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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTR-03/13/1997-SAlbert J. Krupski, President John Holzapfel, Vice President Jim King Martin H. Garrell Peter Wenczel BOARD OF TOWN TRUSTEES TOWN OF SOUTHOLD Town Hall 53095 Main Road P.O. Box 1179 Southold, New York 11971 Telephone (516) 765-1892 Fax (516) 765-1823 MINUTES SPECIAL MEETING ON MOORINGS IN THE BAY MARCH 13, 1996 PRESENT WERE: Albert J. Krupski, Jr., President John Holzapfel, Vice-President Peter Wenczel, Member Martin H. Garrell, Member Jim King, Member Jill Doherty, Clerk PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE TRUSTEE KRUPSKI: Good evening everyone. I would like to welcome everyone here. Thank you for coming out tonight. The issue tonight is a moo~ring program for Peconic Bay. To give you a little history and hack round and a few rules before we start. I have been on the Board for ten years. The last six or seven the bay constable has been coming to the Board of TruStees and asking us to regulate moorings in the bay. He doesn't feel he has the proper legal authority to regulate them properly; He feels that there is a problem. When you sit on a Board like this, I imagine its like any other hoard, you tend to get bogged down by all the regular applications. This month coming up we have 21 public hearings at our regular meeting. Thisweek coming up we have 22 field inspection. Most of those go through straight forward. There is a small percentage that take time, takes extra energy, you have to do extra research, extra meetings in the field, phone calls at lunch time, trips to the town attorneys office. That sort of thing. As a result the Board of Trustees never did anything about moorings in the bay, despite the bay constable asking us for years. It has gotten to the point where if we don't do something, it will just slide to another year and to another board and to another board. We brought this up in the only way we knew how, just to bring it up to the public. We don't have any hard and fast rules about it. There has been some misinformation in a letter in the paper about the fees, which was completely wrong. When we originally Board of Trustees 2 March 13. 1996 discussed the fees~ we talked about a twenty five or fifty dollar registration fee and then there was an annual renewal fee which was never discussed as a number. There was a lot of criticism about this as sort of an empire building scheme to hire more office staff~ hire personal~ hire more co~stables, etc. That is not at all what this board has in mind~ I woul~ propose that if we did go through with any sort of mooring program, tPk%t the renewal fee would be a five dollar fee. It is not an automatic renewal, but people know that they have to take it seriously and pay something. I wouldn't want to see it free, but I wouldn't want to charge a lot of mone~. Just something to cover the administrative cost. Not certainly to justify new personnel hiring. I don't know if the board wants to add anything? TRUSTEE WENCZEL: I will make one co~£m~ent. That is that when we 10ok at this, we look at it as a problem needs to be addressed because of the future. A lot of the problems that Southold has run into in the past ten or twenty years, have come in my opinion because of a lack of plating. While there are some problems with moorings, it is not a tremendous problem. Obviously the bay constable has had concerns over the years. I think we really have to look to the future when we consider this. Wkere a~e we going to be in ten or twenty years down the road. If you look to tbs west, you will find that there are a lot of areas that are completely sat,~rated with moorings~. There are areas that that ha~ occurred with no re~utation and then regUlations did coms a long, it was really to late to organize it into a realistic plan. One of our concerns also is that moorings ~andmooring fields do have an impact on shellfish beds. If we can come up with a comprehensive plan that addresses everYbody's 'Concerns without putting anybody out and addresses all the interest of the citizens of Southold, we will all be a lot better off. TRUSTEE GARRELL: I just wanted to thank everybocly for coming down. This is a fine turn out. We a~e glade of the numbers, because the main thrust of tonight's meeting is to listen. We can't empathize that to much~ that there are no plans a foot. There are no numbers out here. We ha~e no laws or regs. that we are jumping in with. This is really a hearing to sound out the public. It is quite different that some reg~latory hearings, that I am sure you are all famitia~ with, where DEC or EPA or a legislative hea~ing in the senate, house, where the regs. are there. They are ready to go in place. The laws are read~ to come at you and then there is a hearing. That is not what this is~ We are basically here to listen to you and take everything into consideration. TRUSTEE KRUPSKI: I would like t~ start on the east side of the room. TRUSTEE KING: Does the bay constable now ~h~ut this. CLERK: Yes. TRUSTEE KING: I think it would be a good idea that he woul~ show up if he is so concerned~. So people can ask him some questions. Board of Trustees March 13, 1996 LIN~fON DUELL: The question I have is that I heard you say that there are problems with the moorings. I wasn't aware that there was a problem down in our area. I am not familiar what the problem might be say up in Mattituck or Southold. Could you elaborate on what exactly what those problems are. TRUSTEE HOLZAPFEL: In Don's (bay constable) letter in the sense that there have been occasions when people are mooring close to bathing beaches. That was a problem for him. occasionally somebody will moor next to somebody else, Let say you put your boat out and