Town to cl01se it.:
fU we're going to close
a kinds of discussions, '~and
n~ issues, namely the
I'd like to outline
itory is always in the lng
it who by the way
and I'm telling the!rest
and when I'm finishe~
w~ be sure that it reflects ever as
when we were here last
said we would move ahem [th
Since that time? Back in
a~ of how much would
and get rid of it? Throu,
learned, and the informa:tlon 1
at
tha
modify ther
in the town
lot
back in early October· we got two separate estimates from two different
firms, one quoting $135,000.00, and one quoting $65,000.00 to simply skim
off the top ten feet of the Metal Dump· and guess restore that top ten
feet, but not to excavate everything, not to clean up, according to every
perimeter, and every legal restriction in the protocols that we're expected
to do, but 'simply t~ re~ove ten feet of stuff, and sOrt of clean it up on
top; $65,000.00 or $135,00.00 to do that. Back in OctOber the Board
cheWed on all of this. This was before the elections, and really came to no
decisiOn.' Ther..e were two reasons we came to no decision. One of them
was that SiXty;fiVe to hundred thirty-five is wide variance, and we Weren't
at all clear, that the cheapest b~d would really have done the job. We
a!s° weren't Clear that simply skimming off ten feet at the top was the
Ight t.h.!ng to do. It might take more than that. Nor were we clear the
composition of that pile· So consequently the Board looked further into it,
and'a{ that time did not accePt ~ither one of those bids. We als°. got a
letter :, and you may know that the ceaning up
of al basically, a partnership between the Department of
~n It's a partnershi the
ties for,. but we're not: to
~ant. It has to be done with the~ agl 'and the
from the Department
th
guys
:g
think
De
OI
apF
eng
us..now, walt a minute, before you
don't forget it's g0t~ .to have prior
came ~ across of my
led: to a. flurr~ and
mn, but I'm'pleased :to say, that in
m the Solid Waste Engineer -DECks
it. to Cc we
we can baslcaUy give prior
There were a number , and
it was a go ahead for us, and in fact,~ to be
encouraged us from: the .beginning to excavate
that landfill, so there
it has a ,concrete base to it,
~ fair to say, Ray, that the p of the
ust to clean everything right, out~ of and
to worry about, and everybody uite
Town Board considered that at some and
direction provided it Wasn'.t go~ng the
cost~ and how much i in
we made a few inquires. :some
back in December, and beginning
to David Brown,. who ~has the
Connecticut, to of
the Metal Dump..~ Th sions
on the 6th~ of January right 'when t of
please· come
pile, see :exactly what's, us
s as to I1'
environmentally, e
On the 18th of
Engineers, as to what it wou for
aistudy, and in late January, ,early ~Febr~ the
·; and ,paid '$10,000.00 to' this
of trips over here the
e wh° thr°w stuff into that D dig
the catacombs behind it in orde a
they came up with a number gs.
there's a lot more stuff ~ we
whole:second bay in fact, that most of~us;, some
but the rest of us' weren't even aware a
' of~ that. area that exlsts full of stuff.
metal in the,, Metal Dump; Metal being ,~more
· because it can be recycled, and can be soh
some extent the cost of that recycling and
Engineers gave us a report.
month later, and the report to
447
AUGUST 3, 199~I
This
wi
or
that's
us half a dozen different options available to the Town to close the Metal
Dump, and I don~t have the report with me. We don't have the-report with
us purpose, but it's been overtaken by events in
: there were about five or six particular options. One option
is to remove everything out of all of it, and get it off the Island, and
walk'away from it. You like that. A second option is to do that to about
half of it, that we knew existed, and don't do it to the half that we never
knew existed before. A third option was this idea of just cleaning off the
ten feet up on the top, and cleaning it off, and putting something on the
surface. A fourth option was to clean it up, and build a wooden roof over
with roofing just like a, house, so that water won,t
there were several other soft'of half way type
· . of things. One of them involved putting the
last option In refinement was to put a .g. eo-membrane over the toP, so that
water: will infiltrate~ and do sonde monitoring of the water at the bottom,
of. purity, and cleanliness, of that dump, so that we
leave a membrane on the :to.p., andr thr.ough~.the
of years,, cover it all over wit~ Some nlc~ dirts
and excavate the top portion, but. leave a portion.
