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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTB-10/09/2007 ELIZABETH A. NEVILLE Town Hall, 53095 Main Road TOWN CLERK PO Box 1179 Southold, NY 11971 REGISTRAR OF VITAL STATISTICS Fax (631) 765-6145 MARRIAGE OFFICER Telephone: (631) 765 - 1800 RECORDS MANAGEMENT OFFICER southoldtown.northfork.net FREEDOM OF INFORMATION OFFICER OFFICE OF THE TOWN CLERK SOUTHOLD TOWN BOARD REGULAR MEETING MINUTES October 9, 2007 4:30 PM A Regular Meeting of the Southold Town Board was held Tuesday, October 9, 2007 at the Meeting Hall, 53095 Main Road, Southold, NY. Supervisor Russell opened the meeting at 4:30 PM with the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag. I. Reports 1. Budget Report Month ended August 2007 2. Island Group Claim Lag Report 9/1/06 - 8/31/07 II. Public Notices 1. Army Corps of Engineers Hashamomuck Cove, Southold - Reconnaissance Study 2. Board of Trustees Set 2007 Scallop Season 11/5/07 - 11/18/07 Non-Commercial Scalloping only (except Hallocks Bay will be closed) 11/19/07 - 3/29/08 Commercial & Non-Commercial Scalloping (except Hallocks Bay will be closed) 3. NYS Liquor Authority Applications Retail Liquor License Renewal - Rinconcito Hispano Restaurant, Unit 7 Sterlington Commons, Greenport Renewal of Liquor Licenses - The Lenz Winery, Main Road, Peconic October 9, 2007 Page 2 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting 4. Suffolk County Influenza Immunization Clinics 5. Army Corps of Engineers Comprehensive Response Report 14 Counties in New York III. Communications 1. Fifth Annual North Fork Centry Bicycle Event Thank you to the Town Board for allowing the event and an apology to the town for directional signs not being removed immediately after the event. IV. Discussion 1. 9:00 AM - Chief Cochran School Crossing Guards 2. 9:15 AM - a Local Law In Relation to Amendments to Chapter 275 3. 9:45 AM - Dave Markel Tall Pines 4. 10:00 AM - Cell Town Consultant 5. Beach Monitoring Maintenance 6. Scavenger Waste Plant 7. Public Water Cutchogue Fire Department Dean Yaxa 8. Appointment to Board of Assessment Review 9. 12:00 Noon - Melissa Spiro and LPC EXECUTIVE SESSION - Property Acquisition 10. Executive Session Personnel 11. Executive Session Property Acquisition 12. 11:00 A.M. - Nature Trail October 9, 2007 Page 3 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting Mayor Nyce & Trustee Osinski Call to Order 4:30 PM Meeting called to order on October 9, 2007 at Meeting Hall, 53095 Route 25, Southold, NY. Attendee Name Organization Title Status Arrived Albert Krupski Jr. Town of Southold Councilman Present William P. Edwards Town of Southold Councilman Present Daniel C. Ross Town of Southold Councilman Present Thomas H. Wickham Town of Southold Councilman Present Louisa P. Evans Town of Southold Justice Present Scott Russell Town of Southold Supervisor Present Elizabeth A. Neville Town of Southold Town Clerk Present Patricia A. Finnegan Town of Southold Town Attorney Present Pledge of Allegiance Opening Statements Supervisor Russell SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Will everyone please rise and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag. Thank you. Okay. Actually in a second I am going to ask anybody that would have a comment on any agenda to please come up but I do want to say right out of the gate here, is that the Town Board had a discussion. We will not be voting for the animal code, we are not going to vote to approve the animal code tonight but we do want to hear what everyone has to say. We have made an effort, I have certainly made an effort over the past several months as I could from horse owners, I have met with them as recently as this Saturday night a week ago. We have come up with a lot of solutions because the idea here is to create a code that is fair to all the good property owners out there that have chickens and horses and everything, which is 99.9% of the Town. There is that rare occasion where there is one or two people that just go so far beyond as you might have remembered reading about a year ago, a situation at Lighthouse Road in Southold. A lot of this, that was the impetus for a lot of this code. That situation, we understand, is resolving itself because the problem has been moved to Maine. However, there is still, what we want to do is take your input because not being an animal owner myself, I need your direction in crafting a code that is fair to you and sets reasonable boundaries. So for that rare occasion where somebody isn’t being a good neighbor, there is a provision for the Town to act. Some of the aspects of the code that we would be striking was the reference to manure, we don’t care about manure on site. We were going to strike that. The boarding component we were going to strike. Those are the types of input that we have been getting and I have been getting from horse owners as I have been meeting with them over the past several weeks. But just rest assured, we are not voting to approve any code tonight. But please stick around for the public hearing so we can have your input. With being said, would anybody like to come up and address any issue as it pertains to the agenda? And we also need your name for the record. October 9, 2007 Page 4 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting Barbara Summers, Southold BARBARA SUMMERS: I am the lady who lives on Lighthouse Road. I am Barbara Summers. Is Mr. Russell here? SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: That is me. MS. SUMMERS: You are not Scott Russell. Are you Scott Russell? SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Yes, I am. I wish I wasn’t right now but yes, I am. MS. SUMMERS: Why is that, sir? Why is that? SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Because this whole issue has been so problematic and I didn’t, I remember dealing with issues like this when I was an Assessor. And people would come in and look for tax reductions because of the way someone was keeping their property. It has become so problematic. Because the fact of the matter is, animals and livestock and chickens are a part of the way of life in Southold but there gets to be a point where neighbors have a right to say you know what? This neighbor really is over-stepping and interfering with our, so the idea is to be fair to you with a code that allows for you to have what you have and be fair to the other owners, so when it becomes egregious, the Town can step in. MS. SUMMERS: I am moving to Maine, I bought property there but I am still here now. Ten years ago…. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Can we ask you to save this comment for the public hearing because right now we…. MS. SUMMERS: I thought this was a public hearing. COUNCILMAN KRUPSKI: No, not now. COUNCILMAN WICKHAM: You began it, SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Okay, that is fair. COUNCILMAN WICKHAM: She deserves a response. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Okay. MS. SUMMERS: Ten years ago, when I was looking to buy property because my son had a horse, I moved here from Brookville because I wanted to raise my grandson in a wholesome environment. I looked at about 75 properties. I went to the Town Assessor’s office when I saw a vacant property on Lighthouse Road. I received the tax card from them and I said to the gentleman there, what animals am I allowed to have on this property? Before I even call him and look at it. He said, walk across the hall to the Building Department, which is exactly what I October 9, 2007 Page 5 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting did. I went to the Building Department and I said, here is the property card, what am I allowed to have on this property. Your code said that I could have 10 horses. I said, well that is ridiculous, that is too much. He said, that is what the code says. And you can have 25 sow. Well, I have 25 sow, I have peacocks, three chickens, I have six peahens and seven peacocks that my grandson has hatched out from an incubator over the last 10 years. He is now going to be going to school to study zoology. When this child was eight years old, he spent the whole day in the chicken coop watching the chickens hatch out eggs. When he came in, I said, what were you doing out there all day. And he said, Ma, those chickens that hatched out, I was watching the mother with them, what she was doing and how she was protecting them. And he went on and on and this was an eight year old child. And I said, Jay, what did this teach you. He said, well, you know, he scratched his head and he looked around and he went, you know, life is precious. And I said yes it is, it is very precious. And if we could teach the rest of the world that, maybe we would get somewhere in the world. This is an eight year old child telling me that. You recently had an incident in your paper where you had a young man my grandsons age, take a kitten and hang it and set it on fire. Maybe if we taught our children about the value of life and animals, you wouldn’t have that kind of thing happening. I have maintained my property to the utmost degree. I have lived by all your codes and yet I had to pay my attorney over $5,000 to protect me from my crazy neighbors. It started off with a woman wanting me to bring my grandson to her religious instruction and I didn’t want to do that. You have let the door open for people to take out personal grievances against their neighbor and use your departments against them. The Health Department was at my house 30 times. I had a hearing in front of the Health Department, they said, she is doing everything she is supposed to do. There is nothing more to be done there. they wanted me to pick up the manure once a day, I pick it up three times a day. And it is limed. The article that runs in the paper all the time about a horse being dragged down the driveway and some little child watching it, as it was buried. Well, my first question is, who would allow a child to stand there and watch such a thing? If this ever really happened. No, it didn’t. Every time this is discussed, that stupid thing runs in the paper and it inflames people again and again and again. Stop listening to the lies. Come to my property. Yeah, the peacocks are crowing. I didn’t buy my property and sneak them on and teach them to sing, this is a natural thing. Mayor Kapell told me a few years ago that people that moved here called his office and complained, a woman wanted a sign removed. The sign that was in front of her property. And he said, why is the sign so bad. And she said, well, it says deer crossing. I don’t want the deer to cross here, I want them to cross down the road. I mean, are you people for real? You are opening the door to a slippery slope with this. Now I sit on my deck and I listen to frogs crowing all night long in the spring, you know, I could decide these frogs are real noisy. Why doesn’t the town do something about it? You start on this slippery slope, you are going to have people complaining about frogs croaking all night long. Now, my peacocks, yeah, they do crow. They crow in the spring when it is a mating call. They don’t make a sound from now until spring again. And the people that are complaining the most leave for the winter. I am out there picking up manure every morning, every afternoon and every night. I have done it with a fever, I did it with Lyme disease and it is done. It is maintained and it is limed. And I am just tired of my name being put in the mud and my property being called a disgrace when why aren’t you people protecting me. I am a taxpayer. Why did I have to pay my attorney $5,000? To exercise the right that I was given when I bought my property. And if you do something now to outlaw my animals, I am going to take you to court. Because you have devalued my property. I am sorry October 9, 2007 Page 6 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting but that is probably enough. I have taken enough of your time but I think I have made myself understood. Thank you. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: What we would like to do is get on with the regular meeting, the regular agenda, so I would ask for anybody who has a comment on the agenda items to please come up and address the Town Board. COUNCILMAN KRUPSKI: Other than the animal code. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: The animal code will have its own public hearing in a little while. This is for the other agenda items. This is about the resolutions. Just the resolutions. The animal code will come… UNIDENTIFIED: On the animal code, you stated that it couldn’t be discussed tonight. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: No, it is not going to be approved, it is not going to be voted for approval tonight. COUNCILMAN KRUPSKI: It won’t be voted on tonight. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: It will not be voted on tonight. What we are looking for is input. UNIDENTIFIED: Why was she allowed to speak? COUNCILMAN ROSS: She needs to leave at 5:00. UNIDENTIFIED: Why was she allowed to speak? The whole issue was going to be addressed at a future date. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: I thought it should be but she… UNIDENTIFIED: You should have voted her down… SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: And a sitting Councilman said I opened the door with the reference to that point and he had a point. I opened the door with a specific reference. You will be shortly. Trust me, I want to hear everybody. I really want to be, and let’s get through the agenda real quickly and then we can get to the public hearing. Mrs. Egan? This is for the agenda. Joan Egan, East Marion JOAN EGAN: Joan Egan, East Marion. I would like to first off mention that this is fire prevention month and breast cancer awareness month, so please everybody. I now have to wear two pairs of glasses. I love it. Did you see my green ones, darling? Oh, I left a couple of books over there that a couple of people, I don’t think anybody got those other books. Anybody up there who thinks they need to read the Emily Post book or the (inaudible) book are more than welcome. Alright, item 778. This equipment is year round equipment? October 9, 2007 Page 7 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Item 778 is equipment that wasn’t bought and so it was moved over to pay for the fall printing of the recreation brochure. MS. EGAN: Okay. Item 776, the property maintenance. Now, still have that water hole over there this water is coming up and up and up allover. I read the 780, the resignation of Mary Martha McCabe from the Southold Anti-Bias Task Force and I was sorry to hear that. I hope you will be replacing her with as good as she was. Now, the, again, we have the Human Resource Center, a new bus drivers and new people. I won’t make too much comment there, I just think it is a shame we have so many changes. What is 785 about? COUNCILMAN WICKHAM: 785 is an administrative change to remove a delinquent account which shows up as revenue in our budget. MS. EGAN: I don’t understand that. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: It means we didn’t get it. COUNCILMAN WICKHAM: And it means that the Town Attorney’s office will continue to seek getting those funds from that delinquent account. But moving it off the books. MS. EGAN: Oh, I see. Well, talking about delinquent accounts, you had mentioned to me that you were hoping to get a new code enforcer because we still have a great deal of run-off soil, especially the old mill. It has lots of run-off soil and right across the street the farm has lots of run-off soil. Oh, I didn’t understand this five year, 786, who gets a five year term without being voted in? SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: That is to vote for that appointment tonight. He had served five years on the Board of Assessment Review, he had expressed interest in reappointment, he has done an excellent job. He has a lot of knowledge there, he is a productive part of that, so the board will vote tonight presuming to reappoint him to a new five year term as Board of Assessment Review. MS. EGAN: Oh, is that that senior citizen man that does that? SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: He is a grey haired, silver haired man. Yes. MS. EGAN: Okay. He is good. Oh, how are we doing, 787, how are we doing on those part time school crossing guards? You know I had mentioned at the last meeting that you had said in the agenda that they get different salaries for different places and I had said that they don’t get any benefits and you should raise their rate of pay. Was anything done in that regard? SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: We just talked about it at the work session today and we are going to work with the police chief at trying to make that position more traffic so we can get more people to apply. October 9, 2007 Page 8 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting MS. EGAN: Good. New York State police are looking for people. I don’t think I should apply, though. Oh, well, the 780, this is more of the solid waste. Lots of money going there. oh, what is this 791 about? Anybody? SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: This is a consultant that will help us develop a scenic trail easement in one of our several public parks. And they have a professional background, so that they will be able to design it so it is user friendly, public accessible and at the same time protect for the fragile environmental underlying features. MS. EGAN: Is the designer from the Town of Southold? SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: I don’t believe they are. MS. EGAN: Oh, naughty, naughty. Oh, incidentally all of you, you know everybody is using this term hamlet now. the Southold Town hamlet. We were one of the first out in East Marion. Actually a hamlet is a town without a church. So I think you all better think very carefully about putting that little hamlet thing there because I would imagine that there were churches here. Greenport uses village, so you’d better check it out. Wouldn’t want you to make a mistake. More of these laws, so you certainly do need that other code enforcer or else you can deputize me. Oh, 797, oh, well, that I guess we don’t want to go into right now. Sorry about that. Well, I will catch more later. Thank you. Supervisor Russell SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Okay. Would anybody else like to come and address the resolutions before we get down to business? (No response) Hearing none, let’s move forward. Minutes Approval RESOLVEDaccepts the minutes dated that the Town Board of the Town of Southold hereby : Wednesday, August 08, 2007 Vote Record - Acceptance of Minutes for August 8, 2007 1:30 PM ? Yes/Aye No/Nay Abstain Absent ? ? ? ? Albert Krupski Jr. Voter ???????? William P. Edwards Voter ? Accepted ?????????? Accepted as Amended Daniel C. Ross Voter ?? Tabled ???????? Thomas H. Wickham Seconder ???????? Louisa P. Evans Initiator ???????? Scott Russell Voter RESOLVEDaccepts the minutes dated that the Town Board of the Town of Southold hereby : Tuesday, August 14, 2007 Vote Record - Acceptance of Minutes for August 14, 2007 4:30 PM ? Yes/Aye No/Nay Abstain Absent ? ? ? ? Albert Krupski Jr. Voter ???????? William P. Edwards Voter ? Accepted ?????????? Accepted as Amended Daniel C. Ross Voter ?? Tabled ???????? Thomas H. Wickham Seconder ???????? Louisa P. Evans Initiator ???????? Scott Russell Voter October 9, 2007 Page 9 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting V. Resolutions 2007-774 CATEGORY: Audit DEPARTMENT: Town Clerk Approve Audit 10/9/07 RESOLVED approves the audit dated that the Town Board of the Town of Southold hereby October 9, 2007. Vote Record - Resolution RES-2007-774 ? Yes/Aye No/Nay Abstain Absent ? ? ? ? Albert Krupski Jr. Voter ? Adopted ???????? ??William P. Edwards Voter Adopted as Amended ?????????? Defeated Daniel C. Ross Voter ?? Tabled ???????? Thomas H. Wickham Seconder ?? Withdrawn ???????? Louisa P. Evans Initiator ???????? Scott Russell Voter 2007-775 CATEGORY: Set Meeting DEPARTMENT: Town Clerk Set Next Meeting 10/23/07 RESOLVED that the next Regular Town Board Meeting of the Southold Town Board be held, Tuesday, October 23, 2007 at the Southold Town Hall, Southold, New York at 7:30 P. M.. Vote Record - Resolution RES-2007-775 ? Yes/Aye No/Nay Abstain Absent ? ? ? ? Albert Krupski Jr. Voter ? Adopted ???????? ??William P. Edwards Voter Adopted as Amended ?????????? Defeated Daniel C. Ross Voter ?? Tabled ???????? Thomas H. Wickham Seconder ?? Withdrawn ???????? Louisa P. Evans Initiator ???????? Scott Russell Voter 2007-776 CATEGORY: Budget Modification DEPARTMENT: Public Works DPW - Budget Modification RESOLVEDmodifies the 2007 that the Town Board of the Town of Southold hereby Department of Public Works – Property Maintenance Budget as follows: October 9, 2007 Page 10 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting From: A.1620.4.400.600 Equipment Maintenance & Repair $5,000 To: A.1620.4.400.200 Property Maintenance & Repair $5,000 Vote Record - Resolution RES-2007-776 ? Yes/Aye No/Nay Abstain Absent ? ? ? ? Albert Krupski Jr. Initiator ? Adopted ???????? ??William P. Edwards Seconder Adopted as Amended ?? Defeated ???????? Daniel C. Ross Voter ?? Tabled ???????? Thomas H. Wickham Voter ?? Withdrawn ???????? Louisa P. Evans Voter ???????? Scott Russell Voter 2007-777 CATEGORY: Attend Seminar DEPARTMENT: Police Dept Grant Permission to Detectives Joseph Conway and Edward Grathwohl to Attend Financial Investigations Training Conference October 17, 2007 to October 19, 2007 In Connecticut RESOLVED grants permission to that the Town Board of the Town of Southold hereby Detectives Joseph Conway and Edward Grathwohl to attend a Financial Investigations conference given by the New England, Connecticut and Eastern Chapters of the International Association of Financial Investigators and the US Postal Service commencing on Wednesday, October 17, 2007 through Friday, October 19, 2007, in Ledyard, Connecticut. All expenses for registration, travel and lodging to be a legal charge to the 2007 Police Training budget line (A.3120.4.600.200). Vote Record - Resolution RES-2007-777 ? Yes/Aye No/Nay Abstain Absent ? ? ? ? Albert Krupski Jr. Seconder ? Adopted ???????? William P. Edwards Initiator ?? Adopted as Amended ?? Defeated ???????? Daniel C. Ross Voter ?? Tabled ???????? Thomas H. Wickham Voter ?? Withdrawn ???????? Louisa P. Evans Voter ???????? Scott Russell Voter 2007-778 CATEGORY: Budget Modification DEPARTMENT: Recreation Budget Modification October 9, 2007 Page 11 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting RESOLVEDmodifies the 2007 General that the Town Board of the Town Southold hereby Fund Whole Town, as follows: FROM : A7020.4.100.550 Sports Equipment $ 200.00 A7180.1.300.100 Beaches - Personal Services $1,200.00 TO: A.7020.4.400.300 Printing - Brochure $1,400.00 Vote Record - Resolution RES-2007-778 ? Yes/Aye No/Nay Abstain Absent ? ? ? ? Albert Krupski Jr. Voter ? Adopted ???????? William P. Edwards Seconder ?? Adopted as Amended ?? Defeated ???????? Daniel C. Ross Initiator ?? Tabled ???????? Thomas H. Wickham Voter ?? Withdrawn ???????? Louisa P. Evans Voter ???????? Scott Russell Voter 2007-779 CATEGORY: Budget Modification DEPARTMENT: Data Processing Budget Modification for Tape Drive Maintenance RESOLVEDmodifies the 2007 Data that the Town Board of the Town of Southold hereby Processing budget as follows: From: A.1680.4.400.356 UPS Maintenance $1375.00 To: A.1680.4.400.353 8MM Tape Drive Maint. $1375.00 Vote Record - Resolution RES-2007-779 ? Yes/Aye No/Nay Abstain Absent ? ? ? ? Albert Krupski Jr. Voter ? Adopted ???????? ??William P. Edwards Voter Adopted as Amended ?????????? Defeated Daniel C. Ross Voter ?? Tabled ???????? Thomas H. Wickham Seconder ?? Withdrawn ???????? Louisa P. Evans Initiator ???????? Scott Russell Voter 2007-780 CATEGORY: Committee Resignation October 9, 2007 Page 12 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting DEPARTMENT: Town Clerk Accept the Resignation of Mary Martha McCabe From the Southold Town Anti-Bias Task Force RESOLVEDaccepts, with regret, the that the Town Board of the Town of Southold hereby resignation of Mary Martha McCabe from the Southold Town Anti-Bias Task Force, effective immediately. Vote Record - Resolution RES-2007-780 ? Yes/Aye No/Nay Abstain Absent ? ? ? ? Albert Krupski Jr. Voter ? Adopted ???????? William P. Edwards Voter ?? Adopted as Amended ?? Defeated ???????? Daniel C. Ross Voter ?? Tabled ???????? Thomas H. Wickham Initiator ?? Withdrawn ???????? Louisa P. Evans Seconder ???????? Scott Russell Voter 2007-781 CATEGORY: Committee Resignation DEPARTMENT: Town Clerk Accept the Resignation of Leah Glowacki From the Southold Town Housing Advisory Committee RESOLVEDaccepts, with regret, the that the Town Board of the Town of Southold hereby resignation of Leah Glowacki from the Southold Town Housing Advisory Committee , effective immediately. Vote