I come a long and say I want this spot and it is two feet away from your spot. He doesn't feel he has the authority to interfere with that under the way the laws are written at this point. It is that kind of situation that the placement of a mooring is causing a problem on a minor level. He has right to control it in terms of navigation. It is more interpersonal relationship. Neighbors... that kind of thing. The are not major live threatening things, they are more orderly things. ~RUSTEE KRUPSKI: Problems, as Peter says, are going to arise more and more. as we get more of us out of the bays. Right now we have the mooEing program in the creeks. We regulate where the moorings are Placed. Because the creeks are so small, you have to do that. People can't be trusted in putting their mooring out where they want to put it. Maybe Peter wants to talk about the shellfish issue. I don't know if he has covered that enough. TRUSTEE WENCZEL: When you establish a marina or a mooring field, the DEC uses that as a potential for contamination, It doesn't matter whether they have evidence that the. boats where disCharging sewage. They assume the boat is the appropriate size to have a had, that the potential to discharge sewage is there. They arbitrarily close the grounds to shellfish. Anybody that is a shellfishermen will probably notice that the areas that are around all commercial marinas are closed. In fact one area that is not a co~er~ial marina that is closed, there is more tb~n one, is the by'the Orient Yacht Club. Not becausethe water quality is proven bad, because there is a congregation of boats that Could have heads and have the potentiaI to discharge sewage. These standards have been passed down from the EPA. Ail the shellfish~sanitation is run by the group called the National Shellfish Sanitation conference. And t~ey over the years have developed standards to ensure the quality and'healthfulness of shellfish'on the market. They had established a list of criteria that an area must meet. The DEC has, in recent years, also interpreted some of this to potential include mooring are~ outside of a regular marina complex. If you have a lot of boats in one area, then they arbitrarily close that beca,,~e the potential for discharge. That is something we all have. to consider too. We have to think about it. How can we minimize that. There is the potential that if you can demonstrate that those boats will not discharge. That they have heads that the "Y" valves are sealed or so on...and that there is no way that they can discharge, there is the potential that that kind of closure doesn't have to occur. But, you have to have some Board of Trustees March 13, 1996 control and some order in order to demonstrate that kind of thing. LINTON DUELL: On that same vain, you are saying that by regulating the moorings, you will have a better handle on whether or not a certain area will be contamination free. Where as the bay constable where given the authority to inspect the boat that has the potential to do the polluting, wouldn't that be a better way of going about it? TRUSTEE ~q~NCZEL: It might be. LINTON DUELL: It was my impression at the beginning some years ago when you had bay constables, originally they were there to enforce the amount of shellfish taken whether or not there were after hours dock hunting and things like that. Then bay constables got into an equipment change. They have high powered boats and the ability to trailer boats from one area to another so they can launch their boat. They became more of an enforcement arm. Frankly, I think that is where a bay constable should be. There is more potential for dmnger and damage from high speed boats going to close to the beaches and wave runners going to close to the bathing beaches. Speeding in navigable channels. That is where the focus of the bay cons~mhles should be as well as illegal taking of shellfish and poaching of dock and so forth. TRUSTEE WENCZEL: Just to add, all those things the bay constable is the enforcement arm of the Town. They are also empowered to enforce chapter 97 and chapter 32. They were a number of hats. LINTON Db-E. LL: Their plate is quite full. You are expecting to put on another. You are going to have some type of mooring situation where everytime we do something usually entails further tax moneys in order to support whatever policy... In order to properly regulate all of the moorings from Orient to the Town line, Riverhead side, you are going to have to have a fairly elaborate system in being able to control where these moorings are put, and monies coming in, permits going out. I un'tsee how you can do that with the present personnel. STEE WENCZEL.r' I will point out that we presently do that in all the Town Creeks. We presently have 3 to 400. The people who dO that in our office and the bay constable are experienced at doing that job. I think the Board has thought about that possibility and feels confident that we can handle that load. TRUSTEE KRUPSKi: Without adding an~ additional personnel. We feel that we can do that. Man In Audience: You are saying they don't have a full days job now? TRUSTEES: No. TRUSTEE KRUPSKI: We are not looking to make work for them. TRUSTEE GARRELL: I think what we are saying is that there is a question of responsibility and the public good. If your picture of the Town is realistic and. you see expanded use of water and you see an expanded population, at some point you have to say you owe it to the people of Southold that you have been elected. to serve to do a better job and to do more things. Whether it is a matter of increase efficiency or increase personnel or down the line 20 years an increase in taxes. At some point you have a Board of Trustees 5 March 13, 1996 responsibility as an elected