Peen considerable cheaper, if we could have gotten
'the people on Fishers Island w0uld have been happy
=act. the monitoring wouldn't continue on for twenty.
and cost a lot of money through the water monitoring
We looked at these different proPOsals, and we tried to
:!Engineers in upstate sent us ~ of: different
,and when the dust settled. ~Out all of
DEC
17th~
all (
fi
final report, and on
this report. That
S~olid Waste Engineer of
le attended
, Plus, Louisa.
.and which .'we
key options in,,, ~he report. ' The.one
the whole thing from-:t°P to bottom.
to remove the top ten or'fifteen ~fee~ icover it
and continue mc
there's no contamin~
associated with these
based on different
on what that metal corn
should not be more
and putting a g.
g on how much
3 would we have to exca
nd went back and forth
all these details, it
~=lzm going ;to speak for
the liability of some
which we would
per!od of time,
3proach $150,000.00, and.{
don't we just
the Town
on this, and we pr~
all the. stuff out of
of $200,000.00, and we
could yqu, please,
contractors, who will do
gan Engineers at u
and they called me back,
going to work. If
to get a reputable
We do think our report
~think it can be done for $200,000.1
bid documents, that will
think your Town of
know, many .of you are
know what it means to
to accept more risk in
that means, too,
they're going
have to be, or else you're.
of things not 'worl~r
the
on
we
and t~ied
of
in
~ a
the
a
~i' of
better think of ,a more .flexible contracting system. Reluctantly, in June,
the Board Chewed on thts again, June was just six weeks ago. Chewed on
this again at some length, and we appropriated another $5,500.00 to an
engineering firm, the same Fagan Engineers, to assist the Town
preparing the contract documents, which will put us at greater risk, and
the contract documents are going to ask for contractors to remove
everything from the dump, to get it off the island, to get rid of it in
Connecticut, to get.-rid of it at any proper licensed fashion, and the
contractors is supposed to come back' to~..us, and tell us, these are.-the
rates that .they're going to charge per ton, or cubic yard of material
removed with a sum~ not to exceed, that is a ceiling price. InStead of the
Town providing that ceiling price, the contract documents now 'ask~ for the
contractors to tell Us what is the ceiling price that they will not exceed.
Now, I think you alt know, that when you let a bid out, and you ask the
give you a price not to exceed, chances are by the time you
r it, that; price is pretty close to 'what we have to wind up
~ firm ~is now preparing those bid documents. T~e Board
hasn't seen them. ! haven't seen ~hem yet. We anticipate getting them
within a week Or so~ and when we get them the Board will review them,
and that brings us ~ to the present time. That's present. Now, let me
y. we: expect to be getting these documents
them, and I can't speak for the rest of
the E k~,that I, at least, and I~think most of us, after all
we jus. t put $5,500.i00 into the preparation of those documents, I think
the
will
those ,b~ds.
It's no ..
to rulTi :a
that
Now~ are wer going, t? ~ccept
among the Board. I'~r~ not sur~ if it is here.
Board 'that I have been uncomfortable about
the beginning to just from
.~ of the cost. It'S just no~ in my nature.
S. I don't sign blank checks~ and I~m just uncomfortable
~ I~m just speaking~personally now, and e~Ch Board ~mber
ke on this, :'but I have
the :nts, that the Town faces
legal and proper
my,mind removal of
me. to do, but I~m
gone sum not exceed, and if
,at some level, that seems to me
for the T going to take,another look
~ been-pointed out to us are
'possible: This is just one vote,on
as.I think mbst Of~you do,:l
have launched, and
least we~ve made proc.