Record - Resolution RES-2007-781 ? Yes/Aye No/Nay Abstain Absent ? ? ? ? Albert Krupski Jr. Initiator ? Adopted ???????? William P. Edwards Seconder ?? Adopted as Amended ?? Defeated ???????? Daniel C. Ross Voter ?? Tabled ???????? Thomas H. Wickham Voter ?? Withdrawn ???????? Louisa P. Evans Voter ???????? Scott Russell Voter 2007-782 CATEGORY: Committee Resignation DEPARTMENT: Town Clerk CAC Resignation - Grigonis RESOLVEDaccepts the resignation of that the Town Board of the Town of Southold hereby Joyce Grigonis from her position as a Conservation Advisory Committee member , effective immediately. October 9, 2007 Page 13 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting Vote Record - Resolution RES-2007-782 ? Yes/Aye No/Nay Abstain Absent ? ? ? ? Albert Krupski Jr. Seconder ? Adopted ???????? ??William P. Edwards Initiator Adopted as Amended ?????????? Defeated Daniel C. Ross Voter ?? Tabled ???????? Thomas H. Wickham Voter ?? Withdrawn ???????? Louisa P. Evans Voter ???????? Scott Russell Voter 2007-783 CATEGORY: Advertise DEPARTMENT: Human Resource Center Advertise for FT Mini Bus Driver/CDL - HRC RESOLVEDauthorizes and directs the that the Town Board of the Town of Southold hereby Town Clerk to advertise for the position of full time Mini Bus Driver for the Human Resource Center at $21,470.54 per annum. Vote Record - Resolution RES-2007-783 ? Yes/Aye No/Nay Abstain Absent ? ? ? ? Albert Krupski Jr. Voter ? Adopted ???????? ??William P. Edwards Voter Adopted as Amended ?????????? Defeated Daniel C. Ross Initiator ?? Tabled ???????? Thomas H. Wickham Voter ?? Withdrawn ???????? Louisa P. Evans Seconder ???????? Scott Russell Initiator 2007-784 CATEGORY: Attend Seminar DEPARTMENT: Planning Board Future of the East End RESOLVED grants permission to Mark that the Town Board of the Town of Southold hereby Terry to attend a seminar on architecture & the environment in Southampton, on Friday, Oct. 12, 2006. All expenses for registration, and travel to be a legal charge to the 2007 Planning budget (meetings and seminars). Vote Record - Resolution RES-2007-784 ? Yes/Aye No/Nay Abstain Absent ? ? ? ? Albert Krupski Jr. Voter ? Adopted ???????? William P. Edwards Voter ?? Adopted as Amended ?????????? Defeated Daniel C. Ross Voter ?? Tabled ???????? Thomas H. Wickham Seconder ?? Withdrawn ???????? Louisa P. Evans Initiator ???????? Scott Russell Voter October 9, 2007 Page 14 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting 2007-785 CATEGORY: Landfill Misc. DEPARTMENT: Solid Waste Management District SWMD Delinquent Account removes the following past RESOLVED that the Town Board of the Town of Southold hereby due charge owed the Solid Waste Management District from 2007 District revenues, in accordance with a determination by the Town Comptroller and the Town Attorney, with the understanding that the Town Attorney's office will continue efforts to collect this debt through all available legal means: Account # 6007: Thomas Foster in the amount of $15,278.36 Vote Record - Resolution RES-2007-785 ? Yes/Aye No/Nay Abstain Absent ? ? ? ? Albert Krupski Jr. Voter ? Adopted ???????? ??William P. Edwards Voter Adopted as Amended ?????????? Defeated Daniel C. Ross Seconder ?? Tabled ???????? Thomas H. Wickham Initiator ?? Withdrawn ???????? Louisa P. Evans Voter ???????? Scott Russell Voter 2007-786 CATEGORY: Committee Appointment DEPARTMENT: Town Clerk Reappoint Daniel McConlogue to the Board of Assessment Review RESOLVEDreappoints Daniel that the Town Board of the Town of Southold hereby McConlogue to the Board of Assessment Review to another five (5) year term, effective October 1, 2007 through September 30,2012 . Vote Record - Resolution RES-2007-786 ? Yes/Aye No/Nay Abstain Absent ? ? ? ? Albert Krupski Jr. Initiator ? Adopted ???????? William P. Edwards Seconder ?? Adopted as Amended ?????????? Defeated Daniel C. Ross Voter ?? Tabled ???????? Thomas H. Wickham Voter ?? Withdrawn ???????? Louisa P. Evans Voter ???????? Scott Russell Voter 2007-787 CATEGORY: Retirement/Resignation DEPARTMENT: Police Dept Accept the Resignation of Claude Kumjian As Part Time School Crossing Guard October 9, 2007 Page 15 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting RESOLVEDaccepts the resignation of that the Town Board of the Town of Southold hereby Claude Kumjian from the position of Part Time School Crossing Guard in the Police Department , effective September 21, 2007. Vote Record - Resolution RES-2007-787 ? Yes/Aye No/Nay Abstain Absent ? ? ? ? Albert Krupski Jr. Seconder ? Adopted ???????? William P. Edwards Initiator ?? Adopted as Amended ?? Defeated ???????? Daniel C. Ross Voter ?? Tabled ???????? Thomas H. Wickham Voter ?? Withdrawn ???????? Louisa P. Evans Voter ???????? Scott Russell Voter 2007-788 CATEGORY: Employment - Town DEPARTMENT: Human Resource Center Hire PT Senior Citizen Aide II At HRC RESOLVEDappoints Mary Beth that the Town Board of the Town of Southold hereby Gramazio to the position of part time Senior Citizen Aide II for the department of Human Services , effective October 10, 2007, at a rate of $13.44 per hour for 17.5 hours per week. Vote Record - Resolution RES-2007-788 ? Yes/Aye No/Nay Abstain Absent ? ? ? ? Albert Krupski Jr. Voter ? Adopted ???????? William P. Edwards Seconder ?? Adopted as Amended ?? Defeated ???????? Daniel C. Ross Initiator ?? Tabled ???????? Thomas H. Wickham Voter ?? Withdrawn ???????? Louisa P. Evans Voter ???????? Scott Russell Voter 2007-789 CATEGORY: Employment - Town DEPARTMENT: Human Resource Center Hire PT MIni Bus Driver/HRC RESOLVEDappoints Daniel E. Cleary that the Town Board of the Town of Southold hereby to the position of part time Mini Bus Driver for the department of Human Services , effective October 16, 2007, at a rate of $12.11 per hour for 17.5 hours per week. October 9, 2007 Page 16 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting Vote Record - Resolution RES-2007-789 ? Yes/Aye No/Nay Abstain Absent ? ? ? ? Albert Krupski Jr. Voter ? Adopted ???????? William P. Edwards Voter ?? Adopted as Amended ?? Defeated ???????? Daniel C. Ross Voter ?? Tabled ???????? Thomas H. Wickham Seconder ?? Withdrawn ???????? Louisa P. Evans Initiator ???????? Scott Russell Voter 2007-790 CATEGORY: Budget Modification DEPARTMENT: Solid Waste Management District SWMD Budget Mods - 10/09/07 RESOLVEDmodifies the 2007 that the Town Board of the Town of Southold hereby Solid Waste Management District budget as follows: From: SR 8160.4.400.805 MSW Removal $21,500 SR 8160.2.200.400 Computer Equipment $ 300 SR 8160.4.100.580 Maint/Supply – Ford Tractor $ 1,300 SR 8160.4.100.608 Composting Urea $ 2,000 SR 8160.4.100.645 Maint/Supply – Fire Truck $ 500 SR 8160.4.100.900 Landscaping Supplies $ 700 SR 8160.4.400.600 Scale Maintenance $ 1,500 SR 8160.4.400.825 Glass Removal $ 1,520 To: SR 8160.2.200.500 Misc. Office Equipment $ 300 SR 8160.2.500.750 Heating & Lighting Equip $ 8,500 SR 8160.4.100.551 Maint/Supply Cat 966 Loader $ 500 SR 8160.4.100.596 Maint/Supply CBI Grinder $10,000 SR 8160.4.100.609 RCA Blend $ 1,220 SR 8160.4.100.800 Maint – Facilities/Grounds $ 3,500 SR 8160.4.200.200 Light & Power $ 5,000 SR 8160.4.400.610 Vending Machine Maint. $ 300 October 9, 2007 Page 17 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting Vote Record - Resolution RES-2007-790 ? Yes/Aye No/Nay Abstain Absent ? ? ? ? Albert Krupski Jr. Voter ? Adopted ???????? William P. Edwards Voter ?? Adopted as Amended ?? Defeated ???????? Daniel C. Ross Voter ?? Tabled ???????? Thomas H. Wickham Initiator ?? Withdrawn ???????? Louisa P. Evans Seconder ???????? Scott Russell Voter 2007-791 CATEGORY: Contracts, Lease & Agreements DEPARTMENT: Town Attorney Authorizes and Directs Supervisor Scott A. Russell to Execute a Proposal for Planning and Design Services Between the Town of Southold and RBA Group In Association with Lebowitz/Gould Design, Inc. RESOLVEDauthorizes and directs that the Town Board of the Town of Southold hereby Supervisor Scott A. Russell to execute a Proposal for planning and design services between the Town of Southold and RBA Group in association with Lebowitz/Gould Design, Inc. in connection with the North Fork Trail Scenic Byway Interpretative Signage and Facilities Project (PIN 0758.90), subject to the approval of the Town Attorney. Vote Record - Resolution RES-2007-791 ? Yes/Aye No/Nay Abstain Absent ? ? ? ? Albert Krupski Jr. Initiator ? Adopted ???????? William P. Edwards Seconder ?? Adopted as Amended ?? Defeated ???????? Daniel C. Ross Voter ?? Tabled ???????? Thomas H. Wickham Voter ?? Withdrawn ???????? Louisa P. Evans Voter ???????? Scott Russell Voter 2007-792 CATEGORY: Local Law Public Hearing DEPARTMENT: Town Clerk LL Chapter 275 Set PH WHEREAS, there has been presented to the Town Board of the Town of Southold, Suffolk “A Local Law in County, New York, on the 9th day of October, 2007 a Local Law entitled relation to Amendments to Chapter 275” now, therefore, be it RESOLVED that the Town Board of the Town of Southold will hold a public hearing on the aforesaid Local Law at the Southold Town Hall, 53095 Main Road, Southold, New York, on the October 9, 2007 Page 18 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting th 20 of November, 2007 at 4:35 p.m. at which time all interested persons will be given an opportunity to be heard. “A Local Law in relation to Amendments to Chapter 275” The proposed Local Law entitled, reads as follows: LOCAL LAW NO. 2007 “A Local Law in relation to Amendments to Chapter 275” A Local Law entitled, . BE IT ENACTED by the Town Board of the Town of Southold as follows: I. Purpose – In order to provide for the health, safety and welfare of the citizens of the Town of Southold, and to protect the natural protective areas existing within the Town, it is necessary to make certain amendments to Chapter 275. These amendments are intended to support the protection of environmental features within the Trustees’ jurisdiction, strengthen enforcement, simplify the permit process and clarify activities that may be conducted in protected areas. II. Chapter 275 of the Code of the Town of Southold is hereby amended as follows: §275-2. Definitions; word usage. ACCESS PATH -- an area, cleared by hand or hand-held equipment, no more than 4 feet wide, left in its natural state and devoid of any manmade structure, to provide a walkway to a body of water. DOCK -- Any permanent or seasonal structure, except a building, located or proposed to be located on lands abutting or comprised of freshwater or tidal wetlands or connected to a bulkhead or the upland and extending over the water's surface, designed to secure vessels and provide access from the shore to a body of water. For the purpose of this October 9, 2007 Page 19 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting chapter, this term shall also include the associated structures necessary to cross wetlands and adjacent natural areas. The term “dock” includes the terms “wharves,” “piers,” “fixed docks,” “floating docks,” or “floats”. or “catwalks.” FUNCTIONAL – Any structure that, in its current state, primarily retains its purpose and use as determined by the Board of Trustees. NONDISTURBANCE BUFFER – An A vegetated area, typically 50 feet wide a minimum of 30 feet wide as designated by the Board of Trustees, immediately landward of the wetland boundary, shoreline structure, or other line designated by the Trustees where no operations, maintenance, placement of signs or other activities can may take place, except that manmade debris may be removed from such area by hand without the permission of the Board of Trustees. RESIDENTIAL DOCK -- Any catwalk, fixed dock and/or floating dock designed or constructed as a continuous unit to provide access to the surface waters from a lot that is zoned for residential use. The term "dock" shall include all associated structures such as ramps and mooring piles. §275-4. Exceptions. A. The provisions of this chapter shall not affect or prohibit nor require a permit for the following: (4) The ordinary and usual operations relative to residential horticulture within Trustees’ jurisdiction limited to the use of non-invasive native species of vegetation. Re-grading and removal of trees outside any designated buffer area are not included in this exception. landward of the wetland boundary. (5) The ordinary and usual maintenance or repair (of the same dimensions) of a presently permitted by this chapter, existing and functioning building, dock, pier, wharf, jetty, groin, dike, dam or other water-control device or structure. (10) Installation of new or replacement windows, roof shingles, doors, dormers and siding on existing structures only. (11) Notwithstanding the above listed exceptions, activity within a designated non- disturbance buffer is prohibited. October 9, 2007 Page 20 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting B. Nothing contained in this section shall alter the jurisdiction of the Southold Town Board of Trustees. These listed exceptions do not provide an exemption from the requirements of other departments or agencies. §275-5. Permit procedures. B. Administrative permit. (2) The following operations will be considered for administrative review: (j) The reconstruction of a permitted bulkhead as per §275-11, which is to replace an existing functional bulkhead, subject to the following: [3] Any such activities shall require the addition of a nonturf pervious buffer area. not to exceed 20 feet wide as defined in §275-2. (l) Minor restoration or alterations of landscaping. (m) Decks. (n) Minor alterations to existing permitted shoreline structures including stairs, bulkheads and docks. (o) Installation or burial of a residential propane/liquid gas tank 25 feet from wetlands in an existing, established yard area when more appropriate upland placement is not possible. Installation, burial or removal of a propane tank less than 25 feet from wetlands is generally prohibited. (p) Dredging work caused by the accumulation of silt from run-off or other circumstances not the result of activity by or on behalf of the owner of the property and in event at the discretion of the Board of Trustees. §275-7. Fees. F. Dredging Fee. Every application for a permit for dredging within Town-owned underwater lands shall include a fee as set by the Town Board based on the amount of cubic yard of dredge spoil to be removed. §275-10. Contents of permit. October 9, 2007 Page 21 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting L. A statement that “The permittee is required to conspicuously post the permit and have the supporting plans available for immediate inspection at the worksite at the commencement of work until which time the project is completed.” §275-11. Construction and operation standards. A. General. The following standards are required for all operations within the jurisdiction of the Trustees: (4) Fences. In general, fences are prohibited from beaches and wetland areas. Any fence, barricade or impediment to pedestrian traffic on the beach or wetland area in violation of the provisions of this chapter shall be removed upon written notice to the owner of the premises upon which such fence, barricade or impediment is located sent by certified or registered mail. Such fence, barricade or impediment shall be removed by the owner within 30 days of the date of the notice. Upon failure to comply with such notice, the Building Inspector, Code Enforcement Officer or Bay Constable may remove or cause the removal of the illegal structure. If any fence, barricade or impediment is determined by the Building Inspector, Code Enforcement Officer or Bay Constable to create a hazard to the health, safety or welfare of the public, such structure may be removed and disposed of by the Town without prior notice to the owner. Upon removal by the Town, all costs and expenses incurred by the Town for the removal of such fence, barricade or impediment shall be the responsibility of the owner. The Town may pursue any and all remedies available at law to recover any unpaid costs associated with removal, including filing a statement with the Town Assessors, identifying the property in connection with which such expenses were incurred and the owner thereof as shown on the latest assessment roll of the Town. The Assessors, in preparation of the next assessment roll, shall assess such amount upon such property. Such amount shall be included in the levy against such property, shall constitute a lien and shall be collected and enforced in the same manner, by the same proceedings, at the same time and under the same penalty as October 9, 2007 Page 22 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting is provided by law for the collection and enforcement of real property taxes in the Town of Southold. A fence may be permitted if the applicant has demonstrated a special need. Upon such a finding by the Trustees the fence must be split-rail, perpendicular to the waterline and not closer than 10 feet to MHW. Only one posted sign per 100 linear feet of fence is allowed, no larger than 12 inches by 12 inches square. (9) Pumping of Town-owned freshwater wetlands for irrigation purposes shall be prohibited. (10) Access paths. A permit for only one path shall be granted per lot for the purposes of shoreline access unless otherwise determined by the Board of Trustees. B. Shoreline structures. The following standards are required for all operations relating to shoreline structures on residential properties. Operations conducted on properties zoned M1 or M2 may be given greater flexibility in these requirements given the water- dependent nature of their use. (1) Bulkheads, retaining walls, revetments and gabions. (f) In order to prevent the release of metals and other contaminants into the wetlands and waters of Southold, the use of lumber pre-treated with any preservative, including but not limited to chromated copper arsenate (also known as "CCA"), creosote, penta products, Alkaline Copper Quat (ACQ), or homemade wood preservatives is prohibited for use in sheathing and decking on structures in the wetlands as well as on any part of a structure in low tidal flow wetland areas as determined by the Trustees. Any use of creosote is prohibited. Preservatives of any type, including but not limited to those listed above cannot be applied to any bulkheads, retaining walls or revetments after installation. Encapsulated pilings or native nonchemically treated (untreated) lumber only should be used in sensitive areas. (l) Lighting: Any and all lights associated with bulkheads, retaining walls, stairs or poles in Trustee jurisdiction must be directed on the subject October 9, 2007 Page 23 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting structure and not out into the adjacent wetland, waterway or property. Lights shall not be on unless the waterfront is in active use. C. In water. The following standards are required for all in-water operations adjacent to residential properties. Operations conducted on properties zoned M1 or M2 may be given greater flexibility in these requirements given the water-dependent nature of their use. (2) Docks. (a) [3] In order to prevent the release of metals and other contaminants into the wetlands and waters of Southold, the use of lumber pre- treated with any preservative, including but not limited to chromated copper arsenate (also known as "CCA"), commercial copper quat (CCQ), creosote, penta products, Alkaline Copper Quat (ACQ), or homemade wood preservatives is prohibited for use in sheathing and decking on structures in the wetlands as well as on any part of a structure in low tidal flow wetland areas as determined by the Trustees. The use of creosote is prohibited. Similarly, the The use of tropical hardwoods is prohibited unless it is certified by the Forest Stewardship Council or similar organization. Materials used for structural components shall be determined at the discretion of the Trustees. (b) Dock locations and lengths. [3] [a] Given the unique and sensitive natural environmental characteristics described in the Town of Southold Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan and the New York State Department of State Significant Habitat descriptions, No new docks will be permitted, over vegetated wetlands or such that it causes habitat fragmentation of vegetated wetlands in the following areas: Downs Creek, Hallocks October 9, 2007 Page 24 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting Bay, Hashamomuck Creek and Pond, Long Creek (branch of Mattituck Creek, East of Grand Avenue bridge), Pipe’s Cove Creek and West Creek. [3] [d] No floating docks, floats, dock components, duck blinds or boats shall be stored on tidal wetlands, other intertidal areas or freshwater wetlands, except that floats 20 feet in length or smaller and boats 16 feet in length or smaller may be stored above mean high tide, on blocks at a minimum of 12” above grade, during the period beginning November 1 through May 1. (c) Regulations for the placement and configuration of docking facilities. [1] Residential docks. [a] Only one dock, catwalk may be permitted per residential lot. Only one mooring or dock may be mooring is permitted per residential lot. Upon a showing of special need due to low water level and hazard to property, the Trustees may permit both a mooring and a dock for the same residential property. [b] If any part of a residential dock structure includes a float or floating dock, the float or floating dock portion shall be designed so that, with the exception of the pilings: [i] It is no larger than six feet wide and 20 feet long except on Fishers Island if the need is demonstrated; or of equal square footage as determined by the Trustees; (3) Dredging. (a) Creeks. [1] Only maintenance dredging (as defined in §275-2) only is permitted, unless the applicant owns underwater land or the applicant is requesting permission to dredge in connection with October 9, 2007 Page 25 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting installation of low-sill bulkheads. All maintenance dredging permits shall be valid for a period no greater than 10 years. (c) All dredging applications must demonstrate a specific location for the deposit of dredging material. §275-16. Compliance requirements; penalties for offenses. B. For each offense against any of the provisions of this chapter or any regulations made pursuant thereto, or failure to comply with a written notice or order of any Director of Code Enforcement or Bay Constable within the time fixed for compliance therewith, the owner, occupant, builder, architect, contractor or their agents or any other person who commits, takes part or assists in the commission of any such offense or who shall fail to comply with a written order or notice of the Director of Code Enforcement or Bay Constable shall be subject to the following fine schedule. Each day on which such violation occurs shall constitute a separate, additional offense. (2) Failure to comply with the terms of a permit. (a) Any person failing to comply with the terms of a permit shall be subject to a fine of not less than $500 and not more than $1,000. $4,000 For each subsequent offense, the violator shall be guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by a fine not less than $1,000 nor more than $2,000 $7,500 or a term of imprisonment of not less than 15 days nor more than six months, or both. (b) Any person failing to comply with posting the permit and/or the requirement for supporting plans to be available for immediate inspection pursuant to §275-10 shall be subject to a fine of not more than $1,000. (4) Restoration. In lieu or in addition to these punishments, any offender may be punished by being ordered to restore the affected wetland to its condition prior to the offense. Any such order shall specify a reasonable time for the completion of such restoration, which shall be effected under the supervision of the approving authority. The Trustees reserve the right to require specific replanting and restoration methods including specific survivability and success criteria. October 9, 2007 Page 26 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting (5) Failure to comply with a restoration plan. Any person failing to comply with the terms of a mandated restoration plan as detailed in subsection 4 of this section within the proscribed period of time for completion shall be guilty of an offense and subject to a fine of not less than $1,000 and not more than $4,000. (5)(6) Mitigation. When on-site wetlands restoration and creation may be unfeasible due to technical or other constraints, other mitigative measures, such as off-site wetland restoration or creation, may be required. C. The Trustees may revoke a permit when a violation of this Chapter or Chapter 111 is found on the same property. No new permits will be issued to any carter, owner, occupant, builder, architect, contractor or their agents if they are a named as defendants in an outstanding or unresolved wetland violation.violation of Chapter 275 Wetlands and Shoreline or Chapter 111 Coastal Erosion