official to do something about a problem. You can't just duck by saying our plate is full. That doesn't wash. You got to find a way te do it, if it is a real problem. LINTON DUELL: We often have the situation where a mooring will be to close to another mooring. When the boat swings it may come to close to another boat, it may hit another boat. We will work it out in such a way that we move the mooring. The person that is hitting you doesn't want to incur the cost of paying for the damage to the boat. There is a lot of common sense involved. In as much as Mr. Garrell says you have the responsibility as the elected official, the whole scope of what. is going on is to limit government. If it doesn't need fixing don't fix it. If it doesn't need taxing, don't tax it. TRUSTEE GARRELL: You are getting the drift wrong. You don't come to the Trustees meetings all the time. You don't realize how upset we are sometimes by people who come in and can't resolve those kinds of disputes that you talk of. It would be nice if all of us could resolve disputes that way. In fact 20 years ago on the North F~rk we all did that. In reality is that we are a growing community and in the Trustees office we have neighbors fighting each other about docks, moorings about proposed houses and we sit in ~nd those disputes have to be resolved. They can't always be solved, but the job is to get through them. I Perfectly agree that you don't want to increase government. People a~en't always as nice. LINTON DUELL: That is my point in the real world we don't need a system on it. In the beginning it was said that there will be a registration fee and then an annual, rene~zal fee of five dollars. That is with this present board. Five years down the road you can be replaced with another board and they m~y say it should be a hundred dollars or two hundred dollars. I respect all of you, but down the line things get out of hand and fees go up. We have some many fees now. You can't launch a boat of a trailer without a fee. You can't go to the dump without a fee. We have so many fees in this town and we alzeady have a goo~ size tax. You are adding to it. TRUSTEE KRUPSKI: Thank you. BILL RICH: Don Dzenkowski is one of the finest guys you can have. But I understood that the originally story as it was put in the paper, that the boats where blocking harbor entrances. Does anyone know' of a harbor that is being blocked? I don't...that was the only comment I have. West Ruroede.: How long has boating been. around? A long time. I learned years ago that I can make a buck salvaging mushroom anchors. Years eld, a year old. There are a lot of them out there. There is a lot of stulf on the bottom that you don~t know about. It only makes sense to regulate this. Thisgentlemen behind me who claims they don't have a problem in Orient Yacht Club. I service moorings for some people in Orient. Moorings have been moved. What they are asking for here is some sort of standardization of moorings according to boat size and configuration of the land. This can be done sensibly. You can't just stick your head in the sand and pray for less govez~nt. Board of Trustees 6 March 13, 1996 It doesn't make sense. I have salvaged thousands of pounds of mushroom anchors over the years. If you all don't do anything about it, I am going to stay hero and keep in business. There is so much to learn and know about boating and also moorings...there is a wide range of moorings. You get what you pay for. You just have to hope that the guy up wind of you, has his act together and maintains his mooring twice a year. I was in Orient Hazbor yesterday, I found five mushrQ~ms. I was in there the day before ~nd found five more. I love Orient. There are problems that we axe not able to solve. We are in small claims court now. It is getting ugly. Other towns, most other towns has a mooring plan. Huntington in particular rents you the mooring and they maintain their standardS. There is so much to now about moorings. I don't know everything. I am a marine engineer. Either get with the program and maintain this thing right and be responsible sailors or just keep banging into each other. Something has to be done. To yell at government, moor this, moor that. I want to stay hero. Please do something. There is a lot to consider. I can't see resolving it in a year~ There has to be standards and it has tQ be accepted in Laurel and it has to be accepted in Orient and it has to be accepted in Fishers Island. It has to be done. TRUSTEE KRUPSKI: Thank you. Anyone else on the east side of the room? LARRY TUTHtLL: We have had some troubles in Gull Pond. We have tried to reSOlved that a_Nd all o~ a sudden it ended up ~h~t the Trustees threw up their hands and there has been anlrthing done fOr some time in Gull Pond.. I think, the way it has been done and left the way it is, we are better o~f. This organization has the knowtedge,~lthe experience and tho education and ge out and lay out a m~orin~ system. You can't standardize it~ What is good for one place is not good in another. There is to ma~y variables to make something standard, t don't think this board has it. TRUSTEE KRUPSKI: Thank you. Anyone else. We will start from the frontrow and work our way back. JOHN FOEHR: My name is John Foehr. I live in Bellport and have a home in Peconic. I do think to standardize the moorings and mooring areas is a great idea. Boats down by our house, some people havecinder bIoCks, some have mushroom anchorS, some just have anchors. Boats are fine when the weather is fine. When it blows up they are smacking together. I think it is about time that some sort of standardization is done for the bottom and the size of theboat, the weight of the mushroom, the amount of chain, the amount of spring line that should be p~t