have ;on to believe th; this
the town wi(h a bid
rtually everything
qg to stand here in front of you 'tOd~
de' to do that no matter how much t c,
'led to convey, that to the DEC
to you. That's more or less
could go into a 'lot more, but l:'ve
long, and I'~would like to give my companmns on
to'correct What~ ;you know it's very hard'to spea~
own vmws, and Id just like to
.like to adjust what~ I say, or
pros
given
that
COSt,
to
darn
the
dent
~ther
but
OUS
say
in
will
other
are
'rain
the
for a
COUNCILWOMAN HUSSIE: ~ke a
little, bit ~of any adjustment here. Unfortunately, the Metal got
caught .:in between a rock, and a hard place. I was last
November, the famous November 22nd, of which we
got the letter from the Regional Waste Director, the Di lional
Sol saying that in deed we coUld s on
Project the Metal DUmp on Fishers Island. ! t a
hing to do, because it meant that we could
y, which is something that I wanted to do. Unfc , the
Can I make an adjustment? I'm. going
Lame Duck administration did not want to put a check out for X number of
dollars, and then the new administration had a few other ideas, and there
was a little diversion of opinion back in November. My feeling right now
is that we didn't do that job, and what we have to do is find the best
solution for the Metal Dump, and at the same time not bankrupt us. I am
not so sure that everything that we have coming down the road is really
the right thing, but I tell you, this is going to sound like..l'm not
am.p.aJgmng~ I want the Metal Dump to be emptied. I think it should be
emPtied all the way. As far as cost is concerned I recall that on this
very same famous November 22nd, I called one of the people who had
actually bid to do the top third of the work, and said, if it's going to
cost X dOllars to do one-third, I presume it's going to cost 3X to do the
whole thing, yes, which brought us to a number that seemed
to
emptied.
If
actu
We'r
SUPERVISOR WlCKHAM:
ble, especially we would get the whole Metal Dump
to see how these new specs come in from the engineer.
wide gap of what if, and things that We'can not
the cost of, I don't know if I can go along with that.
this together. We'll have to see. Thank you.
Louisa?
JUSTICE
better.
ton ~
als~
either
of
hopefull~
there.
hopefU!
bids Wil
I just wanted to explain the bidding process a little
we're doing is, we're asking contractors for a per
going to cost per ton to.-clean it out, and then
to exceed price, and we can award the contract on
if we feel, and my feeling is, we hire these engineers so
pretty accurate, that if they're not to exceed prices out
can .go on the per ton, and trust our engineers, and
the amount of stuff in there, that they've told us is in
as Tom, that we have to be fiscally responsible, but I'm
contractors get a chance to bid on this, that the
SUPERVISOR WICKHAM:
We
a ~
mic~
Well, you've heard a fairly, ! hope, clear
issue, where we are. I'd like to open the floor up to
have, the issues that you'd llke to raise to us.
like to listen. We're at your service. This is
Town Board. Would you like to stand up at-the
your name for the record.
ROGER BARMACHE:
know,
metal,
SUPEI
explo~
to look
My name is Roger Barmache, and I would like to
~Armed Forces be held responsible for any part of that
used to use the dump, and dumped quite a bit of
held responsible for part of the cost?
~HAM: That's a very interesting idea. We'll have to
appreciate that lead. The question was in as much as the
lot.of products into that Metal Dump, could we go
to help pay for it, and that's something I'm going
~to. Thank you.
JOHN
When
which
nothing With it.
to
COU r
also,
were
wa
a
once
regardi
peo
State ahd
i'm John Thatcher from Fishers Island Conservancy.
held Fort Wright what was in there was ammunition,
now been moved. To my knowledge the Army did
The didn't have dumps elsewhere. So, I basically wanted
oard's attention to the Fisher Island Conservancy, of
many of you have hinted, that, yes, we'd like to
as saying that we want it all cleaned out. I,
not wanting to sign a blank check. Tom, if I
I wouldn't want to do it either, but that's why you
~nd I think you're proceeding according to plan. i
~ one Other thing. That dump area could easily qualify as
certainly a State Historic Site. Most of the Army
Navy bunkers that were built long ago do qualify, and I
mu~h for the Town to look into that dimension, because
out, there might be a considerable tax deduction
d premises, if I may use that phase, but it is
look into. I have been in touch with several
that this does qualify being over 50 years old, as a
Historic Site. it might be interesting. ! think
there are several forts on Eastern Long Island that qualify in that
regard. Fort Wright certainly would be one of them.
SUPERVISOR WICKHAM: Thank you, John. Yes, sir?
BILL RIDC;EWAY: Bill Ridgeway. On John's concern, what bothers
me, I assume you. will get it cleaned up, and applaud that. I'm afraid what
you'll have then is. a 'very attractive nuisance, whereas a child could crawl
through those catacombs, and I hope at some point you will fence it off, or
make it safe.