Hazard Areas. III. SEVERABILITY If any clause, sentence, paragraph, section, or part of this Local Law shall be adjudged by any court of competent jurisdiction to be invalid, the judgment shall not affect the validity of this law as a whole or any part thereof other than the part so decided to be unconstitutional or invalid. IV. APPLICABILITY AND EFFECTIVE DATE This Local Law shall take effect immediately upon filing with the Secretary of State as provided by law Vote Record - Resolution RES-2007-792 ? Yes/Aye No/Nay Abstain Absent ? ? ? ? Albert Krupski Jr. ? Adopted ???????? William P. Edwards ?? Adopted as Amended ?????????? Defeated Daniel C. Ross ?? Tabled ???????? Thomas H. Wickham ?? Withdrawn ???????? Louisa P. Evans ???????? Scott Russell 2007-793 CATEGORY: Employment - Town DEPARTMENT: Town Attorney Settlement Agreement W/Town Employee October 9, 2007 Page 27 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting RESOLVED approves and ratifies a that the Town Board of the Town of Southold hereby settlement agreement with a Town employee dated July 27, 2007. Vote Record - Resolution RES-2007-793 ? Yes/Aye No/Nay Abstain Absent ? ? ? ? Albert Krupski Jr. Voter ? Adopted ???????? William P. Edwards Voter ?? Adopted as Amended ?? Defeated ???????? Daniel C. Ross Initiator ?? Tabled ???????? Thomas H. Wickham Voter ?? Withdrawn ???????? Louisa P. Evans Seconder ???????? Scott Russell Voter 2007-794 CATEGORY: Close/Use Town Roads DEPARTMENT: Town Clerk Grant Permission to the Greenport Teachers’ Association to Hold Its 4Th Annual Dr. Claire 5K Memorial Race on November 3, 2007 At 9:00 AM RESOLVEDgrants permission to the that the Town Board of the Town of Southold hereby th Greenport Teachers’ Association to hold its 4 Annual Dr. Claire 5K Memorial race on November 3, 2007 at 9:00 am using the following town roads, providing they file a certificate of insurance with the Town Clerk’s office naming the town as an additional insured and they contact Captain Martin Flatley upon receipt of the approval of this resolution to coordinate traffic control: Front Street, Moore’s Lane, Washington Avenue, Washington Avenue Extension, Cedar Fields Drive, and Moore’s Lane South. Vote Record - Resolution RES-2007-794 ? Yes/Aye No/Nay Abstain Absent ? ? ? ? Albert Krupski Jr. Voter ? Adopted ???????? William P. Edwards Voter ?? Adopted as Amended ?? Defeated ???????? Daniel C. Ross Voter ?? Tabled ???????? Thomas H. Wickham Seconder ?? Withdrawn ???????? Louisa P. Evans Initiator ???????? Scott Russell Voter 2007-795 CATEGORY: Close/Use Town Roads DEPARTMENT: Town Clerk Grant Permission to the Mattituck Lions Club to Use Town Roads for Its Annual Halloween Parade In Mattituck on Wednesday, October 31, 2007 RESOLVEDgrants permission to the that the Town Board of the Town of Southold hereby October 9, 2007 Page 28 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting Mattituck Lions Club to use the following roads for their Annual Halloween Parade in Mattituck on Wednesday, October 31, 2007 beginning at 6:00 PM: Pike Street, Westphalia Road, Sound Avenue, and Love Lane provided they file with the Town Clerk a One Million Dollar Certificate of Insurance naming the Town of Southold as an additional insured and notify Captain Martin Flatley upon receipt of the approval of this resolution to coordinate traffic control. Vote Record - Resolution RES-2007-795 ? Yes/Aye No/Nay Abstain Absent ? ? ? ? Albert Krupski Jr. Voter ? Adopted ???????? William P. Edwards Voter ?? Adopted as Amended ?? Defeated ???????? Daniel C. Ross Voter ?? Tabled ???????? Thomas H. Wickham Initiator ?? Withdrawn ???????? Louisa P. Evans Seconder ???????? Scott Russell Voter 2007-796 CATEGORY: Legal DEPARTMENT: Town Attorney Retain Mary Wilson, Esq. RESOLVEDretains Mary Wilson, Esq. that the Town Board of the Town of Southold hereby to conduct an investigation into an employment related matter, in conjunction with the Town Attorney. Vote Record - Resolution RES-2007-796 ? Yes/Aye No/Nay Abstain Absent ? ? ? ? Albert Krupski Jr. Initiator ? Adopted ???????? William P. Edwards Seconder ?? Adopted as Amended ?? Defeated ???????? Daniel C. Ross Voter ?? Tabled ???????? Thomas H. Wickham Voter ?? Withdrawn ???????? Louisa P. Evans Voter ???????? Scott Russell Voter 2007-797 CATEGORY: Seqra DEPARTMENT: Town Attorney SEQRA LL/Animals RESOLVED“A that the Town Board of the Town of Southold hereby finds that the proposed Local Law in relation to Amendments to the Town Code Relating to Animals” is classified October 9, 2007 Page 29 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting as an Unlisted Action pursuant to SEQRA Rules and Regulations, 6 NYCRR Section 617, and that the Town Board of the Town of Southold hereby establishes itself as lead agency for the uncoordinated review of this action and issues a Negative Declaration for the action in accordance with the recommendation of Mark Terry dated October 9, 2007, and authorizes Supervisor Scott A. Russell to sign the short form EAF in accordance therewith. Vote Record - Resolution RES-2007-797 ? Yes/Aye No/Nay Abstain Absent ? ? ? ? Albert Krupski Jr. Voter ? Adopted ???????? William P. Edwards Initiator ?? Adopted as Amended ?????????? Defeated Daniel C. Ross Voter ?? Tabled ???????? Thomas H. Wickham Voter ?? Withdrawn ???????? Louisa P. Evans Seconder ???????? Scott Russell Voter 25. Statement SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Okay, that public hearing is over. We are now... COUNCILMAN KRUPSKI: Can we get a recess to let everyone, you are going to let people address the Board, right, on various... SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Yes. Now we are back into the regular meeting where we go to open mic, right? Okay. Just give us a minute, because there are people here just for the public hearing and as they shuffle out and then we will have you come up and address the Town Board on other issues. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Let's get the rest of the Board in here. 2007-798 CATEGORY: Enact Local Law DEPARTMENT: Town Clerk Enact Animals LL WHEREAS there has been presented to the Town Board of the Town of Southold, Suffolk “A Local Law in County, New York, on the 11th day of September, 2007 a Local Law entitled relation to Amendments to the Town Code Relating to Animals” AND WHEREAS the Town Board of the Town of Southold held a public hearing on the aforesaid Local Law at which time all interested persons were given an opportunity to be heard, now therefor be it October 9, 2007 Page 30 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting RESOLVED that the Town Board of the Town of Southold hereby ENACTS the proposed Local “A Local Law in relation to Amendments to the Town Code Relating to Law entitled, Animals” reads as follows: LOCAL LAW NO. 2007 “A Local Law in relation to Amendments to the Town Code Relating A Local Law entitled, to Animals” . BE IT ENACTED by the Town Board of the Town of Southold as follows: I. PURPOSE – To update the regulations concerning the keeping of animals in the Town of Southold, and requiring that a property owner harboring peacocks be located on at least ten acres of property. II. CODE AMENDMENTS . Chapter 280 of the Code of the Town of Southold is hereby amended as follows: § 280-13. Use regulations. In A-C, R-80, R-120, R-200 and R-400 Districts, no building or premises shall be used and no building or part of a building shall be erected or altered which is arranged, intended or designed to be used, in whole or in part, for any uses except the following: C. Accessory uses, limited to the following uses and subject to the conditions listed in § 280-15 herein: (8) Housing for and harboring of horses, livestock including sheep and goats, and domestic animals other than household pets dogs and cats, provided that such housing shall not be constructed within 40 feet of any lot line. The housing or harboring of such animals shall be conducted for the use and enjoyment of the residents of the primary residence only. (a) Peacocks may be housed or harbored in the A-C zoning district only, on parcels no less than ten (10) acres in size. (b) Housing for flocks of more than 25 fowl shall not be constructed within 50 feet of any line. Chapter 83 of the Code of the Town of Southold is hereby amended as follows: October 9, 2007 Page 31 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting Chapter 83, ANIMALS DEFINITIONS UNREASONABLE NOISE — Any excessive or unusually loud sound or any sound that either annoys, disturbs, injures or endangers the comfort, repose, health, peace or safety of a reasonable person of normal sensitivities or which causes injury to animal life or damage to property or business, except the sound from agricultural operations. Standards to be considered in determining whether "unreasonable noise" exists in a given situation include, but are not limited to, the following: (1) The volume of the noise. (2) The intensity of the noise. (3) Whether the nature of the noise is usual or unusual. (4) Whether the origin of the noise is usual or unusual. (5) The volume and intensity of the background noise, if any. (6) The proximity of the noise to residential sleeping facilities. (7) The nature and zoning district of the areas within which the noise emanates. (8) The time of day or night the noise occurs. (9) The time duration of the noise. (10) Whether the sound source is temporary. (11) Whether the noise is continuous or impulsive. § 83-5. Penalties for offenses. [Amended 7-31-1973 by L.L. No. 1-1973] A. Any person committing an offense against any provision of this article shall, upon conviction thereof, be guilty of a violation punishable by a fine not exceeding $250 or by imprisonment for a term not exceeding 15 days, or by both such fine and imprisonment. The continuation of an offense against the provisions of this article shall constitute, for each day the offense is continued, a separate and distinct offense hereunder. B. In addition to the above-provided penalties, the Town Board may also maintain an action or proceeding in the name of the Town in a court of competent jurisdiction to compel compliance with or to restrain by injunction the violation of this article. § 83-13. Penalties for offenses. Any person committing an offense against any provision of this article shall, upon conviction thereof, be guilty of a violation punishable by a fine not exceeding $250 or by imprisonment for a term not exceeding 15 days, or by both such fine and imprisonment. ARTICLE IV. General Regulations for Keeping of Animals other than Dogs and Cats. §83-19. No manure shall be kept onsite, other than as permitted pursuant to §280-12. §83-20. The disposal of animal wastes shall be provided for in such a manner as to prevent any nuisance or sanitary problem. October 9, 2007 Page 32 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting §83-21. No accessory building or structure or part thereof used for the housing of livestock or domestic animals, other than dogs or cats, shall be less than 40 feet from any lot line, per §280- 13. Housing for flocks of more than 25 fowl shall not be constructed within 50 feet of any lot line, per §280-13. §83-22. No person shall keep, raise, house or maintain any animal that shall constitute a nuisance or create a hazard to public health, or in any manner that shall annoy, injure, disturb, or endanger the comfort, repose, health, peace or safety of other persons or the public. §83-23. Noise No person shall keep, permit or maintain any animal, including a bird, under his control which frequently or for continued duration of at least fifteen (15) minutes makes sounds which create unreasonable noise across a residential real property boundary. §83-24 No person shall allow any animal including livestock and fowl, to run at large elsewhere than upon the premises of the owner or custodian unless said animal shall be on a leash or accompanied by a person at least 12 years of age, having adequate control of such animal, or unless it be upon the premises of another person with the knowledge and consent of such person. §83-25. Burial of animals. A. No burial of any animal in a front yard shall be permitted. B. No burial of any horses or livestock (including sheep and goats) on property less than five (5) acres, excluding property where the principal use is agricultural. Article VI Enforcement. §83-24. Penalties for offenses. A. Any person committing an offense against any provision of this article shall, upon conviction thereof, be guilty of a violation punishable by a fine not exceeding $500 or by imprisonment for a term not exceeding 15 days, or by both such fine and imprisonment. The continuation of an offense against the provisions of this article shall constitute, for each day the offense is continued, a separate and distinct offense hereunder. B. In addition to the above-provided penalties, the Town Board may also maintain an action or proceeding in the name of the Town in a court of competent jurisdiction to compel compliance with or to restrain by injunction the violation of this article. III. SEVERABILITY If any clause, sentence, paragraph, section, or part of this Local Law shall be adjudged by any court of competent jurisdiction to be invalid, the judgment shall not affect the validity of this law as a whole or any part thereof other than the part so decided to be unconstitutional or invalid. October 9, 2007 Page 33 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting IV. EFFECTIVE DATE This Local Law shall take effect immediately upon filing with the Secretary of State as provided by law. Vote Record - Resolution RES-2007-798 ? Yes/Aye No/Nay Abstain Absent ? ? ? ? Albert Krupski Jr. Voter ? Adopted ???????? ??William P. Edwards Voter Adopted as Amended ?????????? Defeated Daniel C. Ross Seconder ?? Tabled ???????? Thomas H. Wickham Initiator ?? Withdrawn ???????? Louisa P. Evans Voter ???????? Scott Russell Voter VI. Public Hearings 1. Motion To: Motion to recess to Public Hearing COMMENTS - Current Meeting: RESOLVEDbe and hereby is declared that this meeting of the Southold Town Board Recessed in order to hold a public hearing. RESULT: ADOPTED [UNANIMOUS] MOVER: Louisa P. Evans, Justice SECONDER: Daniel C. Ross, Councilman AYES: Krupski Jr., Edwards, Ross, Wickham, Evans, Russell Councilman Wickham reads notice NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN COUNCILMAN WICKHAM: there has been presented to the Town Board of the Town of Southold, Suffolk County, New York, on the 11th day of “A Local Law in relation to Amendments to the Town September, 2007 a Local Law entitled Code Relating to Animals” AND NOTICE IS HEREBY FURTHER GIVEN that the Town Board of the Town of Southold will hold a public hearing on the aforesaid Local Law at the Southold Town Hall, 53095 Main Road, 9th day of October, 2007 at 4:40 p.m. Southold, New York, on the at which time all interested persons will be given an opportunity to be heard. “A Local Law in relation to Amendments to the Town The proposed Local Law entitled, Code Relating to Animals” reads as follows: LOCAL LAW NO. 2007 “A Local Law in relation to Amendments to the Town Code Relating A Local Law entitled, to Animals” . BE IT ENACTED by the Town Board of the Town of Southold as follows: October 9, 2007 Page 34 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting I. PURPOSE - To update the regulations concerning the keeping of animals in the Town of Southold, and requiring that a property owner harboring peacocks be located on at least ten acres of property. II. CODE AMENDMENTS . Chapter 280 of the Code of the Town of Southold is hereby amended as follows: § 280-13. Use regulations. In A-C, R-80, R-120, R-200 and R-400 Districts, no building or premises shall be used and no building or part of a building shall be erected or altered which is arranged, intended or designed to be used, in whole or in part, for any uses except the following: C. Accessory uses, limited to the following uses and subject to the conditions listed in § 280-15 herein: (8) Housing for and harboring of horses, livestock including sheep and goats, and domestic animals other than household pets dogs and cats, provided that such housing shall not be constructed within 40 feet of any lot line. The housing or harboring of such animals shall be conducted for the use and enjoyment of the residents of the primary residence only. (a) Peacocks may be housed or harbored in the A-C zoning district only, on parcels no less than ten (10) acres in size. (b) Housing for flocks of more than 25 fowl shall not be constructed within 50 feet of any line. Chapter 83 of the Code of the Town of Southold is hereby amended as follows: Chapter 83, ANIMALS DEFINITIONS UNREASONABLE NOISE - Any excessive or unusually loud sound or any sound that either annoys, disturbs, injures or endangers the comfort, repose, health, peace or safety of a reasonable person of normal sensitivities or which causes injury to animal life or damage to property or business, except the sound from agricultural operations. Standards to be considered in determining whether "unreasonable noise" exists in a given situation include, but are not limited to, the following: (1) The volume of the noise. (2) The intensity of the noise. (3) Whether the nature of the noise is usual or unusual. (4) Whether the origin of the noise is usual or unusual. (5) The volume and intensity of the background noise, if any. October 9, 2007 Page 35 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting (6) The proximity of the noise to residential sleeping facilities. (7) The nature and zoning district of the areas within which the noise emanates. (8) The time of day or night the noise occurs. (9) The time duration of the noise. (10) Whether the sound source is temporary. (11) Whether the noise is continuous or impulsive. § 83-5. Penalties for offenses. [Amended 7-31-1973 by L.L. No. 1-1973] A. Any person committing an offense against any provision of this article shall, upon conviction thereof, be guilty of a violation punishable by a fine not exceeding $250 or by imprisonment for a term not exceeding 15 days, or by both such fine and imprisonment. The continuation of an offense against the provisions of this article shall constitute, for each day the offense is continued, a separate and distinct offense hereunder. B. In addition to the above-provided penalties, the Town Board may also maintain an action or proceeding in the name of the Town in a court of competent jurisdiction to compel compliance with or to restrain by injunction the violation of this article. § 83-13. Penalties for offenses. Any person committing an offense against any provision of this article shall, upon conviction thereof, be guilty of a violation punishable by a fine not exceeding $250 or by imprisonment for a term not exceeding 15 days, or by both such fine and imprisonment. ARTICLE IV. General Regulations for Keeping of Animals other than Dogs and Cats. §83-19. No manure shall be kept onsite, other than as permitted pursuant to §280-12. §83-20. The disposal of animal wastes shall be provided for in such a manner as to prevent any nuisance or sanitary problem. §83-21. No accessory building or structure or part thereof used for the housing of livestock or domestic animals, other than dogs or cats, shall be less than 40 feet from any lot line, per §280- 13. Housing for flocks of more than 25 fowl shall not be constructed within 50 feet of any lot line, per §280-13. §83-22. No person shall keep, raise, house or maintain any animal that shall constitute a nuisance or create a hazard to public health, or in any manner that shall annoy, injure, disturb, or endanger the comfort, repose, health, peace or safety of other persons or the public. §83-23. Noise No person shall keep, permit or maintain any animal, including a bird, under his control which frequently or for continued duration of at least fifteen (15) minutes makes sounds which create unreasonable noise across a residential real property boundary. §83-24 No person shall allow any animal including livestock and fowl, to run at large elsewhere October 9, 2007 Page 36 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting than upon the premises of the owner or custodian unless said animal shall be on a leash or accompanied by a person at least 12 years of age, having adequate control of such animal, or unless it be upon the premises of another person with the knowledge and consent of such person. §83-25. Burial of animals. A. No burial of any animal in a front yard shall be permitted. B. No burial of any horses or livestock (including sheep and goats) on property less than five (5) acres, excluding property where the principal use is agricultural. Article VI Enforcement. §83-24. Penalties for offenses. A. Any person committing an offense against any provision of this article shall, upon conviction thereof, be guilty of a violation punishable by a fine not exceeding $500 or by imprisonment for a term not exceeding 15 days, or by both such fine and imprisonment. The continuation of an offense against the provisions of this article shall constitute, for each day the offense is continued, a separate and distinct offense hereunder. B. In addition to the above-provided penalties, the Town Board may also maintain an action or proceeding in the name of the Town in a court of competent jurisdiction to compel compliance with or to restrain by injunction the violation of this article. III. SEVERABILITY If any clause, sentence, paragraph, section, or part of this Local Law shall be adjudged by any court of competent jurisdiction to be invalid, the judgment shall not affect the validity of this law as a whole or any part thereof other than the part so decided to be unconstitutional or invalid. IV. EFFECTIVE DATE This Local Law shall take effect immediately upon filing with the Secretary of State as provided by law. We have several notices, but first it has been officially put in the local newspaper as a legal, it has also appeared on the Town Clerk’s bulletin board outside as a noticed meeting. I have in the file a short environmental assessment form for unlisted actions that shows that this has passed the SEQRA test and I have a note from Mark Terry, LWRP coordinator. “Regarding a Local Law in Relation to Amendments to the Town Code relating to Animals. Based upon information provided to me, it is my determination that the proposed action is consistent with the policy standards and therefore is consistent with the LWRP.” Let’s see, what else do I have. I believe those are the only official letters that are in the file on this particular public hearing. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Okay. Pat? Town Attorney Patricia Finnigan October 9, 2007 Page 37 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting TOWN ATTORNEY FINNEGAN: I just have two comments, the reference to manure which is 83-19, that reference was from an earlier draft that had been taken out by, so that line 83-19 should be deleted. Supervisor Russell SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Okay. That is the section to refers to no storage of manure on site. We struck that from the law in that, in the value, sitting down with the Horseman’s Association and horse owners outside of the association, their concerns about being able to store manure on site. We listened to their concerns, we talked to code enforcement and other people that have been involved on the front line of this for years and they felt like that didn’t present a problem, so that we could remove that from the reference. Another one, go ahead. Town Attorney Patricia Finnegan TOWN ATTORNEY FINNEGAN: One other comment was, this also applies to R-40. the R-40 zone references the accessory uses here. So it is all those districts that are listed and the R-40 district. Supervisor Russell SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Another issue was, there was a reference made to harboring for enjoyment for the property owners, that was not meant to say that you couldn’t sell eggs if you had chickens. That was speaking to the issue of boarding and these de facto boarding operations in resident zones. We again, that was an issue that was raised strongly by the Horseman’s and Livestock Association and subsequent horse owners that I met with. We discussed the issue and again, that was an issue that didn’t make sense in that it is probably practical for someone who has the facilities there to offer housing and boarding to someone else who have a horse and doesn’t, you know, want to pay the cost of that. We struck that. This was all the result, again, this has been coming up and then it has been tabled several times. We have tabled it so I could sit down with the different groups and listen to these different suggestions. There was no, I think there was a misconception that this is somehow trying to restrict and prohibit animals and chickens on properties in Southold Town. That is not the case. There was supposed to be a two- fold effort here, to have a law that says that we recognize your right to have animals, livestock and such but that there should be at least broad operating procedures so that the owner that is put out by that rare occasion or someone who isn’t a good steward of the land or a good caretaker of the animals, we have redress at the Town level. Someone mentioned earlier of the cost of all these years of having to deal with the Town on this issue. I would submit that that is the result of a bad code. Because it didn’t really offer clear indications from what she could do and what the owners could complain about. That’s what this law should do. It should look at the issue from both sides of the fence and be fair to everybody. That is what a good law would do. It would be fair to both sides of the equation. Again, we want to hear the comments because if any of these are problematic, we want to know so we can sit down and revise them like we have been doing and I have been doing on and on with the Horseman and Livestock Association and the other horse owners from Southold Town that I have met with. We don’t want to create something that is arduous and I think because it is the silly season, I know a candidate was out recently saying that we are looking to prohibit livestock and horses from properties. That is not true either and also this had no reference to farm operations. There was another reference made in the Suffolk Life last week about prohibition and farm livestock operations. That is not true. These are for October 9, 2007 Page 38 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting accessory uses, accessory uses of residential property. They have no relationship to agricultural operations. That being said, I would welcome anybody to come on up and please outline the concerns that you have. COUNCILMAN KRUPSKI: And please, we have a big crowd tonight so, you have to come up to the microphone and identify yourself so we have a clear record so we can get your information and please, let’s all be neighborly here. UNIDENTIFIED: Why don’t those people come and sit in here? SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Yeah, we have got a perfectly good jury box with 12 or so seats. You are welcome to sit in, I am sorry, this is classic Town Hall, we don’t have enough room but by all means come in. And you are certainly welcome to stand along the edges if the seating is not available. Also please remember to state your name and hamlet for the record. Stephen Husak, Mattituck STEPHEN HUSAK: My name is Stephen Husak from Mattituck. My family goes back to the 1920’s in this Town. Eleven years ago, I moved into my grandparents house, purchased it from my father. I am a member of the Mattituck Fire Department, I am assistant Scoutmaster of Troop 39 Mattituck and I am very upset with what I am seeing in this Town. It seems that we just keep kowtowing to the Lexus and the Mercedes drivers and I think you guys have forgotten this is a middle class town. It is people who put the time into this town that deserve to have what they have. My son rides. My horse right now is on Shelter Island. It is coming back to Mattituck next year somehow. I can’t afford $800 a month for a full board. I can afford somebody’s house where I do half the work and I am just, I am tired. I feel like I give so much back to this community and they come in here with their Mercedes and their Lexus’ and they throw $2,000,000 down on a house and the next thing you know, our way of life has disappeared. I left Nassau county 11 years ago, the town where my father lives, you can no longer keep a boat on a trailer in your driveway. This is a town with 200 years of waterfront commercial and recreational history. What is next for us out here? Ten years ago the Cochran administration tried to take trucks away from us. No 10,000 pound trucks with commercial plates on it until they realized that everybody on the Town Board had a pickup that disqualified it and that went down the road. But had that passed, that would have cost me probably another $500 a month storage fee for my truck somewhere. Remember who gives to this town, remember who busts their butt. My day started at 2 AM responding to a car accident. I spent the last eight hours doing fire education for the kids at Cutchogue East. I am now going to work. I am a business owner in town and I am now going to work until midnight. Allow me to have my horse, allow my son to live the rural lifestyle that I came here for. I don’t want Mercedes and Lexus’ and people telling me what I can and cannot do. Everybody deserves to have something, there is property rights in this town. You know. Maybe there is a bad person but maybe some city people need to learn the facts of life. Yeah, the guy up the block has pigs. He is going to shoot them in January. I hear so many stories of what they have to tell these kids around town of where these pigs are going on vacation for the winter. It is fact of life. It is the cycle of life. You know, it is horse owners, it is pets, it’s farms, it’s livestock. This is what Southold Town was and should stay. This shouldn’t become the Southampton of the north fork. October 9, 2007 Page 39 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: I appreciate your comments. Actually nothing in the law would have prohibited you from having the horse. Nothing would have prohibited you from having the horse on your property or anything else. You know, again, there are aspects of this law, if they are troubling I would like to know what they are so that we can sit down and revise them and make them more accommodating. MR. HUSAK: The biggest problem in this town is we are now down to a one newspaper town and what they print is what they want to print and there is no choice and there is no real media in this town. Unfortunately they sold out one of the oldest papers in New York state and then became a throw away rag that we could probably line some of our pens with. And the other one prints what they want to print and does a disservice to the town. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Okay. MR. HUSAK: Thank you for your time. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Would anybody else like to come up and address the Town Board? Richard W. Grathwohl, Cutchogue RICHARD W. GRATHWOHL: Mr. Supervisor, Richard W. Grathwohl from Cutchogue. My family has had horses on our property for 50 years. In the last 20 years I have let people keep horses on my property without any charge. I have two acres of property. Now from what I hear, from what you just said, which I want to clarify is that you took that provision that you do not have to be a horse owner to have horses on your property. Is that true? SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: That is right. just so you understand, again, we put original draft on the table. At every step of the way, I have included the input from the East End Horsemen’s and Equestrian Association. And then other horse owners who have said, well, I am not really active there, I have my own concerns. I just met Saturday night two weeks ago with local horse owners to listen to their concerns. This is a work in progress. I looked to the horse owners for guidance in crafting this. Because like I said earlier, we know 99.9% of the horse owners and the chicken owners, they are good people. They understand that fundamental obligation to be good stewards and caretakers and at the same time, enjoy their animals. So we were looking for that input. MR. GRATHWOHL: Thank you very much. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Thank you. Ma’am. Carla Rosen, Peconic SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Thank you. Ma’am. CARLA ROSEN: Hi, Carla Rosen, Peconic. And I do very much appreciate you including me in this conversation. Indeed, he sought out conversation from someone who wasn’t a member of the local association. I have been a horse owner for 20 years. I haven’t lived here for all those 20 years but I have been a horse owner else where on Long Island and chose to live here because October 9, 2007 Page 40 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting of the environment. And I don’t own a Lexus or whatever. But I am concerned about this gentleman who spoke prior to me at this location because if he is planning on bringing a horse here and doesn’t currently have a horse on its property and if it is not a large piece of property, your stipulation saying that it has to house this horse 40 feet from the end of the property could indeed mean that he might not be able to have a barbecue or a patio in his backyard or a pool or whatever else he might need because of the restrictions of the way in which the property is laid out. You weren’t requiring X numbers of acreage but you are stipulating by this requirement that obviously it has to be large enough so that you can keep your animal at least 40 feet from the property line but still in all, most people that have horses and love them don’t want to have to necessarily have to have them in their house with them. My husband is allergic. So that being said, I had sent a number of letters to the group, I think you had probably all seen them in the past and I won’t rehash areas that you have been wise enough to have deleted from your proposal but there are still some issues that I find still need to have a second look and that is regarding the noise issue. My horses are very quiet. So I don’t have to worry about hopefully long discourses between them unless it is mating season. But your proposal would put me into a position where I would have to defend myself should someone come to me or come to you and say there have been lots of noise coming from that farm over there. those horses are making so much noise. So your proposal is putting me in a position to have to defend myself. I don’t appreciate that. You are spreading a very wide blanket and no one should have to defend themselves against an errant suggestion of impropriety. The other thing I wanted to mention of course, is your suggestion that you need to have 10 acres for a peacock. I don’t own birds but a horse can live on a ¼ acre and a peacock has to live on 10 acres? Am I missing something? I must be missing something. Regarding the sound issue, I live next door to a vineyard and I knew when I made that purchase, that I was going to have to hear the sounds of a farm. I actually love the sounds of a farm but I don’t appreciate the sounds of gunshot this morning at 6:30 in the morning. Somehow they are firing rifles on a regular basis. I don’t appreciate the sound of missiles flying over my head. I somehow think I must be listening to the evening news and they are replaying the earlier tapes from the other side of the world. I hear farm vehicles regularly very early in the morning and later on in the day and when they are harvesting it goes on and on. And I have come to appreciate. My next door neighbor also has a catering facility and the noise from there is unreasonable. But they and I have come to an agreement and they end their parties at 10:00. and I bought myself a pair of earplugs. So we now get along quite well. I think in general what happens is it is easy to create laws. It is very difficult to enforce them. Very difficult. And if someone were to come to you and make a complaint against their neighbor, honestly, you would never be able to resolve it. All you would do was to create more hostility. What I would like to see this group do is make a Board, give a Board some ombudsmanship if you are familiar with the term, ombudsmanship, make people into good neighbors. Rather than creating a punitive system, let people become good neighbors. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Before you go, this is a good time to clarify, this is a good opportunity to clarify some of the misunderstanding. We are not proposing a 40 feet setback. That is actually part of the existing code. It has been part of the code since 1983. that is not new. What happens is, when you draft additions to existing law, the whole law comes forward, so it includes those things but we didn’t put that on the table, that was passed when I was… October 9, 2007 Page 41 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting MS. ROSEN: Well, if you are revisiting this law, maybe that is something that needs to be looked at. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: It has worked well for the 30 some odd years, how long have I been out of high school? Twenty five years. MS. ROSEN: Who would have loved to have had horses but couldn’t because of the 40 foot setback. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Go ahead. Ed Stanley, Hyatt Rd., Southold ED STANLEY: My name is Ed Stanley and I am here with my wife and my neighbor Marie Aldi. I am the gentleman who lives on Hyatt Road East, Marie lives on Lighthouse Road adjacent to Ms. Summers who has chosen to leave. Many years ago, a resolution to regulate animals in residential areas came before the Town Board. Vocal opposition was so organized and so vehement, that the Board chose not to pass the resolution. The subject became a political hot potato and has not been revisited in the ensuing years. We hope that history does not repeat itself. We hope the Board will consider and pass Supervisor Russell’s new proposals. Those opposed to any regulations have an easy rallying point. A ready pool of supporters on whom to call and a commonality of purpose. But there is another group of people who do not have that benefit. They are people who presently own homes in residential areas and have no protection whatsoever from a neighbor who chooses to house multiple animals on minimal land in a manner that infringes on their rights and jeopardizes their quality of life. I am speaking about the adjoining homeowners. Since 1999, myself and my adjoining neighbors have endured horrendous intrusions to our quality of life. We live with the stench of urine soaked ground, not the smell of horses, hay and leather. We live with peacocks screaming at all hours. Not the sound of barn owls or the crowing of one rooster at dawn. We look out not on horses placidly grazing in a field or munching hay in a dirt paddock but on piles of manure, loaded onto trailers; horses struggling to walk in muddy water up to their knees huge metal cages built as high as the roof to house birds. We are bitten by mosquitoes breeding in kiddy pools used as duck ponds. And we have even witnessed backhoes dragging animals into graves in the front yards. We are not against animals, we too love the rural character of Southold Town. We are confident that the majority of horse and livestock owners tend to their animals appropriately and maintain their properties for their animals well-being, their own pleasure and with respect for their neighbors. Unfortunately that is not always the case and it is incumbent on all of us out of respect to us all, to protect all of us. Most particularly, it is incumbent on this Board. It may be that this resolution should not go before the Board right before election, since the timing may influence the vote. It is respectfully requested therefore that this issue be put on the agenda for the first meeting after elections so that the vote reflects true consideration on the merits, not the timing of the resolution. If this resolution is tabled with no future date for reconsideration, history will indeed repeat itself. It is time for an equitable, fair and reasonable solution to this long existing problem. Thank you. Ron Chivalis, EE Horse & Livestock RON CHIVALAS: I am Ron Chivalas of Riverhead and I am here as vice president on behalf of October 9, 2007 Page 42 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting the East End Livestock and Horsemen’s Association and its 250 plus members, a vast majority who live in the Town of Southold. Some 15 months ago, the members of our Board asked and received a meeting with Supervisor Russell after a disturbing article was published concerning possible animal control legislation to be proposed. During this meeting our Board found that the root to this article was due to abuse of a couple of individuals using animals as a form of punishment towards neighbors and Supervisor Russell stating that the Town needed a tool to stop such behavior. We as a Board agreed that this behavior was unacceptable and part of our mission was for individuals to be good neighbors. But was legislation the answer? At the time we discussed a livestock license, such as for dogs, why the police or code enforcement could not handle the issues and that this was a rural community and how do we not disrupt that fact? The meeting was closed with the Supervisor stating we could come up, he would come up with a draft and would work with the EELHA for its input on anything proposed. Almost a year passed and a rough draft of this present proposed town code was presented to us to get our views and suggestions. We as a Board asked for the time to review and do research for the proposed code since this was far from anything we had discussed at our first meeting. after doing a fact finding survey to get accurate information from our members as how this could affect our quality of life, investigating into criminal and civil laws which were presently on the books in the County of Suffolk and the State of New York and how they could apply to the few problems that had propagated this issue and asking questions of individuals to find out who and why these actions were occurring, a series of Board meetings were held to draft our proposals. We met twice with th the Supervisor. On the final meeting August the 7, our Board presented a written proposal of items we felt needed to be admitted or revised if a town code was to be enacted that the majority of the Board could support. At the September 11, 2007 Town Board meeting resolution 2007- 739 was presented to the Town Board members and with limited discussion, was adopted. The EELHA board members present at that meeting were given a copy of the resolution 20 minutes before the discussion and in our haste we said it looked good and the problem areas we asked to be admitted were removed. But certain language we asked to be added was not and was overlooked. This brought about further examination of the document and found additional th problems in article 4, section 83-19 of the code. On September 29, our president met with Supervisor Russell to iron out these issues so we could bring this whole matter to a close. The issues in question, according to the way they are written here and if we can say the items that we had in question are going to be stricken have been resolved and we continue to look forward, to support this Board in helping to bring this resolution to conclusion. Since this matter was debated some 24 years ago, to almost this exact date, Southold has grown far bigger and faster especially in the past 10 years than anyone thought or imagined and additional growth is just around the corner. We as an organization with deep roots in the community realize this. That is why we educate our members to be good neighbors. Do we really want to make new laws and codes that only affect a few bad ones or citizens who make decisions without thinking them through, especially in time of grief? What we are talking about is the lifestyle that has weaved the fabric not only for this Town but also for the entire north fork. What happens here this evening and we were strongly going to urge you to bring this matter to a close but you have decided not to, impacts the rural life this Town’s older families grew here with and represents the lifestyle most newcomers come here for. This is a way of life we want our children and grandchildren to experience. For those Board members who grew up here, remember what it was like. And for the members of the Board who moved here, ask yourself why you came. October 9, 2007 Page 43 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting Please don’t start to swing the gate closed on this environment. Once you do and let it go, it is hard to catch it and bring it back. Our organization thanks you. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: I had reached out to his group several times for input and then I had a bunch of horse owners contact me and say well, we are not really active there, so we would like to have some time to speak with you. I have accepted every recommendation they have made. We are not trying to be unreasonable. There was a person who spoke earlier that talked about how the Town has been, she has been forced to defend herself so often. I think that is again, a problem with a bad code. In that particular case, I want to remind everybody, that the only reason the yard got cleaned up was because we had to constantly send the code enforcement out there to issue an order to remedy. Because there are certain property maintenance obligations that people have. I am trying to avoid, I am trying to put an end to the civil disputes. I am trying to put an end to police officers showing up in driveways because neighbors can’t get along. I think a good set of rules would protect your rights to have animals so that when someone new that moves in and says I don’t like them, we have a code that says too bad, we allow them but with certain parameters to say, enough is enough in certain extreme cases. That is all that this was an effort to address and if I or anybody did a poor job at not considering all the aspects, we are happy to revisit it. Also, I want to make a comment on something that was mentioned earlier about this appeasing the Lexus drivers. The fact of the matter is, eight years ago when I was an Assessor, I had a whole community coming in looking for a tax reduction because of the way one neighbor kept their yard. The people that were asking for tax reductions spent their lives down there. they are not new people. In fact, one of the homeowners was someone who subdivided that property back in the 1920’s. their family did. So it is not like it is an us versus them approach. It is just about the basic understanding, respecting someone’s right to have animals and someone’s understanding their respect to maintain that yard in a proper fashion. Who is next? Debbie Slack, Cutchogue DEBBIE SLACK: Hi, my name is Debbie Slack, I live in Cutchogue and as the gentleman before me had mentioned, we do all have to try to be good neighbors to each other without it coming to any of this. Without sounding repetitive, I am just going to read what I wrote. I am here because I am concerned about the precedence that any change in code for animals will set. Once you begin restricting one type of animal, you will surely have the next complaint come in from someone else about another type of wild lifestyle. Once the proverbial noose is placed around our neck, it can never be removed and from there will almost certainly get tighter. What makes Southold so beautiful and unique is the fact that it has remained untouched by all the laws and restrictions that have stripped the rest of those on Long Island of their right to own and care for their own livestock. I have lived out here for five years and I still get a smile on my face and feel joy in my heart when it see chickens or guinea hens free ranging in someone’s front yard. I understand people’s rights for peace where they live but by living out here in Southold you have to realize that peace and quiet are two different things. I find peace in the clucking of chickens, the neighing of horses, the honking of geese and yes the gobble and shrieking of guinea hens and peacocks. I certainly did not move out here next to old McDonald to then turn around and complain about the farm. Most of here are only asking to continue the traditions that have been practiced out here for hundreds of years. You may think that I am blowing this situation out of proportion but we must protect our rights for tomorrow by standing up for them today. Thank October 9, 2007 Page 44 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting you. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Thank you. Jackie Spielman, Cutchogue GABBY SPIELMANN: Hello. My name is Gabby Spielmann and I just wanted to ask you why did we bring this code up for change to begin with? Why not leave it alone? SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Because it didn’t help us resolve issues in Southold and we had a petition with over 100 names and I have to be honest and I think the Town Attorney will attest to the numbers, the sheer number of complaints that were generated from that. MS. SPIELMANN: You are saying a petition of 100 people, SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Yeah, that… MS. SPIELMANN: What percentage is that of the population? SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: In that particular area? A pretty large one. MS. SPIELMANN: Not the area. I am talking about, we are voting for the whole town, this law… SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Mmmhmm. Right. MS. SPIELMANN: This law applies to the Town. What percentage of the Town’s population is 100 people? Is that less than ½ a percent? SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: You know what? I think that is a specious question. Let me tell you why. I have a problem with a very noisy bar our in East Marion right now. The people that are inconvenienced by that is a very, very tiny fraction, it is a very tiny fraction of this community yet they have a very legitimate point because they are entitled to peace and quiet. You can’t just run around and pass legislation only because it affects the majority. We are here to protect everybody, equally. MS. SPIELMANN: I understand that and we do have protection for those people that would like to live in a cemetery. We have neighborhoods with covenants and restrictions that do not chickens, children, dogs. Anything you want you can have here in Southold. Why do we have to change a code that changes the entire, that affects the entire population of the Town of Southold? We moved out here 10 years ago because we like the countryside. The smells, the manure, the chickens, the guinea hens, the crows, the tractor sounds. We love to go tractor watching, I mean that is the whole environment. And I just don’t understand why we have to address it. You have 100 complaints. What is the population in Southold? Does anybody know? SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: It fluctuates, about 21 to 23,000. October 9, 2007 Page 45 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting MS. SPIELMANN: 21,000. So, I don’t know. I think that is an important point. I don’t know about you. But I think it is an important point. Another thing, this is going to cost us a lot of money. We have town lawyers doing all this research, rewriting the code. Why don’t you just leave well enough alone? These people can move to these areas where none of this is allowed. They do have a choice, I respect their wishes and I hope they stay in town but I want to stay in town too and I want to stay in town for the reasons I moved here. And one of the reasons is so that I can be in the farmland. What else, there is nothing. I mean, there is no farmland left. You are just opening the door to developers. Come, come and develop this land. This is the message that you are sending out. We will restrict and restrict so you can build and build. What about, do you think that the people come from the western part of Long Island to see suburbia. Oh, look, new development. Let’s go development watching. I think they come out here to see the chickens. I think that they are grateful that they don’t have to go to the Bronx Zoo to see a peacock. And what about the people that owns peacocks? What are they supposed to do? They own a peacock and now the code has changed. What do we do, roast the peacocks? And what about the people that can’t afford 10 acres? I mean, what is it $80,000 an acre now for farmland? So that would be $800,000 so we can keep our peacocks. Peacocks live for a very long time. So now you are going to be the boogie man. Children, we have to get rid of our peacocks because now the town doesn’t allow us to have grandma’s peacock anymore. Oh, by the way, I don’t own peacocks. But we do have retirement communities, we have developments with covenants and restrictions, so those people that are bothered by the smells and the noises and I don’t know, maybe they get rid of the crows there and the deer and everything to make it nice for them and I don’t know. I am totally against this. I say leave well enough alone. Don’t even look at it. I urge the Board to stand what we voted you in for. Farmland is not just farmland in a mason jar. We want farmland and farmers and farm life and Polish women that can cauliflower. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: This law has nothing to do with farmland. This law has nothing to do with farmland, it is accessory uses in residential zones. MS. SPIELMANN: Farm life. The life style. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Look, I would certainly fight for your right to have guinea hens but if your neighbor doesn’t want them on his property, isn’t that his right to tell you to keep them off his property? INAUDIBLE COMMENTS FROM AUDIENCE SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: No, we are talking about a general concept. Are we supposed to be here to regulate…. COUNCILMAN KRUPSKI: Wait a second. If you want to speak, you have to the microphone, ma’am. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: We have to find a reasonable balance here. October 9, 2007 Page 46 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting COUNCILMAN KRUPSKI: To keep it orderly. The Supervisor was pretty clear on the reason this legislation has come up for a public hearing tonight. And I know he has worked a long time and he has worked very hard with a lot of different groups and this is how, there is a problem obviously because he receives the brunt of all the calls and complaints. So it is not something imaginary, I don’t think, that he made up. So, in attempt to address the problem, this is how far we have gotten and we appreciate everyone’s comments tonight because we, you are not going to do anything productive unless you do get comments from people who anything we do is going to affect. So, we can continue on here. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Thank you, Albert. Karl Spielman, Cutchogue KARL SPIELMANN: My name is Karl Spielmann, I live in Cutchogue also. I am over 40 so I have got to wear these things also. My question really is to the noise components of this regulation and really, as far as I can tell and by my research, this noise component to the regulation with all the specific restrictions, was copied word for word from Riverhead Town and is also the same noise component also in Babylon and North Hempstead, North Hempstead being a town in Nassau County. And my question is, within those towns, it is the noise regulation for all noises and all noise sources. So why is it in Southold you have chosen to single out animal owners and apply that noise component only to the noises animals make and not to the noises throughout the entire town. Because I would certainly believe that the noises generated from leaf blowers, lawnmowers and all the other machinery in Southold Town generate by volume and decibels much more noise and sound than any animals you would encounter here. So that is the first question that I have and the first fault that I believe is within this regulation. And you did speak to the fact that you looked to eliminate the bad parts of this legislation but I think when you get down to it, you are going to eliminate all of this legislation because the real core components here are already addressed within Southold Town code. And that is to the setbacks and the keeping of animals, which is repetitive in some respects within the proposed code that you had. But the noise component really I think, singles out one small group of Southolders for political expediency. I think because it is the easy group to affect change and once that change is effected within the realm of animal owners it is going to be looked to be expanded to every other aspect of Southold Town and all the other noises that exist here. And that is the one issue that I do have with it. Secondly, if there is a problem that exists with people who aren’t as you described, good neighbors with the noises and peacocks and the manure and all the other issues that people have to deal with, there already exists a process by which you can settle those differences and that is civil litigation law, in which people that have differences can settle them through that process. It is not in the requirement or the town’s place to settle these disputes. Nor should the weight of town government be misused to harass individuals. Because call the police on someone enough and they will move is not the mantra that should be present in Southold Town. It shouldn’t be the atmosphere that we exist within, that if you call the town police enough, if you call code enforcement enough, that that person is going to be harassed and they are going to eventually and fortunately move or be entailed and the whole process of having to come to Town Hall and present themselves to the court and waste three, four, five, six days out of work because of it. There is a process that exists and if people feel strongly enough about those things, they can take it up in civil court. Not by the town. The town should not be the October 9, 2007 Page 47 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting boogieman that comes around and is used by people to harass other individuals. And really lastly, from what I can see, all the members of this Board ran on a platform that in some manner supported preserving Southold. And I just say, ask yourselves how adopting codes from suburban areas on Long Island will somehow preserve the uniqueness of Southold and not make it more like the rest of Long Island. To not have Southold become just the east end. Because to me I live in Southold Town, I don’t live in the east end of Long Island as so many people who come out here will come out here for. I believe it is unique and part of its uniqueness is the rural character that we have maintained and has been maintained by people over decades. I believe that the legislation really is a mistake. The consequences of which our children and grandchildren will have to contend with. You would be in effect be handing them a road map to suburbia. Left to ask the question, what happened to the Southold I grew up in? And really in closing, what I do is challenge this Board to reject the notion that singling out a group, animal owners, for political expediency is justified and exercise the leadership to reject this proposal today and to vote on it today. Thank you. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Thank you, Karl. For one thing I would say is that the noise issue is the most problematic of the legislation. We talked about that, myself with some others, a few weeks ago. It is the most problematic with any code. But we have already discussed other issues of noise enforcement and we in fact currently have a code that regulates against the noise of dogs. This would be a little bit, bring it within consistency there. I think the suburban reference, I don’t understand it. I grew up in this Town, I know what the fabric of this Town was; it is mutual respect. Someone is respecting your right to have animals and you are respecting their right to you to make an effort to make sure that everybody gets along. Frank Blangiardo, Rep EEHL FRANK BLANGIARDO: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen of the Board. My name is Frank Blangiardo from the law offices of Blangiardo and Blangiardo here in Cutchogue and I have been retained as counsel for the East End Horsemen and Livestock Association. I want to support everything that vice president Ron Chivalis said and many of the speakers here tonight and I want to congratulate everyone on expressing themselves so articulately. This has been a wonderful town hearing so far. I just have a question, Betty. When was this advertised? This proposed law? Because I have been looking for it, I didn’t see it. I think it was supposed to be th September 27 but I don’t think I saw it in that edition of the Suffolk Times. th TOWN CLERK NEVILLE: It would have been published on September 27. MR. BLANGIARDO: And what paper was that? TOWN CLERK NEVILLE: That was in the Suffolk Times. MR. BLANGIARDO: Yeah. I checked the paper. I didn’t see it published in that, did anyone th see it in the paper on September 27? Supervisor, we did not have notification adequately of this proposed legislation, I don’t know why. I know you said it was the silly season. But for some reason it hasn’t been publicized, maybe so it could not be voted on, I don’t know. But since it wasn’t publicized, I am going to ask that if we do ever want to bring this up again, we have to have a full public hearing again. October 9, 2007 Page 48 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: We would probably have to reschedule one because I would imagine that this would result in substantial changes anyway to the legislation so that is duly noted. COUNCILMAN KRUPSKI: And then at least people would know about it and they would show up. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Yes, that is right. MR. BLANGIARDO: Yes, I believe we would have quite a bit more of a turnout if it was actually properly publicized. I know Tom that you mentioned that it was publicized when you read… COUNCILMAN WICKHAM: There is an affidavit in the file that it was published on th September 27 but I don’t have a copy of the newspaper itself. MR. BLANGIARDO: Fine. Yeah, I went through the paper several times and I didn’t find it. I even went through the Riverhead paper but, I just have been looking for it. So it wasn’t there on th the 27, so I am going to have to renew my request that if we want to go forward, we are going to have to have another public hearing… SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Understood. Understood. MR. BLANGIARDO: Because Scott… SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Make sure we don’t get charged for that ad. MR. BLANGIARDO: Yeah, good. See, we are saving money. Supervisor, you mentioned in your earlier comments and I don’t want to single you out but it seems that this is your baby… SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Regrettably, yes. MR. BLANGIARDO: Yes. And you said that it is a work in progress and this is my concern. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Oh, yes. MR. BLANGIARDO: Because when we hear as my constituency and my clients, the East End Horsemen and Livestock Association says and here you say it is work in progress, we are worried that you are going to bring this up on Valentine’s Day, maybe you will have a few more Republicans on the Board and you are going to push through and ram it down our throats. That is our only concern. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Frank, I have worked, I have reached out to the Horsemen’s, your Association before I talked to anybody else. And I have taken every bit of input they have given me. Somehow if I get more Republicans on this Board is this going to come back? That is October 9, 2007 Page 49 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting ridiculous. MR. BLANGIARDO: Good. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: And I think any horse owner that I have sat and talked to, will tell you, including Kate and including the gentleman sitting behind you, including Cindy; they will all tell you that I have taken every recommendation that they have given me as a good, and make for legislative changes. MR. BLANGIARDO: Right. Terrific. You know Scott, with the history in the Assessors office you know, now you seem to be making some legislation here and that is what we are concerned with. Legislation. And this Board, you know, I sit at home and I am amazed at some of this legislation. Being an airman and I see you trying to rewrite the far aim, FAA regulations with how far I can fly my airplane and the helicopters. You seem to be attacking the horses… SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: That is specious. That is specious and argumentative. I am not attacking anything. MR. BLANGIARDO: I am just concerned with procedure. If you want to make new laws, we have to follow procedure. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: I know. MR. BLANGIARDO: You have to advertise the proposed resolution and the law in the paper and not come here and tell a packed house, three weeks before election; that it was in the paper when it wasn’t. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: I presumed it was. We have, that is something I will have to address with the Town Clerk and the Suffolk Times but we will certainly try to verify that. MR. BLANGIARDO: Now, I have one simple, you know, I could go on for hours but why are we not voting on this tonight? SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Because it is imperfect. Because there are several aspects that need to, Mr. Spielmann mentioned the issue on noise. Very problematic. He is right. we need to address things in a manner that is fair. I want to hear from everybody to make this a fair law so the 99.9% of the good property and animal owners in this Town know that they are being treated fairly. And that we only provide a mechanism for those very rare occasions where someone goes outside the bounds. That is why. MR. BLANGIARDO: My constituents… SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: The same reason I tabled it for months because I have gone to your Association time and time again for recommendations and input. October 9, 2007 Page 50 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting MR. BLANGIARDO: And we appreciate that and we are there. It works both ways, the door is always open. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Thank you. MR. BLANGIARDO: And our Association, East End Horsemen Livestock Association polices itself. They have a whole bureau for pet rescue and horse rescue. So we are looked to by the police department. If there is a problem, the town calls us. So we appreciate you keeping us abreast and we are here for your input. You know, traveling around other jurisdictions; New Jersey an exotic place. Hawaii, another exotic place. Horse owners, livestock owners, they receive and I want to speak to the Assessor, Scott Russell the Assessor in all you experience as an Assessor; you get a tax break for having many livestock. You can get an agricultural exemption. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Mmmhmm. I wrote many of them. MR. BLANGIARDO: You wrote many of them. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: I talked people into them. MR. BLANGIARDO: Our constituency and animal owners and animal lovers and they are like members of the family, you are like fooling around with sleeping giant. Because I can tell you, I will represent anyone that wants to pursue agricultural exemption for having livestock. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Mmmhmm. You don’t have to, just go to the Assessors. They will explain everything you need to do to get it. MR. BLANGIARDO: Right. but here it seems like we are going the other direction. You are penalizing people, instead of other jurisdictions where they are giving people exemptions, they are getting penalized here for having livestock. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: How? This is accessory uses in residential zones. It has nothing to do with agricultural uses or bona fide ag operations. It is not particular to farms, it is not related to farming. It is accessory uses in residential zones. MR. BLANGIARDO: I take issue with that. Since the combustion engine the farmers, like Mr. Krupski, like Mr. Wickham, they don’t use horses to plow their fields. So when you say it is not affecting farming, I know horses are not really used in the farming application… SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: No but it wouldn’t affect a boarding sense. MR. BLANGIARDO: (inaudible) in a historical sense. They use tractors. But with all of the land that we are preserving, a lot of that land is people using it for horse farms. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Yes, I support that. October 9, 2007 Page 51 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting MR. BLANGIARDO: Like High Wind Farms and getting their agricultural exemption that way and it is terrific. And the Town is putting so much of our tax dollar into preserving farm land and open space and that goes hand in hand… SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: I endorsed your plan, a few months ago you came to me to discuss creating a horse farm in Mattituck and I endorsed it. I thought it was an excellent idea. MR. BLANGIARDO: Exactly. But we couldn’t gain support here in Southold so we took it to Riverhead, where we were met with open arms. So what we are doing here is penalizing people, almost it seems for having livestock when we should be welcoming them with open arms. It naturally flows that the spirit, even your own legislation refers to your articles talking about the open space and the farmland preservation. You can’t have farmland preservation without the spirit and the need for livestocking and horses. I just don’t see it. It goes hand in hand. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Let me ask something. Is the rest of the Board going to understand, going to jump in with me here and recognize that this is an issue because it came up a year ago and this isn’t something that I have some pell mell rush to pass? I am trying to resolve the issue and I took it on with the code enforcement officer and the Town Attorney and the Town Board has voted every step of the way here to try to help me resolve it, so you are making it seem like I am out there trying to punish people that own horses and that is factually incorrect. I have got friends sitting here, they have horses. I want to protect them, too. Ninety nine percent of the owners in this Town are good owners and I need to protect them not penalize them. It is specious and argumentative, Frank, I am sorry. MR. BLANGIARDO: Well, alright then, let’s get right down to the procedurally what is in English. This is one of the first town’s to speak English and this is all in English, so let’s get right to it. I am going to address the Town Attorney and with the article that you are saying that now wasn’t published but you want to strike something from it. It seems like the first article under 4 section 83-19, it says no manure shall be kept on site, other than as permitted pursuant to, and then Tom, you said another section of the code but that section is section 280-12. Which absolutely makes no sense. TOWN ATTORNEY FINNEGAN: The sentence in the beginning, that part is stricken, it is not… MR. BLANGIARDO: No, it is not stricken. It is right here in the agenda. TOWN ATTORNEY FINNEGAN: It was agreed that it would be stricken. MR. BLANGIARDO: Well, if you haven’t voted on it, it is not stricken. It is pending right now. You can say it is stricken but it doesn’t hold water. What I would like to know… COUNCILMAN KRUPSKI: Excuse me, if she says it is stricken, it is stricken. October 9, 2007 Page 52 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting MR. BLANGIARDO: Oh, then I ask you why don’t you strike the whole thing. COUNCILMAN WICKHAM: Frank, from a practical point of view, what the Supervisor said tonight, the whole law is going to be if not struck, it is going to be totally reworked from square one. If it comes up again at all, there will be a whole other public hearing, with a whole other legal, the whole process starting again. So to go into the detail of what is in this particular page, I don’t think is really helpful at this stage. MR. BLANGIARDO: Yeah, well, my point is, is that if you put a resolution supposedly in the paper and you advertise for a supposed public hearing on a specific date and time and people take time off from work and the first sentence makes no sense because that section 280-12 doesn’t even speak to manure and this is not the first revision. As you said, you have been going over it for a year. And the first sentence is absurd. It doesn’t even reflect to manure, 280-12, you wanted to say 280-13. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: I think that was, yeah, that was brought to my attention by your Association. MR. BLANGIARDO: Yes. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: And the fact of the matter is, we decided, probably misrepresenting a section of the code, that whole section wasn’t needed. So we struck the whole thing, it solved the issue there. MR. BLANGIARDO: Right. Because if you did change that to 280-13, it would have to be within… SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: (Inaudible) Absolutely. MR. BLANGIARDO: With regard to manure, the way the way the code is drafted now, if it were to pass, Miss Finnegan, anyone who had a pony would be in violation in 10 minutes because they would be keeping manure on their property and they would be immediately in violation. Anyone who had any type of livestock. So this is my contention, this proposed legislation is basically poorly drafted and it goes back to the whole issue of, this is a very old town and tinkering with the town code should be done with a lighter touch. And not with a ball peen hammer. If not a sledge hammer. Because it has many repercussions, such as lawsuits. There is a case that came down from our own Arthur Pitts, Republican Supreme Court Justice here in Southold Town two weeks ago in Fort Salonga, Town of Smithtown; which Angels Gate, these property owners were, the Town Board enacted legislation saying they could not keep 200 animals on their property. The Zoning Board of Appeals upheld that and they brought an ensuing action in the Supreme Court. And Arthur Pitts, our own Southold Town Supreme Court th Justice, decided on September 25, so it is very apropos because as we know this is the second department case and just to, let me leave you with the last sentence. ‘Among other evidence, comments by Lafrig at the April 2006 Town Board meeting, that a Town Code amendment could not be applied retroactively.’ So, if this were adopted today, if you had your druthers, Supervisor October 9, 2007 Page 53 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting Russell, you would be grandfathering in everyone and I would be happy to represent them in their case. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: If I had my druthers, I wouldn’t pass this. Please let me explain what I explained at the beginning. Legislation shouldn’t be done either lightly or with a ball peen hammer. It should be done with the community because this is a law, the whole town code, it is their law. And I need their help and I have been saying that and I have been reaching out to your Association from the beginning. I have talked to you like endlessly about help me resolve this issue. They knew what the few problems were. I needed their help and their expertise at making better law. And if this didn’t get the job done, I am the first to say, let’s put it to the side and start from scratch. And you seem to not want to accept that, you seem to want to argue a law that is really dead in the water. And I appreciate your killer instincts as an attorney… MR. BLANGIARDO: Thank you. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Well… MR. BLANGIARDO: Thank you. I have nothing further. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Mr. Baiz. Chris Baiz, Southold CHRIS BAIZ: Good evening. My name is Chris Baiz, I am a resident of Southold and a farmer and businessman here. I am also the Democratic party candidate for Town Supervisor. I am here in Southold because Southold is rural and this is what I have known since the late 40’s. I don’t want to tell you how older I am than the late 40’s. But I am older than that. And so I have seen a lot here. I love this place because it is rural and I think just about all of us are here because it is rural. This is the last stronghold of rural on Long Island. People love coming here as visitors, tourists, second homeowners not because it is a suburb. They come here and like to enjoy the place along with us because it is rural. Whether it is a law like this that is only attacking residential areas and accessory buildings in residential areas or whether it is attacking agricultural in a larger sense, that is taking rural out of the country. Every time we have legislation like this, the camels nose gets under the tent and it can be expanded time after time after time until we have lost rural. And it is what I call a suburbanizing law. I have some friends who in fact have a home up on Lighthouse Road, right next door to what some call the offending property. I would tend to disagree with that even though some of the conditions may have been less than shall we say residential. Perhaps more farmyard. And in talking with those people, they said it was terrible in the beginning and I said, well you live in Manhattan, too, on the weekdays and they said, yes we do. And I said well what about the screaming fire truck at 3:00 AM in morning that you have no control over or the automobile alarm that accidentally goes off and it just goes on. I have been there, I know what it was and it just goes off for a half an hour or 40 minutes and I said what kind of noises are those? And he said, well they are unattractive noises and I said, no, they are also city noises. So we thought about that for a moment and he said, so you mean the screaming peacock at 3:00 AM is a country noise? And I said, yes, it is a country noise. Last February, my wife and I had the great misfortune or so we thought, of one of our roosters getting a very bad frostbite. So badly that he couldn’t walk. His right claw was October 9, 2007 Page 54 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting totally crippled, he was blind in one eye. And so my wife decided to bring him up to the house. And put him in the bathtub for the next three months. We put straw in there and we changed that bedding every four or five days to let this rooster get better. And my wife fed him green vegetables and diced up carrots and celery and everything else. And slowly but surely, he got better. But that first morning that he was in the bathtub at 3:30 in the morning, he went off like an alarm clock and we couldn’t shut him up for 30 minutes. The second morning, the same thing. And the third morning. By about a week into this, we got used to it and this went on for three months. And then one day in May, I didn’t hear the rooster crowing anymore and I ran downstairs, I looked in the bathtub and no rooster. I thought, my god, it got loose in the house. I went off to find my wife, Roz and she said, oh, I got rid of it yesterday. I put him back up in the chicken coops. And I said, but I miss his crowing. At 3:30 in the morning. Any law that comes along and tries to shrink wrap rural is a law that hastens suburbanization and this kind of stuff, even though it may be for residential areas, you know, half acre, quarter acre or full acre what have you. this is the kind of law that will allow someone to reach out and say, well, we had better grab that stuff off R-80 land, we had better grab that stuff off R-120 land, we better grab that stuff off R-200 and AC land because it is bothering people. What we have to learn, if we haven’t already, is that we do live in the country. I would much rather listen to a peacock, alas poor peacock, at 3:30 in the morning than leaf blowers and all sorts of mechanical noises that scream all day long as people’s hedges and lawns get groomed. Otherwise we lose and will lose the rural that only we have left here on Long Island. And so, keep rural in rural. Do not allow any legislation to try to shrink wrap our rural. It is up to all of us, we must show up every day to prevent this. Otherwise we will lose it. If we don’t lose it for ourselves, we will lose it for our children and our grandchildren. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Let me ask you something, Mr. Baiz. A gentleman from Cutchogue called me last week, his name is William Gatz. He said he had met you in front of the Cutchogue post office and you told him that we were proposing a law to prohibit chickens and goats and things on properties. MR. BAIZ: I think me mischaracterized that. He was a rather angry gentleman at the time and because he had to met me in front of the Cutchogue post office, he insisted that he was one of the thth people that wrote one of those letters in the whatever it was September 5 or 6 Suffolk Times and as I have said here this evening and as I have said all the time, is that a law like this is a suburbanizing law. Because you first get it where you want it and then you can reach out and grab it from the rest of the community. And it doesn’t have to be this Board, it could be a Board 10 years from now, 15 years from now… SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: That is precipitous. That precipitous nature, that danger. I agree with that to some extent. We actually several months ago passed a law restricting property owners from the size of the garage that they could build and you didn’t come in here and say, well you had better not go down this slippery slope because pretty soon you will be grabbing it off agriculture as well. You know, I think, again, we need reasonable discourse and I will take the input from all of these people to show me how we just protect those rare occasions. And like I said, the issue might have taken care of itself already. But I don’t think there was any mischievous effort here and the suburbanization is a bit specious. It was… October 9, 2007 Page 55 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting MR. BAIZ: No, it is not. Excuse me, it is not specious. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: ..trying to be fair. It is because… MR. BAIZ: It is what happens when you write crud like this that can take the communities rural character away from it one slice at a time, a thousand slices to the death of rural. Thank you. Diane Bergman, Cutchogue DIANE BERGMANN: Hello, my name is Diane Bergmann, I have been a livestock and animal owner, as a lot of people know, in this town for 30 years. I also have recently come across problems with farming in this town. I want to let everybody know here, I think Mr. Russell is very fair. I think he will listen to you. I think, I love this town. I love the ruralness of it, I have had livestock and I respect the right to have livestock. But I also feel that I am surrounded by 144 acres of farming, which I love, until three years ago, when a farmer came in there and infringed on my right to live. Where I had to shovel dirt from no cover crop off my porch, where I had to put up with flooding; the house hasn’t flooded in 30 years, it did flood once before, but it hasn’t flooded in 30 years, because the farmer behind me decided to change the lay of the land. I respect the right for a farmer to farm, I respect the right for a livestock owner to livestock but there is not so much legislation needed but we have to be good neighbors. I think it is more important to be a good neighbor than to legislate. If you have a problem, you can talk it out. If you can’t talk it out, then you have to go somewhere where you can talk it out. But I think Mr. Russell has been very fair in my behalf. If you talk to him and you have a problem, he will see how he can address it. He has made my life more comfortable from the farmer that I have surrounding me, by speaking to somebody. And if Mr. Russell can’t do it, you can go higher. But to have legislation where to say that you can’t do this, you can’t do that; I have peacocks, my farmland was over a half a mile away and when I was out picking my crops, I could hear the peacock a half a mile away. So you can’t say 10 acres is a decent zoning amount for the noise of a peacock. You want to outlaw one, then you are going to change the ruralness but I think if we all become good neighbors and we worry about our neighbors and how we are infringing on them instead of making legislation, I think it is a little bit better and we all talk it out. I applaud Mr. Russell for listening to everybody. If you give him a chance, he will listen to you. but that is what is fair. If this gentleman had a problem with his neighbor, you go talk it out with your neighbor, your neighbor doesn’t do it; you go to Mr. Russell. If Mr. Russell doesn’t do it, go to civil litigation. I mean, why ruin it for everybody else that does have livestock. Their right to have it. I think Mr. Russell has been most fair to listen to everybody. I think you should be fair in telling him what your problem is and then going, no legislation. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Thank you, Diane. As a point of full disclosure, my daughter wanted to buy a white goat from her a few years ago. I live on a 50 x 150 lot. She was too young at the time but I might buy her a white goat in a year or two. Nothing proposed would prohibit me from doing that. What it does is gives my neighbors the right to know that I will keep my yard clean and if they don’t want my goat in their yard, I won’t allow that. Because those are the types of issues that we tried to address. But nothing would have prohibited me from getting that goat and you know, maybe when she is two years older. Right now she is having trouble taking care of a gerbil but we will see. She has a long way to go. October 9, 2007 Page 56 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting Mary Aldi, Southold MARIE ALDI: Hi, my name is Marie Aldi. I am on Lighthouse Road and I had Mr. Baiz asking about the peacocks and everybody else. But I am sure you don’t go to bed 11:00 and you get up every half an hour screaming. There was 13 peacocks. Not one, not two, 13 of them. Now she has four. What happened to the rest of them? What happened to them? Raccoons? No. It is closed. I made a tape, I brought it to Mr. Forrester… SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: I don’t know what happened to them but I chose not to look at a gift horse in the mouth. They are gone and that is what matters. We had a problem in Cutchogue five years ago with peacocks and that issue resolved itself. I don’t know if sold them or they ran away. But again, the peacocks was the one troubling thing, I didn’t know how to resolve it. MS. ALDI: No, they cannot run away. On the top of the stall she has something for…. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Well, the case in Cutchogue, if you saw the way they were living you would say, yeah, they probably did run away but that is beside the point. That issue is long gone. MS. ALDI: And is not the point that she says. The lady told you a very nice story in the beginning, Mrs. (inaudible) you were there in the beginning right? And your assistant came last year with Mr. Forrester, she says it’s unacceptable, there was so dirt there. so don’t tell me you love horses, I love animals too, don’t misunderstand. I had a dog. I mean, I love animals but as long as she keeps it clean and I don’t have to smell it because I have the, I didn’t come here last year or two years before. I am here for 40 years, I pay taxes. So why she allowed to have all the garbage in about 100 x 100? She has the stalls with three horses and a llama, she has chickens, I mean, chickens doesn’t bother me. The horses doesn’t bother me. As long as she keeps it clean. But the peacocks, 24 hours a day because they are mating? How many months do they mate? I mean how many months can they mate? COUNCILMAN KRUPSKI: We can’t say that, it is public TV. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: I think we will all say, evidently more than all of us sitting at the Board. MS. ALDI: I am sorry to say that but this is what she said. I mean, this is crazy. We know there for nine whole years, the same thing. And every time she has more peacocks. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: I talked to people that I knew from my days in assessing that work for the State Department of Agriculture and Markets and we talked about the different animals and the different noise levels and roosters aren’t a problem because you can control their noise; the one thing they said there is nothing we have been able to resolve is how to keep peacocks quiet. That is why, I know it seems draconian to say 10 acres but I had the problem in Cutchogue, I had the problem in Southold and I didn’t know any other way to resolve it and if anybody has any peacock insight, by all means, please share it with me. I am happy to address it. I am happy to incorporate it. October 9, 2007 Page 57 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting MS. ALDI: I wish you brought the tape, so everybody can hear it. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Yeah, we were getting CD’s from neighbors; saying look, put an end to this. It was 3:00 in the morning. UNIDENTIFIED: (from audience) They can be de-voiced, like a dog can be de-voiced. If you want to go that wicked method. They can be de-voiced. MS. ALDI: They can? Well, she… UNIDENTIFIED: (from audience) If they bark to much…. MS. ALDI: I don’t think, in the beginning she said about neighbors…. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: I hope we all understand… COUNCILMAN KRUPSKI: Let’s just keep it… SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Diane, I will actually take that suggestion from you and talk to owners about it. Let’s just keep the ball rolling and please understand, this is how complicated and so many different facets to the issue we were trying to resolve. COUNCILMAN WICKHAM: Keep the ball rolling. MS. ALDI: Yeah. The only thing is, this is what we want, as long as she keeps it clean, it is not muddy… SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Right. MS. ALDI: And everything else… SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: And my code enforcement officer doesn’t have to go out there every three days to issue an order to remedy to get it clean. MS. ALDI: Well, she doesn’t allow him to go in. You saw how, she talk, last year when he went to give her a subpoena, he almost got his hand in the door by shutting the door on him. That is how bad she is. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Thank you. Mr. DiVello. Vito “Rocky” DiVello, Matt VITO ‘ROCKY’ DiVELLO: Ladies and gentlemen of the Board, thank you for hearing us. My name is Rocky, Vito DiVello from Mattituck. I am past president of East End Horsemen and Livestock Association. Proudly served and current board of directors of East End Livestock. I am also Suffolk County representative on Long Island Farm Bureau and New York State October 9, 2007 Page 58 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting Correspondent for the equine. I just would like to say that I don’t know I don’t know what I am going to say that hasn’t been said already. Yes, I do love my animals, I have been an animal lover my whole life and that is not the point. I have nothing against Mercedes or whatever that other car was, except I can’t afford them and if I could fit more hay bales in them, then I would probably have one. But other than that, on a serious note, I would just like to say, you all have been very good in listening to us. All the members. Coming down and talking to us, I would like to thank you for that. And just, if you would really consider what every member said, it is heartfelt. And we would really appreciate closure on this consideration. That is it. Thank you. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Thank you, Rocky. Benja Schwartz. Benja Schwartz, Cutchogue BENJA SCHWARTZ: Benja Schwartz, Cutchogue. Supervisor Russell, Justice Evans, Councilman Wickham, Ross, Edwards, Krupski. You are all animals. I noticed someone brought some chickens here today and I am happy to see them but I didn’t hear anything from them. They are listening. Seriously, these animals some of them at least, they can’t speak for themselves. We have heard a lot on behalf of the horses here, I am not going to take up a lot of time but I have some animals at home. Six of them. Moe, Joe, Jeanie, Ju and New. So I have got six of you. two months ago, these were little guinea keets. Now they are guinea fowl. They are getting bigger. They don’t make a lot of noise and so far I have kept them penned up but I hope to free range them. They make noise once a day when they want to go inside their barn and I go and I get them and I bring them in the barn but last week they were making noise all morning for about two hours. Why? Because there is one landscaper that manages all three, they call them landscapers buy you know, their landscaping is mostly lawn keeping and weed killing and some of those weeds are my favorite plants. The pinks, the queen anne’s lace, the spiderwort’s. some people call them weeds. Even dandelions have a place… SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Benja, come by my house, I assure you, they are alive and well in my yard. So. MR. SCHWARTZ: Oh, good. But you don’t have any birds. You know, my neighbor has I think six or seven cats. They come over on my property. There is not a lot I can do. I think if I called the police they would probably laugh at me. If they were dogs, well, if they were dogs, that is one thing but cats, they don’t have licenses, they are not. And I think bird like a guinea hen, guinea fowl, they are half wild, they are half domestic. But free ranging them, they eat the ticks. They are good for the neighborhood. And I don’t think that we have any business in regulating where they go, unless it gets to the point where there is a huge block of them were they become very disturbing. And in that vein, I think that there is something that could be salvaged from this law. I am not sure there is anything in here pertaining to animals that should be salvaged, that is my opinion. But pertaining to noise, noise is one of the most pervasive and one of the worst pollutants in the world today. Most of the time we don’t even realize how it affects us but it is also not a pollutant that carries very far or stays around very long. New York State doesn’t regulate it, DEC doesn’t care about, it is up to local government and we should regulate noise but not with an ordinance like the one that is proposed here. This is ridiculous. The ordinance in here talks about well, we consider the volume and we should consider the intensity. Well, intensity and volume are the same thing. But neither one of them are October 9, 2007 Page 59 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting enforceable. We already have one noise ordinance in town. The barking dog law. I think we should think of the problems we have enforcing that and the reason we don’t have any other noise ordinance that for us to pass a noise ordinance, we are going to have to h ire or train a noise control officer. Who knows how to measure noise. You know, volume and frequency are the two basic criteria but there is duration, there is a lot of different questions with noise and I would like to see noise be regulated especially against these landscapers. You know, I have a beautiful house and I live in a beautiful area but it is not once every two weeks for two to four hours, I have to listen to this. In the middle of the summer, I have to close all my windows and I don’t have air-conditioning. So that I don’t have to listen to, I can’t work, I can’t think. You know, I am not crazy, well, maybe I am crazy but I am not the only one. It is scientifically, medically documented that noise not only can affect our hearing but it makes us crazy and it makes us bad neighbors. So I think noise is a problem but it should be looked at as noise not as a problem from some animals. Most of the animals, even barking dogs, some of them make beautiful music. Some of them are very unhappy. Anyway, I just, some of the other things that make noise, radios, tv sets, musical instruments, loud speakers, loading operation, construction, horns and signal devices. But anyway. Thank you for your. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Thank you, Benja. Would anybody else like to come up and address the Town Board? Eric Kehl, Mattituck ERIC KEIL: Good morning. Good afternoon. Actually I guess it is good evening really. Hello, my name is Eric Keil and I am a resident of Mattituck. This is a tough issue and I don’t know how it is going to be resolved. Scott, Supervisor, you mentioned the problems with the definitions and the discussions about noise in the code. That is one area where I think there is a great deal of subjectivity or a great deal left up to the interpretation… SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Absolutely. MR. KEIL: …of whatever officer happens to be addressing a particular issue and that is one area where I think that there is a significant problem with this. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: I agree. MR. KEIL: If that is addressed, I think that that would be great. The other is, I brought a few newspaper articles with me discussing free range guinea hens. We keep free range guinea hens. My sister, who lives in North Carolina was visiting us for a period in the summer time and both she and my niece got Lyme disease. Since then, we have started keeping guinea hens the following season and you cannot find a tick anywhere in our yard. Cape May, New Jersey the sheriff’s department actually has an inmate program where inmates in the jail raise guinea fowl to be released in the community. And I think like many other things, you have to weigh the cost benefit analysis of anything that you undertake and I think that in my particular case, there would be a significant cost associated, if we could not allow our birds to be free range. We would probably stop keeping them because there would be really no reason to have them. There is also a benefit for my children, it has been a great learning experience for them, incubating and hatching chicks, raising them and so on. And that is the only thing that I would like to say. October 9, 2007 Page 60 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: This is one, and I agree with you but this is one of the problematic aspects. If you have the free ranging and there is a neighbor that doesn’t want them on his property, how do we address that? I mean, I want to protect your right to have guinea hens but I don’t think I should be inserting your right to have guinea hens on the neighbor if he doesn’t want them in his yard. Even if he doesn’t mind the ticks in his yard. I understand the free range issue but what do you do for that guy? MR. KEIL: Supervisor, I totally understand and that is why I said there is a cost benefit to anything that you do. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Sure. MR. KEIL: And I think that as a community, we have to decide what is more important to us. Is it more important to have a pesticide free way of controlling ticks and preventing Lyme disease or is it more important to prevent the few people who don’t want guinea hens in their yards from guinea hens in their yards. And I think that is what…. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: But, the fundamental property rights issue for you to have the animals, do they have a property rights issue to say, you are welcome to your animals but don’t let them in my yard. I mean, isn’t that property rights, too? Isn’t that the balancing act? Isn’t that why we are here as a Town Board? MR. KEIL: Of course. And that is the question we have to wrestle with. I happen to think that my opinion is the right one but that is my opinion. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Good for you. MR. KEIL: Thank you very much for hearing me out. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Okay. UNIDENTIFIED: Inaudible comments from audience. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: These are livestock that are someone’s pets. You can identify who the owner is. We are not regulating wild animals at this point. Ma’am? Mary Andrea, Mattituck MARY BETH ANDRESON Hi, my name is Mary Beth Andreson, I actually live in Aquebogue. My husband John Andreson is a large animal veterinarian and we have been in eastern Long Island for many, many years. In fact, Scott, I addressed this Board in 1981, I guess maybe you were just out of high school. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Still in. MS. ANDRESON: And about this very same issue. I probably addressed it before many of October 9, 2007 Page 61 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting these people became residents of this Town and it is a, obviously it is a very, very near and dear thought to my heart because all of these years my family has raised a variety of animals from horses to goats to cows to pigs, to sheep. I have had chickens and we actually have dogs, cats and turtles, too. I raised my children this way, my children were active in 4-H. I was active in 4- H even after my children grew out of 4-H and went to college, I still became the perpetual 4-H mother and took many kids from the Town of Southold back up to the New York State fair to represent eastern Long Island and their agricultural heritage. If you go out in your lobby, it is amazing how far we have come from the horses that were plowing the fields that adorn your lobby. I guess it will be potentially Mercedes in the future that will adorn your lobby. And I would love to have one, don’t get me wrong but I at the same time want my pickup truck. Well, I was going to say good afternoon but it is already evening. I left work as many people did today to attend a public hearing on something that was not published and I know that the law says it has to be published, on a public hearing of a very, very sensitive nature that I know probably will involve a lot more people that are here today but those people happen to be working at 4:30 in the afternoon and possibly can’t get off work. I am lucky because I have a job that I could get off work and drive from Southampton back here to Southold to attend this public hearing. It is amazing, this public hearing and your legislation is basically legislating good neighbors. And you and no other Town Board can legislate good neighbors. You talk about peacocks and I know peacocks. I don’t own a peacock, I don’t want to own a peacock. I do have chickens. Well, until recently when the raccoons decided they were dinner but I know somebody who lives in the Town of Southold who has hundreds of acres and is a very wealthy man who has a couple of peacocks. And when you go across Sound Avenue or if you live in the house across the street on Sound Avenue, it doesn’t make any difference how many hundreds of acres he has, where they are housed and how loud they scream and where they have flown to or walked to on his hundreds of acres, can be heard. So putting them on 10 is not going to appease anybody. Because the people will still complain. You are legislating neighbors. There isn’t action for that. It is civil litigation. I don’t want kids revving cars or working on engines or boat motors something next door to me. I was aghast a quite a few years ago when the developments started to come in and all of a sudden what was around me, what used to be around me used to be potato fields and corn fields and tractors and that was fine until one day I turned around and I started to see houses moving in on developments and I started to panic. I started to panic because my fencing goes to the property line and I don’t want to be responsible for some person moving here for their little suburban house that wants to look at my pasture and not pay the taxes. Children getting their fingers bitten off because they are sticking their hands through the fences. And I knew I would have problems. They would say, oh, the manure. Just like they do with the duck farm that has been there in Aquebogue for ever and ever. The people moved here and complained. The duck farm happens to now be in my family because my son married a member of that family. We like agriculture in our house, I guess. And it has been there. you can’t legislate neighborhood. You just can’t do it. And if you start it, it is a suburbanization. It is cellophane wrapping the Town of Southold. And I hate to see it. It is one of the last agricultural places left on Long Island. I know we all know the story of the cow that was running loose for many months, which it actually not a cow but a steer and not a bull as the newspapers did say, th that two Southold policemen and my husband went on a merry jaunt on July 4 this past year, th down on the beach. While a lot of the influx people were on the beach enjoying a lovely July 4 putting up their umbrellas and putting out their chaise lounges and my husband armed with a gun October 9, 2007 Page 62 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting and two policemen, and here he comes now as he walks by coming in, hello Doctor. He has his gun. And two policemen with him, following him, are charging down the beach. Nobody is even looking. The cow is preceding them, the cow takes off because he missed. And the cow runs through somebody’s neighborhood. Well, he shot above it. COUNCILMAN KRUPSKI: Warning shot? MS. ANDRESON: Well, no, he wanted him to drop on him because he didn’t want to like shoot in front of people. And the cow ran through, tranquilizer gun. It was a tranquilizer gun. And the cow ran through a neighborhood. And up pulled somebody to check on his mother’s summer home in his probably Mercedes at the time and he sees not the cow, but my husband with the tranquilizer gun and two Southold policemen running and he goes, oh my god, what is going on? And John said, well, or one of the policemen said, well, we are chasing a cow. And the guy said, oh, you mean like a deer. And the Southold policeman said, no this is the north fork, we are chasing a cow. And I want to tell you, there must not have been a lot of news the next day because that article put Southold on the map in Idaho, in Maine, in South Carolina and in Florida. And California. So if that can make you a rural, wonderful homey town; please keep it that way. Think about what you are doing. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Well, I still don’t understand how, you are allowed to have a cow or a steer or a, the law never proposed eliminating any of those things. And as far as legislating for good neighbors, unfortunately that is what we have done historically. This Board over the past two years and sometimes over my no votes, tried to legislate that with the idea behind the accessory structure law because people are building these mammoth structures on their properties and there was just completely over bearing to the neighbors to the, that is all that is. That is why we are here. Unfortunately, you have to legislate sometime for good manners because they, unfortunately, and the people by the way that complained to me about those peacocks in Cutchogue, they grew up out here. I went to school with their kid. They are not new people in Lexus’ trying to change this town. It’s an ongoing process and we try to be fair to everybody whether you moved in yesterday or whether you moved in 150 years ago. I have the same obligation to both of you. MS. ANDRESON: I understand. I understand that you are stuck between a rock and a hard place. But if it really came down to it, if it really came down to, I think you would have far more people wanting to maintain the agricultural lifestyle in the Town of Southold than to suburbanize it. And I think this is the beginning of suburbanization of Southold. Thank you. Mary McCabe, Greenport MARY McCABE: Hi. My name is Mary McCabe and this is my son David. I bought a house in Greenport 11 years ago. I was born in Greenport and my family goes back for many generations. One of the first few days after I bought my house, this beautiful blue peacock appeared on my deck. I had never even heard a peacock before. About five years ago, I bought him a girlfriend from Pumpkinville. So needless to say, this peacock, who has gone to numerous homes in the neighborhood, gravitates towards my female during mating season. I realize that he makes a lot of noise but this is a bucolic community. It is a farming community. I think that when people come out to a farming community and try to change it, we have heard this word October 9, 2007 Page 63 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting over and over tonight. It is the suburbanization. I don’t want to live in Nassau County. I chose to raise my son here. We love animals. We are responsible to our animals and actually, we have to go now because we have to put our peacocks in the shed for the night. They had two babies. One thing that is problematic for me is that I have a neighbor from Staten Island and his property borders mine. He is only out here for a couple of months a year. He was shooting at my birds. Shooting on to my property. I think that that is despicable and I think I have rights, too. I don’t know what to say because my son says, mom, if we have to get rid of the peacocks, can we move? Do I have to leave this area to maintain living in a farming community? I think that is pretty sad. I think we have to save what is left and I think we have to preserve our heritage and continue it for our children and our grandchildren. Thank you. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Thank you very much. Susan Carpenter, Mattituck SUSAN CARPENTER: Hi, my name is Susan Carpenter. I live on Sound Avenue in Mattituck. I grew up in Wading River. I lived in six other states, two foreign countries. I chose to move back to Mattituck with my husband because of the character of the town. I don’t have a horse, don’t have a goat, don’t have a lot of livestock. Do have chickens and guinea hens. Actually inherited a couple of ducks from somebody here in Cutchogue that passed away and had way too many birds for their property. I don’t think that this piece of legislation is going to do anybody any good. The law that is on the book, there is nothing wrong with it. You have heard from people all over tonight saying that you can’t legislate good neighbors. You have said yourself Mr. Russell, that there is nothing in this law that is going to stop you from owning animals. Well, there actually is. Section 83-22 says ‘no person shall keep, raise, house or maintain any animal that shall constitute a nuisance or create a hazard to public health or that in any manner that shall annoy, danger, disturb or endanger the comfort, health, repose, peace or safety of any other person or the public.’ Who is going to say what is disturbing the peace, the safety? My guinea hens live in a fenced in area in my yard. There is a five foot high fence. There is an electric wire to keep them in as much as to keep the raccoons out from killing them. They get out most every day. They cross the street, they go across into the woods that is now Laurel Lake Preserve and they eat ticks. So, you are going to pass this law, somebody says, well they disturb me. They bothered my safety when I was driving 70 miles an hour on the 35 mile an hour street you live on and I had to swerve to avoid them, so therefore they affected my safety. So this law is telling me I can’t keep an animal, my chickens occasionally get loose. They occasionally go near the road. Dogs get loose, horses get loose, cows get loose. This section of this law is going to tell us that we can’t have anything any longer. It is a horrible section. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: If that is the way it reads, I am sorry. That was never the intent and by all means, we are open to suggestions on re-drafting. MS. CARPENTER: Might as well. It needs to be re-drafted. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: I am looking, and particularly for people who have animals and I dealt with mostly horse owners for a lot of input. I would gladly consider the input from people that have fowl and other things. I am not sure how we are going to resolve peacocks but we will work on it. Okay? It is just, they have been so problematic. But the rest of the stuff, by all October 9, 2007 Page 64 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting means, help us provide legislative wording that would work for everybody. MS. CARPENTER: Well, there is nothing wrong with the legislation that is already on the books. It already gives you appropriate setbacks, it already gives you recourse. Just because it didn’t work with one neighbor, doesn’t mean it is not going to work. There is nothing wrong with the legislation that you already have at hand. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: I am sure that is true. Okay. Would anybody else like to address the Board? Cindy Benedito CINDY BENEDETTO: Hi, my name is Cindy Benedetto. I come before you as a Southold Town taxpayer, a parent, Southold Town business owner, a horse owner and officer of a century old organization which is dedicated to the conservation, preservation and education of Long Islands open preserve spaces. Working very closely with Brookhaven Town, Suffolk County Parks Department, the DEC and New York State Parks and Recreation. I implore Southold Town to assess each animal concern on an individual basis please for everyone’s well being. Thank you. Now on behalf of Sophia Greenfield, who is not able to be here today, she asked that I present this to the Board. ‘I believe that I understand the concerns and circumstances that have brought about the proposed legislation and respective efforts being put towards remedy. However, simply put much of what is proposed is unenforceable because it depends on a subjective judgment of what exactly is noise, nuisance or disturbance or endangering the comfort, repose, health, peace or safety of the public. This could be just about anything. It opens the door to litigation, contest and a folly for enforcing officers. Yesterday while visiting a small farm stand, I bought fresh eggs, vegetables, tomatoes, potatoes, beans and onions and enjoyed the small farmette behind the stand. I ventured out picked a few berries and then chatted with the farmer who has been selling produce for at least 30 years that I know of. I asked him what he felt about proposed law. His reply is at the crux of our Town’s situation. The neighbor moved in within the past last few years, told him that he now had to quiet his rooster. Both the farmer and I were amused but not really as for as we know it, whether you are in Southold, in Poland, China, Hawaii roosters do what roosters do. They crow at the break of dawn and no amount of lawmaking is going to change that. Roosters also don’t have timers attached to them. Let us also understand that if we have no roosters, we have no chicks and no eggs. It is just that simple. In my years here, I have escorted home two meandering horses, ducks, chickens, geese across the Goose Creek bridge. Ushered some hens back into their yard and helped corral an escaped pig. None of them were on leashes because this is the country. That is what rural means. Occasionally animals get free and generally get home safely. Regarding horses, there are twice the number of horses owned and stabled in Southold Town than there were when I came here. My exposure to the care and maintenance of the horses comes from Cindy Benedetto, owner of Van Duzer Gas and Cindy Hilary and her husband Chip. There are three generations of horsemen in Mrs. Benedetto’s family and Mrs. Hilary has owned horses for nearly 20 years. Both of these families lives are built around horses; shows, riding parades, events and the hunt. The pleasance of their presence at parades, demonstrations and special events is costly to them but a large reason that they own and care for their horses. In both cases, they as well as many other horse owners share their extra horses with young riders, often those that would not otherwise be able to afford participating on such. I have seen countless children ogling at horses October 9, 2007 Page 65 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting across fences or squealing with delight as Dr. Vaccariello rides by his cart with his mini horses. The cost in both effort and money is huge for these equestrians. Each morning these women are mucking their stalls at 6 and it is a lifetime commitment, rain, blizzard, sun or storm. It is good horsemanship and for the most part practiced by the equestrians I know. To that end, I would hope that the Town Board would work with the equestrian community in providing a non- burdensome management of manure disposal. Many horse owners have gardeners willing to cart away manure. But I would like to see centralized areas, for example a small portion of the land adjacent to the Custer building, which the town owns, might be a disposable and pick up site on a weekly basis. Organic, easily compostable manure is piled, let to air dry and within in a year, beautiful soil amendment which could be picked up by gardeners for free. No need for long distance carting. Little or no labor cost to the Town. If plans need to be developed for manure management, talk to the equestrian community and ask for their input. Work on a least burdensome solution to management so that ownership of horses continues to be pleasure and not governmentally mandated burden or to costly for working people to afford. Personally, I would like to see riding trails cut into parcels owned by the Town. For example, the 20 plus acre parcel along Bayview Extension. Riding and walking trails might be cut, not bulldozed, just cleared as needed to open paths in town owned parcels, so that riders and people walking might enjoy them. I know that there is a large community of horse owners in the immediate area and new, young riders who would benefit and enjoy these public resources. I am both sympathetic for the burdens of some specific property owners as voiced in recent town meetings and I appreciate the efforts to address those problems and concerns. However I feel that this legislation is not in concert with our largely rural environment. What we value in Southold Town is its rural character and though I understand some of the recent difficulties with a few property owners, I feel that enactment of the law as written is burdensome, will waste the time of enforcers and bring about costly litigation and adversely impact the rural quality of life we so enjoy. Understanding that some boundaries and laws have to be enacted, I would ask that we look to other rural areas and see what processes they embrace, include the input of interested, involved and impacted townspeople and re-draw something that works and protects all interests. You also can’t legislate common sense. The vast number of people with farm animals are respectful people who care for their animals and are sensitive to their neighbors. In a spirit that embraces all Southolders, let’s work on a plan more reflective and protective of our community as a whole. Thank you. Sophia Greenfield.’ Sophia Greenfield’s statement Supervisor Russell SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Thank you very much. Would anybody else like to come up and address the Board on this public hearing? (No response) Let’s close the hearing. 2. Set PH In Regard to Animals, October 9, 2007 4:40 Pm RESULT: CLOSED [UNANIMOUS] MOVER: Thomas H. Wickham, Councilman SECONDER: Daniel C. Ross, Councilman AYES: Krupski Jr., Edwards, Ross, Wickham, Evans, Russell October 9, 2007 Page 66 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting Closing Statements Statement Supervisor Russell SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Okay, that concludes the resolutions. Would anybody like to come up and address the Town Board on any issue of mutual interest? Mr. Markel. And thank you, thank you very much for the patience of a very long public hearing tonight. David Markel, Southold DAVID MARKEL: You are welcome. I have a story I want to tell about a rooster. Ladies and gentlemen of the Board. Thank you for allowing me to speak before you today. My name is David Markel, I reside on Youngs Avenue in Southold and I have been a full-time resident of Southold for over 30 years. Excuse me if this is a bit repetitive, I am going to give the same speech I gave at the work session. I do thank you for letting me speak at the work session. I came here before you to tell you why I and over 700 of our fellow Southold Town residents have signed a petition I have circulated over the past month. They feel it is crucial for the environmental future of Southold that the property known as Tall Pines is safe from development. This property is located between Paradise Point and Cedar Beach on the west side of North Bayview Road, Southold. It is a 20 acre forest of eastern white pines and oak trees, including the rare chestnut oaks. The Tall Pines include freshwater wetlands and it is contiguous to a large salt water wetland. This area serves as a nesting area for the great horned owls, as well as other wildlife habitat. There are plants specific to Hogs Neck area. No amphibian study has been done on the property, so it is not possible to determine that population. The environmental study, which was commissioned by the owners was during the past winter, it was likely that plants which do not appear during the winter were not observed during this study. An independent study of this area should be done. The development of the property would have an adverse effect on the quality of life for those living in Hogs Neck. The groundwater will be threatened by the use of household chemicals, pesticides, and sewage. Pets cause havoc with waste, they produce and through their predatory instincts killing wildlife. Above and beyond these factors, the over riding reason to save this property from development is that the forest of pine oak trees is one of two remaining on Long Island. One of two. In order for a forest to remain viable, to hope to survive as a forest, it must have a minimum of 20 acres. About the petition, the original petition that I circulated reads, ‘The Town Board of Southold is hereby petitioned to purchase the 20 acre Tall Pine property on North Bayview, Southold through the use of Eminent Domain.’ I included the use of eminent domain in case the owners, James Miller and Vincent Orlando were unwilling to come to the table and negotiate in good faith. I have since spoken with Mr. Orlando and has publicly stated that they are willing to sell the property to the Town for market value. Therefore, so about 450 of the signatures were collected with eminent domain, approximately 300 collected were with no eminent domain, taking him at good faith and on a couple of opportunities now stated that he will deal with the Town. The signers of the petition include two past Supervisor’s, Jean Cochran and Josh Horton, former Planning Board member George Latham, Jr., Paul Stoutenburgh noted environmentalist, Art Tillman chairman of the Democratic party, Brian Hansen former candidate for Town Board, Mike Domino, Robert Feiger, and Howard Meineke, I believe Howard was the president of the… October 9, 2007 Page 67 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: NFEC, absolutely. MR. MARKEL: past and present presidents of the North Fork Environmental Council. These petitions ask the Town to take the lead in purchasing this property. I have spoken with a Mrs. Longo, who is in charge of the acquisitions for the county and she has expressed great enthusiasm for helping the Town to purchase this property. The Nature Conservancy and the Peconic Land Trust also have shown great interest in the area and should be drawn into the process. This property, these tall pines must be saved for the environmental future of Southold. I call for the Town Board to do everything in its power to make sure this happens. The Town needs to commit to the purchase and then use whatever tools it has at its disposal to make sure it happens. Including, if necessary, a complete moratorium on the sale and development on this property and if necessary, the use of eminent domain to acquire this environmentally unique piece of property. Again, thank you for your time this morning and thank you for listening to me now. and I will now present to you the petition. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Thank you. MR. MARKEL: You are welcome. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Just to clarify some of the issues. We talked about this at work session today. I had walked the property, I was unfamiliar with that particular property because we have a lot of activity on land use out here, I was invited to walk the property by Alison Mahaffy about four months ago and I agreed with her. It was certainly something that should be on the forefront of the focus for preservation for Southold Town because it is a stunning piece. Well, I think Mr. Orlando, I called him up and he said he would be willing to talk to anybody. That from what I understand was more or less formalized today in that you had talked with the Land Preservation Board and you are going to make an application so some type of process can be initiated to pursue whatever options we may have. COUNCILMAN ROSS: Yeah. As we discussed, Dave, these matters, the Town’s determination to purchase open space really start with the Land Preservation Committee. They are a hard working Committee that considers some deals for two, three, four years before they get to the Town Board and sometimes they never get to the Town Board. Melissa kind of indicated today, our head of the Preservation Department, that there was no outstanding application before the Committee, that there had been some consideration some years ago, I guess in 2005 but there is really nothing pending there. And we have really from my understanding, we have never not, the Town Board has never refused to purchase something that the Land Preservation Committee has recommended be purchased and just the opposite is also true, we have never purchased something kind of on our own, without their recommendation. So that is where these things have to start and it has to move in that direction. Thank you for your interest. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Would anybody else like to come up and address the Town Board? John Avel JOHN ABELE: My name is John Abele, I live in the Harbor Lights area of Great Hog Neck and I think the Board should get involved in this situation because this property is really the heart and October 9, 2007 Page 68 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting soul of Great Hog Neck and I am a walker, I walk past the property very often. As I say, it is, as Mr. Markel had pointed out, it is an irreplaceable property and it has to be maintained as open space. About the legalities of how an application is made, I don’t understand that because well, let me say first, it has been reported in the press that Mr. Orlando has offered the property to the Town. Ms. Spiro was quoted a couple of weeks ago that the property was too expensive. I have not heard any numbers, I would like to know what Mr. Orlando and his associates paid for this property. I would like to know what he is asking for the property. He says fair market value, that could be anywhere. COUNCILMAN ROSS: Sir, I asked Ms. Spiro today if an appraisal had been done and she indicated in the negative. She said that an appraisal had not been done on the property. MR. ABELE: Well, I assume… COUNCILMAN ROSS: It was considered in 2005, there was some consideration. But according, again, the Land Preservation Committee, the Committee did not order an appraisal. So in just in response to your question. MR. ABELE: I am confused because if Mr. Orlando says he has offered it to the Town, I would assume Ms. Spiro had numbers in mind. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: No, it depends on the circumstances. A lot of properties get offered. I think maybe at the time after some initial discussion there was a thought that probably with all the other pending sales and the current pending process which he is going through is that it would have made it price prohibitive but you don’t really know that until you go through an appraisal and you sit down with owners and negotiate to see what, if there is other options. Bargain sales and things like that. I actually explained the process of a bargain sale to Mr. Orlando over the weekend and I called him months ago after Alison asked me and he said he was happy to talk to anybody. But again, people that don’t deal with the land preservation process often aren’t aware of how bargain sales work and this and that. So maybe the initial price is too expensive. That happens. We have a property in Cutchogue which I can’t disclose but that was too expensive but we have worked with the owners, the Peconic Land Trust and others to get that price into a range where we think we can afford to protect it and preserve it. Every real estate deal is going to start with very different sets of value. It is the process and the honing of the process that brings it to a realm that everybody can accept. COUNCILMAN EDWARDS: I might add that Ms. Spiro indicated this morning that the discussions between Mr. Orlando and the Land Preservation Committee were within the context of what is called a conservation subdivision. In other words, where the landowner could hypothetically build up to let’s say six houses on the property and would build three and the Town would come in with money to help preserve the rest of the land. The issues that seemed to have hung them up were the location of the lots because that becomes a very sensitive issue, it wasn’t a pure preservation deal as she explained it to the Town Board. It still involved the construction of two or three houses, so that affects and the location of those lots affects very much whether a deal gets made. It is much easier when a landowner comes and says I want to October 9, 2007 Page 69 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting preserve the whole thing, what are you offering me. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: I talked to Melissa several months ago after calling Mr. Orlando at the request of Allison again and told her, set this subdivision to the side for a second. He said he would be willing to talk about preservation for the entirety, which is no building rights. There was some concern because the process, the subdivision process had gotten so far along that it might make it cost prohibitive but again, you don’t know that until get some numbers on the table and start working and educating the landowners as to what some of the best benefits might be. Sometimes it is not what you get in real estate, it is what you keep. That is what a bargain sale is all about. I explained that whole process to him about a week ago, in a very cursory, crude way how it works and he said he would love to have himself and his father-in-law sit down with Peconic Land Trust and accountants and stuff to talk about those options. That is what the process is all about. A lot of discussion before anything gets finalized. MR. ABELE: Well, when I saw Ms. Spiro quoted in the paper that she thought the property was expensive, I assumed she had a number in mind. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: I think she was making a presumption. MR. ABELE: I would bring up another point. It would seem to me there is a potential conflict of interest here where Town employee’s are in effect negotiating with a landowner who happens to be running for the Town Board. It seems to me if I were a town employee I would feel nervous, if not intimidated by that kind of relationship. COUNCILMAN KRUPSKI: I don’t think that, she has been a town employee for a long time… MR. ABELE: I know Ms. Spiro and I have great respect for her work but I would still feel a little uncomfortable in that situation. COUNCILMAN KRUPSKI: You know, I think she is very professional. She knows her work. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: The process that drives this will be an appraisal. That is what will drive the whole process. Appraisals and meetings of minds on value. But we have a very healthy farmland preservation program, development rights program historically that has had people along the way that have land that has been preserved through it. You know, I am going to put faith in the Land Preservation Department to work out any issues in a straightforward and objective manner. I am not sure that… COUNCILMAN KRUPSKI: I am the liaison to the Land Preservation Committee and it is a diverse group and they are committed to doing a good job and they are pretty thorough and you know, I think it is coincidental that the applicant in this case would be a candidate for political office. It is a small town and those things are going to happen. MR. ABELE: I won’t comment on that one. October 9, 2007 Page 70 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: By all means, clarify. I mean, I would hate to see a farmer not run for office because he is afraid he wouldn’t be able to sell development rights to the Town someday. That is a slippery slope. MR. ABELE: Again, it seems to me an uncomfortable situation we are in, where a town employee has to deal with somebody who may be on the Town Board. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Okay. MR. ABELE: As I said, I would be nervous about that. But I think the main point here is I know the Town has done and the Land Preservation Committee has done a lot of good work with preserving farmlands and I think there is a lot of other kinds of open space that have to be preserved and this one is a gem. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: I agree. MR. ABELE: They don’t make them like this anymore. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: I agree. MR. ABELE: I invite the Board to keep up a very strong interest in this and if it costs money, spend the money. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: You know, like I said, I walked it months ago and it was an eye opening event for me. I walked it with Heather Tetrault and Allison and I guess John Sep was there and was some GPS device and it was a stunning piece of property. So I certainly agree that some of our focus needs to be centered on these very unique properties. Which is why we were so happy to acquire the piece of property up at the Sound, two Town Board meetings ago. That was the Bittner piece. Very, very, you know, a lot of money but boy, you wouldn’t have that opportunity again. MR. ABELE: I might also point out, there are other pieces in the general area that had been turned over to the Peconic Land Trust. There is a two acre parcel right down Paradise Point Road. And then on Main Bayview Road there is another larger area that has been preserved. So you know, we have pieces there already. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: You are developing a critical mass of park and nature. COUNCILMAN EDWARDS: And that was, I am sorry, Scott, I didn’t mean to interrupt, that was done through a conservation subdivision. The latter piece. And in case there is any doubt, the Town has been very active in both farmland and in open space. In the last three and a half years, since John Sepenoski started keeping track, we preserved over 800 acres of farmland. We have also preserved over 200 acres of open space in the Town. So and open space if very often much more expensive particularly if it is near the water. I mean, the Pipes Cove Preservation is a major effort on the part of the Town that the Town has been working on for a long time. So the October 9, 2007 Page 71 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting Town is very sensitive to these special environments. MR. ABELE: If I owner property along Paradise Point Road, I would be very glad to see this is as open space. I think it would increase the value of my house. COUNCILMAN EDWARDS: I am sure it would. MR. ABELE: Well, again, I ask the Board to stay interested in this. Thank you. Councilman Ross Supervisor Russell Councilman Edwards Supervisor Russell Councilman Edwards Eric Heacock, Southold ERIC HEACOCK: Hi, my name is Eric Heacock, I am from Southold and I just have a brief statement that I would like to read about the woods we are talking about. For the past 43 years, I have been enchanted with the majestic beauty of the sanctuary of the woods on Paradise Point. The fragile existence of wildlife, from owls to salamanders to turtles and many other species is now threatened by possible development. This area along with Cedar Beach Park offer a unique, natural area for residents now and for the future. What if people 150 years ago had no vision for Central Park, New York City would be far less livable. Many years from now, the legacy of the decisions made now will affect generations to come for the future of Southold. Preservation is good for Southold’s economy as well. I believe the development of the woods would have a very negative, heart-breaking affect on the area; making it no longer rural but suburban. I ask the Town Board to please save this great woods, the soul of Hoggs Neck. Thanks. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Thank you very much. Allison Schroeder, Southold ALLISON SCHROEDER MAHAFFY: Hi, my name is Allison Schroeder Mahaffy. The Planning Board has already received lots of letters and this being one of them, it is hard to speak on camera, I wish they would just turn it that way, you know? SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Don’t worry, nobody watches this show. Don’t worry about that. MS. MAHAFFY: I have lived in Bayview for 42 years and I have seen a lot of development go on, I have seen what happens when a nice section of woods gets destroyed. Deer Run being one of them, was all red cedar trees and they reduced them all to mulch after everybody in Harbor Lights wrote letters about how they didn’t want it to occur and how they didn’t want it this close to Harbor Lights and they still chose the best section of forest to chop down and there is like October 9, 2007 Page 72 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting sandy, sand mine areas that they could have used to build their development on. Because they scraped off all the topsoil on Sunday’s even. It is not like they needed the topsoil to build on. So they got rid of the red cedar trees, they got rid of all the topsoil, I am talking mountains of topsoil on Sunday’s was trucked out of there, then the houses, there is two houses built out of five lots and they have been sitting and sitting and sitting and finally one just sold. And I have seen over on the (inaudible) property, adjacent to the (inaudible) property which is Shellfisher Road when they built houses back there they used up chopped up plastic bottles as road and driveway material and then were made to clean it up later on. There is a house on Brigantine that is built like right on a pond. It is about four foot, it has got literally, it is on Brigantine, it has got like a four foot front yard and a no foot backyard. It is just a pond, it was allowed to be built. It should have never been allowed to be built. I don’t think any houses should be on this. Even if they are the nicest people in the world, the people that are developing this or that intend to develop it or have a plan, even if they are, even if they were my best friends I would still fight for these trees and this property is being like more spectacular than any chunk of property that I walk upon in Southold and I have been here, I don’t like to walk along the roadways as much as I like to walk in the woods. I don’t want to walk on the beaches when it is windy and cold and I walk in the woods where it is quiet and peaceful and there are no cars and my kids are not going to get run over and I don’t have to constantly tell them get out of the road, get out of the road, when they are in the woods they can run free. We need more parks and open spaces where it is woods. They are not going to want to play on a sunny day in a farmfield and the farmers are not going to let us. So we have to have some woods to play in, too. Not just beaches and I have seen red tailed hawks and owls and deer and so many other animals in this area and it is the only safe place where they have to go to get away from the leaf blowers, the landscapers, the lawn mowers, the cars and the people. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: You forgot peacocks. MS. MAHAFFY: Yeah. Wow. The people who recently bought the Charnews house were constantly complaining to the Town about the mosquitoes that live there. This is mosquitoes heaven, okay? This is where the mosquitoes live. It is a pond, it is a swamp, it is a freshwater wetlands. That is another reason why there shouldn’t be any houses there, is because it is wetlands. I walk through it, I know what it is like for 40, you know, 30 years I have been walking on it. So I know how wet it is, I know how dry it gets. I know that people could possibly build houses there, they are going to have like wet basements, they are going to have mosquitoes, they are going to have a lot of moisture problems. It is best left to the animal and the nature lovers. Is it legal to take away topsoil on Sunday’s? SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: No, I talked to you about that months ago and that is something that I wish you had called me about. I had that situation in Mattituck and I actually had that shut down on another subdivision where they were doing that. No, we do not allow for sand mining. They can remove a certain amount of soil that is not needed but in a lot of cases, they take the good soil and then backfill the construction with this brown loam and this other stuff that just isn’t suitable and I shut that down in Mattituck. But I need to know about it on a Sunday. Call my house, I have gone out on Sunday’s. MS. MAHAFFY: Thank you for that. There is not much left. We should save what is left. We October 9, 2007 Page 73 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting need another moratorium on building. I know he said he would have it appraised or he said he agreed to have it appraised. You know, I hope it gets appraised a few times, I would love for you to make a fair deal with this family. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: It will be. MS. MAHAFFY: Make a really fair deal with them and it is just going to be the greatest thing because we need more open space. Why should you have to get into a car to go for a walk in the woods? When you can walk right down the road from your house. This is a big canopy of trees we are talking about. Densely populated with tall pines that are very close together. A very high canopy of trees. There are real animals in there besides just the deer that everybody wants to get rid of. There is fox, there is bats, there is so much in there. And we do need to do more research on the amphibians because there is so much of that. These tall pines live to be like 400 years old and this is like virgin property. It was Hogg Neck, where they let the animals out to pasture for months, years at a time and then would round them up but it has never been farmed, it has never had pesticides, it has never had fertilizers on it. It is like organic, virgin property. Which we really need to preserve some of that, too, not just temek land. If people build houses here, you can build quaint little houses, you can build McMansions, you can build green friendly houses but still they are going to have run-off, all the slopes run right into the freshwater ponds. You are going to have pollution, you are going to have chemicals and people don’t always you know, houses sell, the houses change hands. If you preserve it, it could be preserved forever. It could really be forever. Thank you. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Thank you, Allison. Diane Gaz, Southold DIANE GAZZA: Hello, I am Diane Gazza. I live in Southold also. These woods are near and dear to my heart. I live in the neighborhood. It is too bad the people about the horse issue and the livestock issue hadn’t stayed because I kept hearing the word fear of suburbanization of Southold by a certain set of laws or whatever. But I feel the enemy of suburbanization is conservancy. I mean, to conserve these woods would be the greatest thing that you guys could do. I mean, I understand there is another sub-committee for the Conservation Committee that is lead agency on this but could you please you know, say a word or get in there and say, well what about these woods. Is this viable? I understand you preserved some of Jackie Moeller’s property which is beautiful. I used to ride there when we first moved here which was 30 years ago and some 60 acres on Sound Avenue. I love to see that. Because this is not the Southold I moved to 30 years ago. I understand you can’t stop development but there is reasonable development. This piece of property is pristine. There is, you know you talk about a conservancy subdivision. Well, to me that is an oxymoron. There is nothing environmentally friendly about a bulldozer or cement trucks going in there or lumber yard going down our little country roads. The noise that surrounds these kinds of developments is, I know it is a side point, the most important thing is to save these woods. Across the street from there, there is the fish hatchery property which has been saved, so that is a big chunk of our neck of the woods, which would be wonderful just to save a little bit more. The displaced animals, you think we have a problem with deer in our backyard now, we used to see a fox all the time, at night I can even hear the great horned owl in this property that we are talking about. The surface water that October 9, 2007 Page 74 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting would be affected. It also runs into a salt marsh which drains into dry Ed’s basin. So at some point, sewage and all that kind of stuff will make its way into that salt marsh and maybe the vector control could work with you on helping save that. I don’t know, but just please, look at this property very seriously. Walk it again if you want on all the seasons. I rode my bike past there and it was one of these early fall days where the sun is a golden light, it was coming through those woods and I was thinking to myself boy, if I saw a bulldozer in there, my heart would just break. There is controlled development, I understand that but there is also a lot of room for preservation. We really need that neck of the woods preserved for all time. And like someone said, that would increase the property values of people surrounding, those big houses on the bay or whatever. But again, I guess, I didn’t think I would be this nervous but I am. But for me to just stay up here and talk about it tells you how important these woods are to me and a lot of people. So, I thank you for listening to me. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Thank you. Thank you. Karen Heacock, Southold CAREN HEACOCK: Hi, I am Caren Heacock. I live on Paradise Point Road in Southold right th next door. I hadn’t planned on saying anything but it is my 54 birthday today and I have been here since 4:30, so I figured I had better say something. People can say because my husband and I live next door, of course we have a vested interest in not seeing it developed. I am not trying to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes. I would like it to be saved for myself, yes. But once I am gone, you know my birthday’s will be long over and the woods will be long over if we don’t preserve it, it ain’t coming back. So please, we urge you to please consider saving the woods, so that people who live there many more birthdays after me can enjoy it. Thank you. Supervisor Russell SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Thank you. COUNCILMAN KRUPSKI: Happy Birthday. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Yeah, happy birthday, Caren. You know, the preservation process in Town Hall requires willing sellers, willing Land Preservation, willing Town Board and I sense from today’s meeting everybody is on board with this, so hopefully we will have some meaningful discussions as we go over the next few months and engage everybody in that process. So, thank you. Would anybody else like to speak and address the Town Board? (No response) Can I get a motion to close the meeting? Motion To: Adjourn Town Board Meeting COMMENTS - Current Meeting: RESOLVED that this meeting of the Southold Town Board be and hereby is declared adjourned at 7:21 P.M. * * * * * October 9, 2007 Page 75 Minutes Southold Town Board Meeting Elizabeth A. Neville Southold Town Clerk RESULT: ADOPTED [UNANIMOUS] MOVER: Thomas H. Wickham, Councilman SECONDER: Daniel C. Ross, Councilman AYES: Krupski Jr., Edwards, Ross, Wickham, Evans, Russell