in. TRUSTEE KRUPSKI: Anyone else in the. frontrow? RALPH MARTIN: My name is Ralph Martin. I live in East Marion. My home is on the water. I have a five hundred pound~hook in ~ront of my house, twenty feet of one inch chain and twenty feet of three quarter inch chain, twenty feet of nylon. It ain't qoing know where's. We talk about what should be done, what can be done? The bottom line is dollars. Who is going to make me move my mushroom when some guy up or down stream of me... I have a mushroom there prior to the time I had the house, this goes back to the sixties. I have called the Army Engineers, no problem. Do Board of Trustees March 13, 1996 you want to make me move it? Who is going to pay to move it? Look at the Orient Yacht Club, who is going to make them move it? TRUSTEE KRUPSKI: That is a goo~ questions. RALPH MARTIN:. Exactly. Any fe~s that comes from anybody in this room is pure extorsion again on the tax payers. My children can't live in this town because it is too expensive. I am, retired, Every buck I make, how much goes out in taxes? A lot. of it and you know it. The bottom line is dollars. Most of the people in this room of 65 or around. Most of us live on a fixed income, Are you going to pay to have my mooring moved? I ain't because it has been there for thirty five years and it is going to stay there. Any monies that come from ns or anybody who has water front proper%y to move there mushroom is nothing but extorsion. You have to pay a fee for anything, but its not taxes. Its a fee. ¥~here does it go, I have a boat. I saved a lot years for that boat and no one is going to take it a way from me. WhO owns the bottom? Who gives you the right. TRusTEE KRUPSKI: The State of New York ow~s the bottom. The Town has the right regulate within 1500 feet. RALPH ~N: 1500t, That is quite a ways. You can come a long and do what ever you want with the Town Boardspermission? Perhaps it would not be a bad idea if this board set a standardization of moorings and chain, Not telling you where you put it and where you ca~n't. TRUSTE~ KRUPSKI: I am glad you brought that up. Nobody ever said making you or anyone else move there moorings. What happens if you neighbor comes out and somebody buys the house next to you. They don't know anything about boats, but they buy a big one. They think your spot is prett~ good so they put their boat right next to yours. What recourse do you have at that point? RALPHMARTIN: I would go out and frankly tell them you can't do ito It has only happen once amd a talked to him. He moved his mooring away and he is glad he did it. TRUSTEE KRUPSKI: What happens when the next fellow comes and he doesn't? RALPH MARTIN: Then he is going to have a problem because I am going to sue him for every scratch on m~boat and his insurance will be cancelled. TRUSTEE~K~UPSKI: Most of what you said we do not disagree with. There are a few parts there I take exception to, but most of that there is.exactly our point. You have your mDoring t~ere and you have had it there for howlever many years and thak is fine. The problem is when you have ten more moorings put around that that could be a problem. Some of these people might not know what they are doing and put a cement block out on a 30' boat. RALPH MARTIN: Then they shouldn't be on the water. TRUSTEE KRUPSKI: We can't help that. You and I can't do anything about that. TRUSTEE GARRELL: Thereis nothing that says we can't grandfather the people that have been there~ like yourself. That is in all likelihood would be what would happen. You probably wouldn't have to pay anything at all. But the guy you cemes in after you and the ten guys who come in in the next twenty years, there the ones who should have to be watched. You don't want to wait for Board of Trustees March 13, 1996 law suites. You don't want to wait for insurance forms. That is the worse way!you can go. The point is we are talk_tng a~o~t a means of protecting people like you. RALPH ~ARTIN: The other person that wants to moor close has ~n investment too and I am sure he doesn't want get his investment damaged. TRUSTEE ~L: You said it yourself. There are people out there who shouldn't have boats. They don't have a clue. TRUSTEE KRUPSKI: This is what this is about. People come in and we say O.K. there is a mooring there you have to put your mooring so many feet away from it. That is it. He doesn't have a choice. RALPH MARTIN: Who decides whether the moorings are proper or improper? TRUSTEE KRU~SKI: On the mooring application they have to put down the size of the boat and t~pe of tackle they are going to use. The board reviews it before they approve it. RALPH, MARTIN: When you people get done with this phase are you going to sneak into the private waterways? When does it end? TRUSTR~ KRUPSKI: The private waterways are private property and there is no publicshellfish resource the~e. There is no public benefit to an area like Spring Pond, School House Creeks Brick Cove. There are a number of those in Town that are privately owned and the town does not recommend to the CountyDept. of Public Works to dredge the access because it is privately owned. A regular resident of the Tewnhas no shellfish resource there. They can not go in there. That is completely different. Peconic Bay is a public trust resource. RALPH ~LARTtN: Are you talking Peconic Bay and Orient Harbor? TRUSTEE,KRTJPSKI: That is part of Peconic Bay. We don't have some great system that we are going to say we are going ko moor this boat here and this one here and this one here and evez-yone has to ~move into this g~id. Nothing like that all. We are talking about future problems. JOHN ~©EHR: When you moor a boat how far off shore in front of your house shOuld those moorings be out? TRUSTEE F~RUPSKI:That is something that has never