JUSTICE EVANS: lim hoping that maybe we can convince the Town to give
it to t~e Museum, and the Museum can take care of 'it, but I don't know if
that. Will flY or not.
SUPERVISOR WlCKHAM: Bill, this has been one of my concerns, too. It's
a potential liability, and it could be quite dangerous. This is one of the
reasons I though it merited some consideration of a proper consolidation
and fill and leaving it in place. Any other questions about the Metal
Dump? Yes, sir? ~.
ELLIOT PORTER; Back in October when you had two bids, and it was to
clean up the whole dump, but one bidder didn't bid to Clean up the whole
dump. The Other one did for $135,000.00. I thought that was to remove
it, get it all cleaned up.
SUPERVISOR WlCKHAM: I guess I wasn't clear about that. There were
telephone estimates. They weren=t really bids, and they were not to clean
up the whole Metal Dump. They were just to clean off the top ten feet or
sot and one was $135,000.00, and one was $65,000.00, but they were not to
clean out everything, and they really weren't qualified bids. There were
estimates. Any other questions about the Metal Dump, or other subjects
that are on your mind?
PETER BRICKERHOFF: When you were in January we had a general
discussiOn regarding the notion that there was imbalance between the tax
revenues collected from Fishers Island by the ToWn of Southold, and the
services provided by the Town, and I believe you acknowledged, that you
agreed in general with the concept and that you would study it, and I was
curious as to the study, and the conclusions.
SUPERVISOR WICKHAM: The question is regarding the imbalance in tax
revenue from Fishers Island in relation to the services that the Town of
Southold provides. We did have quite an active discussion back in
January. It was very positive, and productive, and educational, at least
for me. The question really is, how should we address this question of an
imbalance? ! go back to the definitive study, which the Conservancy did,
or commissioned.a couple of' years ago, and as I recall the key conclusion
from that study was, that the imbalance was caused largely in Police
account. In most other respects of Town government it was fairly close
balance, but the Police portion of it there was a significant imbalance at
that stage. Now, Peter, as I recall last January, this goes back a few
months now, as I recall we were going to ask the Civic Association to look
into it. Is that right?
LESLIE C;OSS: I'm Leslie Goss, Fishers Island Civic Association. As
many of you know, or if you don't know, when we circulated the minutes
from'the january meeting, we did invite the people who see these minutes
to write back to the Civic Association, or Mr. BrickerhOff, about any
ideas they might .have, which we could present to the town to address.
The other thing we did was run a notice, we sent a letter to the Editor,
Mr. Bickerhoff did. We did that, and unfortunately we haven't had that
much of a response to either of those appeals. There are definite needs
that have been defined by the communities, or the different organizations,
or different individuals, that I feel to let the Board know about. But
(tape change .)
COUNCILMAN TOWNSEND: It's an issue that's not unique to Fishers
Island. There are many areas in Southold Town, which have the same
problem. Those areas where ~there may be a property owners' association,
where the roads are maintained by that association, and wells, and all
AUGUST 3, 1994
451
sorts of services are provided by that association, yet they're taxed quite
heavilY, because they have high value homes. There's also the Village of
Greenport, which pays not only taxes to us, but to their Village
government, and they pay for many things that they feel they shouldn't
pay 'for, like Town roads, and all the part-time Town expenditures. So,
[t"s 'not just a probl.em, that we'd have to address with Fishers Island.
We, also, have to think of it in a broader sense, and i think, as Leslie
just pointed out, what we really have to do is to look at those needs that
aren"t being .m,e. t, and if the Town can meet them, we should .meet them,
but ! don't think-that we can up, or we ever will come up with a..well,
eve dollar that we get from Fishers Island has to be spent on
Fishers Is I think that"s not practical, and ! think to come up with
some sort of formula that does that would be..l'm sure it would be very
popular on the Island, and is not a possibility. I am a former 'Mayor of
~r~enP°rt, so I~m very familiar with that issue, and there are a lot of
people in Greenport that are very hot, because they pay taxes to Southold
Townt and they don't feel they should. Town Halt allows that to happens,
a way to do it, that is equitable to.everybody
that get in services. I don't think we can come with
someth Fishers Island in that case.' Just make sure
and that you get a fair amount of government
attE
SUPER¥~iSOR WICKHAM: Thank you, Joe. Are there any other questions?
MARTIN SCOTT: Good afternoon. My name is Martin Scott. t have a
problem width the Assessors. A number of years ago they reasseSsed my
house, and asa result (tape malfunction)
STEVE MALINOWSKI: My question to you are number one, how much
time was spent in West Harbor? (tape malfunction).
HUSSIE: Thank you for this opportunity to explain myself
~swer to your first question, how much time have I
. ny. My objection was strictly from a philosophy standpoint. It
had nothing t~ do with the fact that on Fishers you were doing that,
anymore than it would happen if it was in Goose Creek, or someplace else.
arose ~rom the fact that ! did not think it was a wise thing
over to private citizens the jurisdictions, or the
~r. This thing could happen anyplace. We had the
sa~ in Goose Bay. The Goose-Bay Associates could get
we want to be running this thing now, or Ceder
or any of the other places in Southold. It has
Island per sec. It has to do with .the fact,
it was a wise thing to start. I thought it would
a bad ..preced~
SUPERVISOR .WICKHAM: I'd like to comment that it was really Louisa
Evan's~initiabVe that brought about that change. Are there any other
~U~stionS? Leslie? '
Thank you. Leslie Goss, Fishers Island Civic
st to' clarify Harbor Committee. I know I did this when I
on May 31st, took up this issue. I would reiterate that
Committee was appointed by the Town Board. It has
representatives .from each user groups, including a Harbor Master Plan to
present to the ~Town Board about what we think should happen over here.
You guys, the Southold Town Board, have final approval of the plan.
SUP RVISOR WICKHAM: I wonder if we could take a few minutes, if
an interest, on the apart of the audience, to hear a little bit
Protection Plan, that the County of Suffolk has helped
us Can we take a few minutes for that? Stephen, are you
lp us with it? This is Stephen Jones, who is the Director
-~ County of Suffolk.
STEPHEN JONES: Thank you very much, Mr. Supervisor and members of
the Board. My name ts Stephen Jones. I'm the Planning Director for Suffolk
County. As many of you may be aware, a number of years ago, the
Fisher~ Island Conservancy and the County put a pile of money together,
452 ,.,.
the bulk of which went to hiring private consultants. The Conservancy
and the COunty of Suffolk put money together to hire a number of different
consultants to do a thorough examination of a Watershed Protection Area for
Fishers Island. The- bulk of that work of the consultants has been done
now. There was a very detailed examination of the ecology of the area,
another examination of the hydro- geology of the area, and a third
examination of the engineering aspect of the water district, and the water
~ have all been completed now, and those of us in the
S, ' ~ rtment, and the Suffolk County Department of
tly going, through those documents, and what
we doing is culling out all the information we can, and then
with other areas in the country, and also, along the eastern
seaboard, and. the-types of watershed protection rules any other areas have
developed,, and t~y to take the best from all of those, and then~we are
proposing.to come back here to the Island, probably some time the later
part of. S..ep. tember. A numb.er of us will come over here. We will have
some prehr~inary recommendatmns to make, and we would propose that the
Co~ help us to sponsor a meeting to run these recommendations by
the on the island~ because many of these recommendations will
start to. get into the areas, of zoning, and land use, and .also, manag, ement
policy, =tl~at might be ~armes out here on the island, and they have ~mpact
on the current level of things, that people can do with their property to
have a impact on the water supply system. This is, obviously~ a very
touchy area, when you tell people that they perhaps sho.uld or: Shouldn't
water theirl lawn at a certain time, or maybe, have to br,ng water to fill
up a swimming pool, or do: it at a certain time of year, not another time of
come up with some preliminary recommendations,
like Shelter Island, is classified such that the
Island will be able develop different kinds of watershed ruleS,,o that'tiSSta
true else.w, here on Long Island: or perhaps, other areas of New Y rk e,
so you will have the ~pportun,ty ~t(~ put into effect rules as you see fit to
protect you..r own wa.ter supply system, so. we're not quite as far along as
the :SuP~rV'lsor had indicat~dl but we're getting very close. The part of
the ~eason for. that is that we did a lot of work this past year from last
h July on our major Pine Barrens Protection Plan ~for the
Town Town of Riverhead, Town of Southold, large
100~ '~ Suffolk County. We've ,learned a lot from that,
and up with some interesting technics, which may have