been discussed. It depends on the size of your boat. It depend~ on the body of water. TRUSTEE WENCZEL: We don't have all the answers. That is why we are here. We are listening. We don't have all the engineering data. We are not all experts. We are here to listen. TRUSTE~ GARRELL: It is ~ though we come in front of you with a plan. It is essentially a blank page that we are asking you to write on. LARRY MATZEN: It seems to me if you get. into the mooring business, and the is what you are doing, you are going to be responsible for them and you are going to be liable for them if something happens. If the chain brakes and you didn't inspect it. You are going to be liable. TRUSTEE KRUPSKI: That is one discussion we did have. We would handle it the same way we handle it in the town creeks. The owner is responsible for the up keep and mainteP~%nce for his tackle. The Town would never be responsible. Some towns require Board of Trustees 9 March 13, 1996 the moorings to be pulled every year and someone actually inspects them every year. LARRY MATZEN: Thenyou are just going to regulate distance between boats? Thabis all you are talking about. You are not going to re~utate the size of the chain or an!rthing like that? TRUSTEE KRUPSKt: No, we would. If we thought it was necessar~ we w~uld. It is up to the owner to maintain their tackle. LARRY MATZEN: I have seen a chain rust through in two years. TRUSTEE KRI/PSKI: That is the purpose of inspecting your property, to make sure it is maintained. LARRy MATZEN: Then you are trying to fix hazards? TRUSTEE KRUPSKI: Future problems. There is not going to be less boats out in the bay. RALPH MARTIN: Have you looked into Salem Mass., Marble Head.. They are large areas of moorings. It might behoove you to go find out some of the larger areas do, how they did it, why and what the results have been. Prior to the fact of having us against you. Most of the people in this room are dead set against what you are proposing. If you could look further and find out larger ones have done and then come back and say this is what we have found. Perhaps move it around, change it a little bit. Then we might have a good plan. TRUSTEE KRUPSKI: We thought we would start closer to home. It does us no personal benefit to bring up an issue like this that we know is going to stir up negative controversy for us. We are here tonight because we think that there is a problem. We are not here because we are getting paid to sit here on March the 13th. We would rather h~ar the problems ann issues first hand from the people who are going to be effected by it. JOHN RAYNOR: I don't care how you look at it, it is just another tax. The boating industr~ is being taxed by the State, by the government. They went broke because of that. What are you. going tax next? The air? I live in Orient. I had a 39' boat on a 500 pound, mushroom with a one inch chain and a one inch nylon line. At the present time I have a 30' boat on the 500 pound mushroem~ it will hold. We have governed ourselves, we have a harbor co~t,~Littee in our own yacht club t~at sets these r~leS up. I had to move my mooring at one time, beca~e I w~ a little to close to another guy. So, I moved it. We police ourselves. We don't need government to start policing us~ TRUSTRRKRUPSKI: Thank you. That is good if it is being handled properly in Orient. That is fine. What about, in Peconic if someone puts out JOHN RAYNOR: I a~ not against regulation. But when you put a tax on it, than it is a different stor~. You know what they say about a duck. When it quacks like a duck, looks, like a duck, it is a duck. And that is a tax° TRUSTEE WENCZEL: I don't think any of us are dmhating that. We all pay lots of t~wes. They call them user fees~ b~t they are taxes. FRANK T~ORP: Frank Thorp from Gardiners Bay Estates, East Marion. Perhaps I have come here with a little mo~e open mind than the othe~ people. I have been watching the mooring situation develope now for 55 years. I have seen an increase in Board of Trustees 10 March 13, 1996 moorings down there. I also see people coming up, particularly from Cozy Cove, they get a boat from who knows where wrap a cloths line around a couple of cement blocks, throw it in and the next storm it is banging up against somebody else's boat. I can see the need there. On the other hand of course anybod~ is opposed to more taxes. I own water front. I pay a little bit more taxes. Where is this money going to go to generated from this. You may ear mark it for certain things know. I have to perhaps remind some of you on the board and some of you aren't old enough to remember, when the gasoline tax went in, it was earmarked for roads and roads only. We no longer can take cur fuel tax or our income tax. Fuel tax for boats was going to be earmarked for boating. I am really interested in the fee situation. TRUSTEE KRUPSKI: Thank you. TRUSTEE HOLZAPFEL: The way I think we spoke about it was a minimal fee, simply to pay for the paperwork that has to go through. Five dollars a year. Simply somebody has to send in and one of the secretary's has to process. If somebody comes in and wants to put a mooring in, ~hat has to be put into a file, it has to be checked by somebody and it has to be looked at in terms of should it be 2' away from this mooring or should it be 100' away. It is minimal fee. In the bay you are talking about 200,300 moorings in the bay. So you are talking about $1,000.