Island. How to guide development in areas
)act on the groundwater supply. So, we hope to
ta'ke some ~of What we: learned from' the Pine Barrens Plan, and see. if we
can~ a of the Watershed Protection Plan. One of the
~hings .you know, we have some maps here for anybody who
wants them. · ! hope they can end up somewhere where all of you over here
can.' have~a look at them, maybe in a library, or someplace, but the maps
we re. starting to create here, which again, emanate from a lot of the
sophmticated equipment, that we acquired as part of the-Pine Barrens Plan,
the computer equipment, we're able to generate through maps now, that
show things like property lines, and tax map parcels, right on top of
things like topography, and roads, and home sites, .and buildings, and that
sort of things. So, you may find those maps to be interesting, and
certainly ! would welcome any .correction, or any comments, any of you
have. The maps will come m.o.re and more sophisticated, as the months roll
by, and certainly by the t~me were actually read,ng to, or the Town
Board, and the State, are ready to actually incorporate the regulations,
the maps will be-much more sophisticated, and easier to read, but I
thought you might want to see a sample of all kinds of things we're now
starting to produce in the County Planning Department, in this case, for
the benefit of Fishers Island. So, !'11 stop there, and I:11 try to answer
any question I can. I did have an opportunity with a number of my
colleagues from the Health Department to take a look at almost all of your
water sup. ply system in terms of the reservoirs, and the ponds, and all of
the pumi~.~ equipment, and well sites, today, and certainly all of. us agree
that these areas are all maintained, and working very well. The quality of
the water iS excellent. You have very dedicated personnel, who are
working' for your water supply system, and from what I understand there
are always there a few scattered complaints, by generally people seem to be
happy with the water supply that's here now.
STEPHEN MALINOWSKI: Are you aware that permission has been granted
to construct a private well on our main reservoir?
^oo s 4 5 3
STEPHEN JONES: A private dwelling on Barlow Pond?
STEPHEN MALINOWSKI: Yes.
STEPHEN JONES: Yes, I,m aware of that.
STEPHEN MALINOWSKI: Is there anything you can do about that?
STEPHEN JONES: It's very tough to do anything, once the Building Permit
is isSued, r'$hort of, if you go in there and revoke the Building Permit
to the heart of the property value, and you would have
person for the lose of their property rights. I don't
know, Italy the CoUnty is not prepared to 'do that, and I don't if the
Town of Southold, or the Fishers Island Development Company would want
to do: that:-at this point, either. What we can do it, is we take a look at
what g in the future, and try as best we' can to
sa~, oka, the elbow, and do the best we can for the future,
SUPERVISOR WICKHAM: Thank you, Steve. Are 'there anymore questions,
or comments:? Yes, John.
JOHN THATCHER: ~ John Thatcher, Fishers Island Conservancy, Tom, I
if I didn't mention at this meeting, and I had two
I wanted to thank the ,Board for the vote last
year I the Fishers Island Conservancy when they protested the
U-S' of tons of contaminated dredge spoil just a
with our attorneys yesterday in New London,
is now been hanging for over two years, is going to
at some point between now, and the beginning of
~ Board needs to take any action at this point in
alert the Board that further action may be
of that dredged spoil will end up in waters
Of Southold without any qu.estlon.' in fact, we've
portion of that dump site is in New York State.
i:t's' It is in New York State. We had a survey
my heartfelt thanks, and I think ! can speak
for )le in this room, for through~ the Board for their
essential, and~ in the near future i,t will become
.avid tries to fight off Goliath here. We'll do our
ar I wanted to address the Board, and I've spoken
in this room about it, our fishing problems.
Iked many times about it. There are numerous
d[m~ from overuse by people from Massachusetts,
lreas on Race Point, which crowd out local
~.compasses the dimensions of trawling, which sweep up
'in Block Island Sound, but, also, here in Fishers
wonder, where are these boats comi;ng from7 Do
What are they catching:, because we know
fishing is not what it once was. Yes, there's
no question the bait, particularly .bunker are
to mention this, and make the Town aware of
enforcement from the Town '.can pe~h. aps in the
COast Guard, and the DEC, can 'gbv~n to the
i: these trawlers are from Connecticut, and Rhode
li]' :them those of us who fish on the shore almost every
n:ghl t do come out at night. Thank you very much.