- $1,500 added to the Towns... TRUSTEE KRUPEKI: All that money I sign over to the Supervisor. FRANK THORP: Originally you mentioned a 25 or 50 dollar initial fee and then a renewal fee. TRUSTEE HOLZAPFEL: That was very early in the discussion. JO~N RAYNOR: I have seen $300.00 fee. TRUSTEE KRUPSKI: That was someone who had some ideas that put them in the paper. I don't know where that came from. I see a lot of things in the paper that aren't so. TRUSTEE HOLZAPFEL: There was nobody on this board that suggested those numbers at all. JOHN RAYNOR: $5 is no big deal. If you have regulation and it is $5 a year, it is no big deal. But, can you put that down in stone. TRUSTEE GARRELL: There are two issues. I think tonight we want to talk about if there is a real need for a mooring plan now or in the near future. The question of what the fee should be is so obvious, you can let that hang. The people who are already in there you could assume that they wouldn't pay anything if you had to. The people who are coming in and who are regular town residence, they can pay a nominal fee, just to write a piece of paper up. That isn't the question right now. The question is do you need this and do you see a need for this. Ii you what kind of plan do you want. We don't want to be a revenue raiser at all. BILL GILLOOLY: My name is Bill Gillooly, from Orient. I was very pleased to get a hold of Al, John and Jimmy King right a way a couple of weeks ago when this thing came up. It is my understanding we are here because Don Dzenkowski brought this up to people for the last 3 or 4 yea~s. I keep hearing vague Board of Trustees tl March 13, 1996 references to problems. I would really would like you document these problems. We don't have a problem in Orient. If there is a problem in Mattituck, Pipes Cove, elsewhere, fine. I would like to find out about it. I would like you to check your records. I would like to have the bay constables, who would have to keep logs, log in what the problems were. I keep hearing about navigation channels being blocked. Certainly if you are working on a navigation hazard, ik has got to bake part of a day. When he logs in his day whether it was 94, 95, 96, it has to be in his log. I don't think there is a problem. I may be wrong. I would like specifiCs...I think it is real important. Have you received a lot of complaints from cikizens from the past years? I checked with Orient. It doesn't seem to be a problem with friends of mine in certain areas in MattituCk. If there is a ground swell of problems, I applaud you people for checking into it. It doesn't seem to'be a problem now. It may be in the future. We maybe can start to do some planning for 20 years. Not, in my opinion, right n~w. This gentleme~ mentioned the liability. I agree with you. There is probably no liability from a stand point of the condition of the mooring. You can require a person to take care of his own personal property. You do have liability when you tell me that I have to pat my boat in a certain area that I may not think is a proper place to tie my boat up. You may tell to me to use 30' of chain verses 50' of chain. If the boat goes on the rocks or whatever, there is contingent liability established, in my opinion, I am not saying that is for sure. Someone mentioned peoples~boats knock into each other and they work it out together. Now what you are ~aying is neighbor to neighbor if you have a problem call the own Police and get the Town Police to comeld~ and work out the problem. That would be what I would like to see. In the paper was mentioned.~Donny would find it hard to identifyl~oats. NYS Registration SYstem is sufficient. I have~hccn with him on a number of occasions where he has taken the numbers off the boats, called it into the radio operator and within five minutes he new who the beat was registered too. I find that to be a little strange. I~ YOu do pursue this which I hope you don't, I am concerned about the waiting period. I~ someone were to decide that wanted a boat on July 4, based on your creeks program, they are not going to have a mooring beEore Labor Day. If for some reason I had a chance to buy another boat~ I Wouldn't have a place to tie it. At the least I would have a lower limit. Like no boats Smaller than 14' or something like that. Small beats would be involved in that. Five dollar registration is fine. One of the things I heard was that the stickers would be on the buoys, much like the creeks, and on the boats. There are many occasions when people switch moorinqs and do things like that in Orient Harbor. I certainly wouldn't want to be fined becaus~e ms~ sticker doesn't match my boat. I think Larr~Tuthill is the expert of alt experts when it comes to this. You can't standardize with the bottoms in So~thold Town. Maybe local areas you can say look, there is no problem here lets leave it alone. If you do proceed with this I suggest that you do nothing this year and form a cormmittee. Ask citizens over the next 6 months Board of Trustees 12 March 13, 1996 to get together, dig up the facts and find out whether we have a problem. If we don~t have a problem, lets not fix it. If it talks about long range plans, lets do that. But certainly lets not implement something in a slap hash way. Lets put together a group of people and lets explore it. Maybe at the end of 6 months we might not have a problem. Thank you. ~3~ROLD SCHWARTZ: I am Harold Schwartz from Goose Creek. We don't have a problem. In fact I would like to congratulate some of you people. My first permit was like 30 years ago. All the permits in Goose Bay Estates are situated so that the boats don't bump into each other as you heard. If there was an occasion, it would be because of a cement block and a Clothes line. My concern basically is back in 1991, I paid a one time fee for my mooring. That is in stone. I don't want to pay another $5.00 every year. Is that your intention tc increase this or change my mooring? TRUSTEE KRUPSKI: No, because you are on the creek. This is only in the bay. You will not be effected by this. HAROLD SCHWARTZ: O.Ko Now I don't have a problem. HAROLD W=~BER: I am Harold Weber. Retired telephone man. A resident here since 73. I have been coming out here since 1926. We keep our boat out here at Albertson Marine. You walk up and down those docks you see some of the stuff people use to tie docks. It is the same way with moorings. If we put our poles in the ground thatway, half these poles wouldn't be standing.