SUPERVISOR W4CKHAM: Thank you,. John. There a gentleman in the back.
PETER ROGAN: My name is Peter Rogan. I've been around this island
for many years. I .have two points. One is, I think it would be a great
idea to ha~e a historic operation where the dump is now. I remember about
sb years when I was a little boy, we would watch those mortars
' let us in about thirty or forty feet. It was very
exciting. You coUld see the bullets going up, and we all know Uncle Sam
has a lot of money, SO, I think we ought to see if we can get some money
from him to dO that job. My second point is, that everybody here is
t~l~in~ about taxes. There's another side of that coin. It's called
spending. I think you people spend too much money. You ought to do
something about it. You can go Washington. You can write them. You
waste your time. They're in another world. They just spend, and spend,
4 5 4 AUGUST 3, 199.
and tax, and tax. Then you go to Albany. I don't know what's ,going on
there, but they don't help us out at all. All they do is mandate this,
mandate that. i'd like to get that word out of the dictionary. No more
mandates. Now, you're the closest thing we have to a government. We can
speak to ' ppose we're kind of wasting our time again, i'd like to
say to , people here are dictators. All you got to do is raise
taxes, ne writes a check. You got to stop spending. Stop
telling us what to do. Leave us alone. Co on vacation. Thank you.
SUPERVISOR WICKHAM: I'd just like to respond very briefly to that. Part
of what you heard is the rationale for care in how we approach the Metal
Dump problem. ;The :Metal Dump problem is linked, also, to the Landfill
problem'in the rest of Southold Town, which is a much bigger issue.still. I
would like to say,' that the Board has expressed .concern about the
tendency of tax creep, or the tendency to simply increase spendingl and
increase taxes, year after year. It's been a concern, less probably with
Town government, .and more for a lot of .the other taxing districts, which
alsO show up on our tax bills. So, for example, we have the school
diStricts., we have the fire districts, the solid waste districts, .here, t
guess, there's a ferry district, and Town government, County government,
etc. So, this year we have established a committee who's charge is
basically to explore avenues to restrain the tendency .for increased taxes
and spending. The overall purpose of this committee islto provide a better
base of understanding, or for more appropriate decisions related to' taxes,
and to spending. It is not a mindless committee, thaUs destined simply to
slash spending, and do away with important services, but .to look for ways
to. ecor{omize, to 'look for ways to run more efficiently, to maybe share
facilities between different taxing' districts, so that each .. district
doesn't.have the same thing. You known, if the Board .knew exactly what
to do I don't think .we'd even have a committee, :This is in a sense
uncharted territory. The tendency in the past has always been to simply
go to the taxpayers for more. With this committee we~r.e ~lOOking for some
answers, some direction, as to how to control' that: tendenCy for more
spending and taxes, and yet to provide:the necessary services ~hat I think
most of us regard as essential; Is there any other ;comments from the
audience?. Yes, sir'.
KEN EDWARDS: It's not really a comment. Ken Edwards, Planning Board.
I'd lust like to get a feeling from the audience; if I could, is .there any
interest from amongst the people of having a reguJa:r Planning Board
meeting on Fishers Island sometime on Saturday S and if so
would you attend? There's nobody from our card; other than
Valarie Scopaz, our head Planner. A few things on the
island, pertaining= to Planning. We plan every appli a map,
available to the public in Louisa Evans~ Office, so Pe can =reVieW it.
We're working to get an aerial photo of all of . 'Island. There's
copies, supposedly, and Fishers Island should have rn .copies. It
would be excellent to have. We should have it. Also~!',t'he'
is going to be ruling we're going to have the maps or
Valerie-told me ~today that she plans to, hopefully~ the
Planning Board staff come over maybe once a month
Inspector to go over the questions, and help out with .iOns; We
don't have that'many, but it's nice to know how to p~ I
hope in September we'll have some people.
SUPERVISOR WICKHAM: Thank you, Ken.