~. Every year you see boats up on the beach. You should see the way the lines are t~ed. Thank you. TRUSTEE KRUPSKI: Thank you. DOUG: (Orient) I think you people are fabulous, running for office and sitting there and making these decisions. I don't see a demonstrated need. If there is some moron that uses a clothes line and concrete blocks, he deserves to have his boat damage. He deserves to be sued. I live in Orient and my mooring has been moved. We sort it all out. It is commonsense. To give stickers to ensure co~onsense, I don't think it will work. If they pay $5.00 and set there Winter stake up like I did, which is obviously wrong, it went to the bottom by Fall. That is a screw up. I don't think a $5.00 fee, a $2.00 fee is going to do ans, difference. I sympathize with those people that live in water houses and has some clown that lives three houses down and want to keep there boat in front of there house. That is sort of the brakes. The Water is for everyone. I don't see a domonst~ated need, I just want to note that there was semebody scalloping there the othe~ day. TRUSTEE'WENCZEL: It is a seasonal closure. It is open November t5thand stays open the Winter months to March or April. DOUG: So it is not a prohtem? TRUSTEE WENCZEL: It is a problem. It is very difficult to navigate through tkat mooring field for one. DOUG: Ican understan~o It is like a parking space that is just to small for your car. You have to find another space. I am a competitive sailor. When I lived in Southampton 25 years ago, I was trying to make some. money. I ran gill nets. Back then you can only put them it at dusk and you b~a to take them out at dawn. That meant that in the middle, of the day you didn't have Board of Trustees 13 March 13, 1996 to sail around the gill nets, which we do. Yet nobody comes' to the Trustees and complains. The recreational boaters respect tb~t you guys have to make a living, tt is a one hand washer the other of . type thing. Nobody is going to have it all. TRUSTEE WENCZ--EL: That is the point. I don't think any one group should monopolize a~d one part of the publics property. The bay/creek bottom belongs to all of us. KEN POLIWODA: My name is Ken Poliwoda. I am the president of the Baymens Association. I feel strongly that there should be some sort of control over where moorings are placed out in the bay. Orient Harbor, the close it because of cause for pollution. I don't want a historic shellfish bed closed because there are more then 10 boats moored in a certain area. DEC will actually shut down. We do need some. sort of control. TOM SAMUALS: t have to people that asked me to deliver letters that couldn't be here~ I am not going to read them. You can read them at your leisure. TRUSTEE KRUPSKI: Thank you. Do you have any coma~ents yourself? T©M SAMUELS: Yes. I first put a mooring in Cutchogue Harbor in 1956. I have had moorings there ever since. Yes we do have problems with people when there Winter stakes get lost. They lose there chain. We have a mud bottem there. I wish I can say there is a problem there. Therle just isn't. We go over board on ground tackle. We use heavier stuff then we need. It is very easY to find out what you need. Just pick it up at Chapmens. That is how I started, with a power squadron course in 1954. Larry is right some bottOmS are different. You get down to peoples brains and their caution ar~l their commons sense. I can understand planning for the future. It is constantly remarkable tome that Peconic Ba~ and Gardiner's Bay hag such light boat traffic. You go to Great South Bay or Huntington~Iarbor, Manhasset... Look at the mooring field. Where to see conflict. In all the years I have been in Cut~hogue there was one instance. A man, who happened to be a dentist, was braising on his boat and started on fire. He swam assure and came up tomy house and we. called the fire department. They came .and put out the fire. We pulled him right out of the mooring field. That is what government iS for. The is what the bay constable is for~ That is Donny job. If there is a problem right it up, speak to the people, it is resolved. I don't ever see any conflict between tbs bay constable and citizens of this Town. Jet ski problems, sure~ You got kids speeding in the chan~els, sure. It ain't broke. You got to let people us.e their heads. If a g~¥ is going to tie up a 30' glass boat with inboard/outboard to a concrete block, you are not 9oing to stop him. Your are not going tostop people from going over the Robins Island bar. You are talking about more people, more regulation. I don't know how you a~e gozng to do. I don't think it is necessary. TRUSTEE F~RUPSKt: Anyone else? STEVE LATSON: I think a lot of things have been said. What Pete said about planning for the fut~re, I tP~nk is really important. I pay fees for fishing every year. I would rather ha~e use fees than paying income tax. It is more seasible because at least I know where my money is going'. Problem areas are Orient Harbor Board of Trustees 14 March 13, 1996 and East Marion. These areas have eel grass beds and these area shouldn't have moorings inthem. These a~e habitat areas. All's you have to de is move your mooring 100' off shore and. you are in a much better area. This is the type of planning you want to have. If you don't take con%rol of it now, the problem will take control of you. You will lo~se a lot of shellfish areas. Why not tell people the proper way ~o more a boat. The right place to moor a boat. It just makes sense. ARTHUR MCCLEARY: I am from New Suffolk. I think we are very responsible people. Most of us have holding tanks on our boats. I have lots of insurance on my boat. If I damage your boat, my insurance company with take care of it. I don't see the fee. I look at it as another tax. Maybe you should have some kind of control, but I am against the fee. Thank you. TRUSTEE KRUPSKI: We have been around the room once. Is there anyone who would like to make another comment. LINTON DUEL: If and when the time comes, I suggest that you look at aerial photos of the bays. I would do it in sequence, say starting in May, then July/August and then November. One other side, yes there is eel grass in Orient Harbor. There is eel grass in lots of other places. If you take an aerial photo after the scallop season starts, you are going to see that there is a lot of eel gra~s missing. In the old days it use to be by sail. You are talking about moorings, doing damage. Come on. Take a look at what a dredge dose. TRUETEE WENCZEL: Can I just point out one thing a~out eel grass? Eel grass has a natural life cycle. Just like the grass in your lawn. In the Spring time it comes up. In the Summer time it flourishes and blooms and goes to seed and in the Fall it dies back. There is a lot of people that feel that dredging scallops does d~m~ge the eel grass beds. Most of what happens there is simply that the dead t~Ongs brake off at that time of the Year. I am kind 'of sensitive to this issue. We don't do that much scalloping anymore. I spent a good number of years scalloping. I would say that there were hundred~ ef people who scalloped over the ~ears. I don't there would be any eel grass if bay scalloping with small, dredges destroyed it. The real point is that it has a'natural life cycle. It is not a seaweed, it is a grass. That happens to grow in the sea. BILL GILLOOLY: I 'think that we all have learned something. When you say that there has been traditionally meorings do~n,'there. That is what we are concerned about. I have had a mooring in the same spot since 1964 in orient Harbor. We never had more that 60. Last Summer we counted 53. What. I am concer~ed, abo~t it the balance that. Peter and Steve talk about. I may be ilnconv~nient to go through thearea (With dredges), it is very inconvenient for my daughter, and I wouldn't allow it, for her to have a 13' Whaler 250' off shore. There is the prote:ction at the dock and I want her there. One of the things that w~s mentioned, therewas a discussion about having one mooning per family. By the look on Ali's face, who knows where that came from. It does concern us. We want to strike a balance. Marty says that everybody wants to turn the clocks back 30 years. 30 years ago there where beats in Orient Harbor than there are know. Should we put more in? Board of Trustees 15 March 13, 1996 TRUSTEE GARRELL: You are f picture. The thing I want that might require any kin Or do you feel like Tom do BILL GILLOOLY: Speaking fo We want to be somewhat lef I don't want to be told my opposed to over here. When the water on September 15~ When you keep you boat in different spot, because th am not saying these proble am saying you are going to are going to have the cons are going to have your col a real problem, I commend a problem. TRUSTEE GAR~ELL: Larry how LARRY TUTHILL: I hate to p I think maybe you should I don't think that the Tru RALPH MARTIN: When somebc~ going to know if they use have a bay constable there TRUSTEE HOLZAPFEL: We talk ·miliar with an over all mooring ~o ask is do you see any places now of a look or plan down the line? as, if it ain't broke, don't fix it? me in Orient. I thir~k we are fine. alone. What I am concerned about is 30' sailboat has to be over there as I was a Summer kid my boat was out of · . That requires one mooring spot. lntilThanksgiving, you want it in a a wind comes out of the northwest. I ms can't be addressed or answered. I have a tremendous bureaucracy. Yon ~ables making arbitrary decision~. You ~ndars full with appeals. If there was rou for looking into. I just don't see do you feel? Cedict what we will do for the future. t each area make there own decisions. tees should have this on them. applies for a mooring, how are you he correct tackle? Are you going to ad about that issue a little. I have contacted 7 or 8 Towns on Long Island and also up in Rhode. Island. Some times have yearly inspections and they have a rbormaster that does th~inspections. The Town of Huntingt~ s a document that you siga sa~ing that the equipment you put in follows the rules and r~gulations that are Chapmens... The applica/~t is responsible. ~here is one end to the other that you can do it. That is why we ~e here tonight. RALPH MARTIN: You would ne. areas in Southold Town. S~ others... TRUSTEE HOLZAPFEL: Absolut. FRANK THORP: Back to poten Marion you have three publ Shipyard Lane, which I wou Gillette Drive, with all t ~d different tackle for different ~e are~ are mo~e protected then ~ly. :ial problems in the future. In East kc accesses to the bay. You have [dn't moor a boat off of, You have ~e rocks and you have Bay Ave. If you consider the number of people in East Marion off the water, the future that may put a boat in. You have potential down the road. TRUSTEE KRUPSKI: Thank you. Anyone else over here. I think we are pretty welttalked out here. AFTER FURTHERDISCUSSIONWiTHAU~I'E~CEA COM~ITTEEWAS MEET TWO OR THREETtMES. People who volunteered. West Reroede Bill Gillooly Frank Thorp Ralph Martin LintonDuell Board of Trustees 16 March 13, 1996 Tom Samuels Larry Tuthill Tom WetzeI Don D. Steve Latson Ken Poliwoda Meeting was adjourned: 9p.m. Respectfully Submitted by: Jill M. Doherty, Clerk Board of Trustees