PETER BRINKERHOFF: I commend for this committee established to look
at the economics of the town. ! ask that you put on your docket
consideration of turning over a sum of services that the town now provides
back to the private sector.
SUPERVISOR WICKHAM: Thank you very much. We have with us today
the staff person to this committee. She's a summer intern who's assisting
the committee. She's in the back with her hand up. Peter, why don't you
try to visit with her at the end? Any other comments?
JOHN THATCHER: John Thatcher. Fishers Island Conservancy, again. I
would like to. inform the Board, and also Ken Edwards, that five copies of
the huge map of Fishers Island, which is at least seven feet long, are
being prepared: by the Conservancy, and w|ll be given to Town officials. It
has Wetla~ds On, property lines, coastal lines, whatever you choose.. We
feel that's the least we can do. Thank you very much.
SUPERVISOR WICKHAM:
comment to add?
We look forward to getting it. Who else has a
LESLIE GOSS: Leslie Goss. The maps that Ken Edwards from the
Planning Department was just referring to, we actually have copies of
those. Tom D~herty, of the Utility Office has those maps. if anyone is
interested in seeing those maps, go to the Utility Office between eight and
five,' between Monday and Friday. They're up in the conference room, and
I just realized I'm remiss in my duties as Civic' Association president to
thank you very imuch, the Town Board, for coming over here today, to
conduct business, and bringing this large compliment of officials with you.
We really appreciate it. Thank you very much.
SUPERVISOR WICKHAM: If there are thanks for that, we really have to
thank the Fishers island Ferry District for providing the transportation,
which they do every year for us, and I'm very grateful for that. You may
know the mechanics of government, when the change in the Town Code is
called for, there's a statutory process, 'that has to be followed, and one
of those processes is to hold a public hearing, A public hearing permits
everybody to have comments, and give comments, and react to the
proposal. ILouisa Evans brought .to the attention of the Town Board such a
proposal, which has to go into our Code to change the change of parking
status on Whistler Avenue, and a proposal now is for a public hearing to
be'held on the 9th of August, that's next week, to institute a no parking
zone on the south side of Whistler Avenue about 1,800 feet up from Airport
Road. It's too bad these hearings aren't held here, but I guess this one
will be held in Southold Town Hall on the 9th with the expectation that,
that will become a no parking zone.
JUSTICE EVANS: Just that if people aren't familiar, it's right in front of
the movie theatre, and it was actually a request of the Fire Department,
because people this year have begun parking in front of the theatre, and
it's very. difficult for any vehicles to get through. I just wanted Tom to
bring it to your attention, so ~hat if anyone did have comments we have a
few copies of the notice here, and please, comment to me what you have to
say.
SUPERVISOR WICKHAM: Any other comments from the audience today? (No
response.) If not, I'd just like to say how grateful I am to be here. It's
always a pleasure for me', and I'm sure I speak for the whole Board. it's
just a great pleasure for us to come. It's a pleasure to listen, to get a
sense of where people are coming from. Anyone else on the Board like to
comment?
COUNCILWOMAN OLIVA: It's such a pleasure to be here, again. I know
so many of you over the years, and I've worked with you, and it's be a
delight, and I think the most important thing is we here on this Board
really do feel that Fishers Island is unique, and has unique problems, and
we want to help you in any way that we can, and you have our entire
support. Thank you so much for all your generosity.
SUPERVISOR WICKHAM: I think we're going to try to catch your boat
back in about fifteen minutes or so. We'll be available to chat a bit
outside, and can I just turn it over to Louisa?
456
AUGUST 3,. 1994
JUSTICE I I just want to thank the Town Board, and all the
Cou people that came over, sort of echoing what Leslie
the trip over here, and we hope you do it
more than once a year, but we're glad you've come, and listened to some of
our gripes today. Thank you.
SUPERVISOR WICKHAM: Thank you. We need a motion to close.
Moved by Justice Evans, seconded by Supervisor Wickham, it was
RESOLVED that the Town Board meeting be and hereby is adjourned at
3:05 P.M.
Vote ot~. the Town Board: Ayes: Justice Evans, Councilwoman Oliva,
Councilman Townsend, Councilwoman Hussie, Supervisor Wickham.
This. resolution was duly ADOPTED.
Judith T. Terry
Southold Town Clerk