Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutPublic Hearing 05/18/2010SOUTHOLD TOWN BOARD PUBLIC HEARING May 18, 2010 4:35 PM Present: Supervisor Scott Russell Justice Louisa Evans Councilman Albert Kmpski, Jr. Councilman William Ruland Councilman Vincent Orlando Councilman Christopher Talbot Town Clerk Elizabeth Neville Town Attorney Martin Finnegan This heating was opened at 4:56 PM COUNCILMAN TALBOT: NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that the Town Board of the Town of Southold will hold a public information hearing at the Southold Town Hall, 53095 Main Road, Southold, New York, on the 18th day of May, 2010 at 4:35 p.m. to allow the public to ask questions and make comments on the draft Annual SPDES Phase 2 Status Report regarding the Town of Southold Stormwater Management Plan. A complete copy of the draft Annual Stormwater Management Plan Status Report will be available at the Southold Town Clerk's Office during normal business hours and will also be available on the Town's website: southoldtown.northfork.net. Seven (7) days will be provided for written comment after the close of the public hearing. This was noticed on the Town Clerk's bulletin board out front. There is a copy of the legal notice dated May 13, 2010 in the local newspaper and then it is certified that the following resolution was adopted: Whereas the Town of Southold Stormwater Management Plan and Regulations are intended to satisfy the regulatory requirements for mandatory MS4 communities and result in the issuance of a general permit for the town's stormwater discharges and represents an agreement by the town and its respective departments to work together in reducing pollutants to our shared watersheds and waterbodies; and whereas as a part of its Stormwater Management Plan & Regulations, the Town of Southold will perform annual evaluations of their programs, including status of activities proposed and completed, program compliance, the appropriateness of identified management practices, progress towards achieving identified goals, and other program information; and whereas prior to submittal to the State Stormwater Management Program Office, the Annual Stormwater Management Status report must be presented at a public forum and the public afforded the capability of offering comments; now, therefore be it resolved that the Town Board of the Town of Southold hereby sets May 18, 2010 at 4:35 PM at Southold Town Hall, 53095 Main Road, Southold as the Draft Annual SPDES Phase 2 Report Public Heating 2 Mayl 8, 2010 time and place to hold a public information hearing to allow the public to ask questions and make comments on the draft Annual SPDES Phase 2 status report regarding the Town of Southold Stormwater Management plan. A complete copy of the draft annual Stormwater Management Plan status report will be available at the Southold Town Clerk's office during normal business hours and will also be available on the Town's website: southoldtown.northfork.net Seven (7) days will be provided for written comment after the close of the public hearing. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Would anybody like to comment on, this is what we refer to as the MS4 compliance. This is federal law that is enforced by the state, Department of Environmental Conservation. This is our notice of intent to comply and it outlines our goals for the next several months with regard to the SPDES permit. Would anybody like to comment? Mr. Wills? FRANK WILLS: Frank Wills, Mattituck. I don't know whether this is the right time to do it but driving around Mattituck I have noticed that several people have put in a new driveway of solid asphalt, which discharge in let's say Cox Neck Road, Breakwater Road and like today it is very apparent the amount of water roaring down the driveway into the road and then it goes into the inlet. I don't know if the MS4, or our rules and regulations mandate that the driveways be constructed differently. Basically porous, so that the water that comes from the house doesn't come all the way into the street and into the inlet. So I don't know if this is the right time to do it or not. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: It is a good time to raise the issue. COUNCILMAN KRUPSKI: Yes, I think the drainage code addresses that. I think they had asked to put, they should put when you change your driveway to an impervious surface, like asphalt, you are supposed to put in appropriate drainage, so that it doesn't become road runoff and then people complain about the puddles on the road, it is unsafe or else it just washes everything right into the creek. There should be a code enforcement on the drainage code. MR. WILLS: These are, one is a new house and the other is a redoing it. But they are still solid asphalt. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Actually, I was just going to say that the drainage code is probably most easily applied to new construction because that is where we can get in and require that the conform to the, I am surprised that new house would have an asphalt driveway that would discharge right into Cox Neck. I would think that would have been covered with the review to make sure all the drainage is caught on site. The reconstruction gets difficult again, a lot of existing houses out there that want to go out and get the new asphalt driveway, that is very difficult to capture in the concept of how we proposed that law but certainly I would always ask you to call my office or Damon Rallis and we will send them out there and give people a friendly reminder that they need to capture that on site. Draft Annual SPDES Phase 2 Report Public Hearing Mayl 8, 2010 MR. WILLS: Great. Thank you. COUNCILMAN TALBOT: Scott, part of this law is also to help educate the public. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: That is right. COUNCILMAN TALBOT: Most of the people aren't aware of this. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: And that is where we need to put some focus, on letting the public know what the rules are as we create them. Or rules that have been around for some time, people are unaware of. Very good point, Chris. Mr. Huntington. RAY HUNTINGTON: Yes, good afternoon. Ray Huntington speaking for Fleets Neck property owners association. It is certainly a good thing that the report has been prepared, it is necessary for a number of reasons. Clean air, clean water act requires it of course and this way we avoid a very healthy fine. So, the Town Board is doing a good job in getting this report out. It seems to us that the maximum emphasis really wants to be put on the implementation plan which is required by the clean air act as well. I believe that is called the (inaudible) plan. And that means the strong water management program plan. This is the heart of the matter, where the situation can be managed. The thing that we are turning in now or are about to after this hearing, reports against that but it doesn't really get things done. I would further submit that the key to controlling of course, lies in testing to determine what is in the water. We have got to know the enemy in order to deal with the situation. The best way home is to identify the pollution, envision the fix-at the source preferably, and in this work, the community groups would likely help. I certainly speak for the association in that regard. The enemy won't be welcome in our midst if we know who he is. That is the key to controlling the costs. The MS4 requirement in the clean water act largely serves those who profit from the bureaucratic requirements. It is a big work project in many respects. If ten percent of what we pay as taxpayers winds up improving the environment, we would be very fortunate. That is what we have to work on. We have to get to doing this, to identify what we really are going to change and then go change it. So what I want to stress fight now is that the implementation plan is the key to getting this done. It is the key to the cost control. So please stress that in your planning and budget for testing and or other ways of determining who the enemy is. If in fact good data is available, I certainly think we should use it. But the point is, we can't be shooting in the dark. We have got to know who the enemy is and follow that implementation plan and get out of this as fast as we can because the track record, I was involved with the clean air act along these lines, the customer is greedy. COUNCILMAN KRUPSKI: You are fight and these MS4 requirements, you know, Southold .Town did not get caught up in the first round because of our size, population wise, we were caught up in the second round. And a lot of the, we went through all of the requirements and we are really in pretty good shape as a town because of all the different things that we have been doing as far as stormwater controls go. If you look at, Draft Annual SPDES Phase 2 Report Public Hearing 4 Mayl8, 2010 the Trustees do a drainage review of every property they issue a permit on, they are, the building department .... COUNCILMAN ORLANDO: They have been very proactive. COUNCILMAN KRUPSKI: The building department, you know, has to operate under the guidelines of the drainage code and that takes, every time someone gets a building permit, they get a drainage review on their property, so it doesn't happen all at once, it happens over time. The highway department has been very proactive in putting in drainage work here and there around the town but what this MS4 does and you are right, it is a lot of paperwork because now we have to document all the things, not only all the 'things that are being done but also all the outreach and education which is important but it is all, another layer of work for the town is documenting all these things and then having to report them back to the state. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: ! would just like to add that if that report is short on implementation is because that wasn't a requirement for this first report. We actually had been very focused on implementation. In fact, we have been so focused on implementation that we had to go back and revisit the original issues just to get that report done and capture all that data and try to present it to the state. But the implementation so far, it is an expensive proposition but I have to say that it has been very thoughtfully, carefully evaluated. We have the help of Lome Broussea from the Comell Cooperative, we have a good group of people around that making those decisions and establishing those priorities. There is no doubt about that. MR. HUNTINGTON: You both made very good and accurate points. But from our point of view from Fleets Neck, we can't say that there is a lot done. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Well, it is a big town, Ray. ! would gladly take you out and show you every day what gets done. Has a lot gotten done for Fleets Neck, has a lot gotten done throughout the town? It is an expensive proposition. You know, again, priorities are based on criteria that may differ from your point of view but we have to evaluate those criteria based on what the DEC tells us and everybody else. Also, you talk about water testing. I support that, the problem is that the state DEC, the enforcement agent doesn't, they won't let us test our own. They insist on doing their own testing and then tell us they don't have the personnel to test. That is the catch-22 we are in on the DEC on just about every issue we are dealing with. MR. HUNTINGTON: That is true. I mean, I understand that to be true anyway, much to my consternation. That is the kind of thing that we have to break loose though. And the way I see doing that is through the implementation plan because here we are going fish or cut bait. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: That is right, but I also would mention that the people of Fleets Neck would be a target group that we will be going out to and reaching out to with education in the near future, so that a lot of that discharge that ends up in the bay can be Draft Annual SPDES Phase 2 Report Public Hearing 5 MaylS, 2010 caught on site. We need people to address it at their property boundary level, so that not so much of it ends up in the public right of way and ends up down to the creek or the bay. That is the educational component that Chris just mentioned. That is where we are going to put a lot of focus over the next several months. MR. HUNTINGTON: Yes. And I understand too, that this is not yet a requirement. What I am saying is, let's put the emphasis there and this will cut to the quick and get rid of some of the other, if we finish, we don't have to file a report. Now, I know I am talking about never-never land here. But that is the point, the more you can do to get it down to real things that are done and make real improvements, the cheaper it is. COUNCILMAN TALBOT: Mr. Huntington, part of this report is a list of partner information and that is different groups that have worked with the town to get some of these things implemented. You had Laura Stephenson from the Peconic Estuary Program and it listed six different things that she did or worked with the town, public outreach, public participation projects, guidance, assistance on mapping, funding source for projects, watershed management plans and funding municipal equipment and then we had the Southold VOICE which worked on drain marking around the town and then the Group for the East End which was, held public stormwater seminars. Probably, as Supervisor Russell said, it might not be a bad idea because you do have a pretty tight knit group down there at Fleets Neck, maybe you guys could hold some of the educational seminars and start to work that certain sector of town as well. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Yes, provide a forum for us. MR. HUNTINGTON: Inaudible. COUNCILMAN TALBOT: I have just got one question. Who is the enemy you are talking about? Stormwater? MR. HUNTINGTON: Well, water is .... COUNCILMAN TALBOT: The people? MR. HUNTINGTON: Has obviously been pouring into the creeks and bays for 14,000 years so that is not the problem, it is what is in the water that could be the problem and that is what has to be identified. COUNCILMAN KRUPSKI: Well, we want to keep the water from flowing in also, because once it gets to the road, then it becomes a town wide problem. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: I think what Ray's suggestion is, do we need to, in other words, are some of these critical, is the water polluted? Is the water not polluted? We have done an awful lot of testing historically and the empirical data is there to suggest that stormwater runoff is a huge component to pollution or compromising these estuaries. Not every estuary but certainly we have identified Arshamomaque, Richmond and some Draft Annual SPDES Phase 2 Report Public Hearing 6 Mayl 8, 2010 of these other critical areas. And by state law we are addressing, and with federal help the DEP, we are addressing those first. We have invested a lot resources into that and I am surprised you said that you don't see a lot getting done. COUNCILMAN KRUPSKI: And actually, if you look at the contaminants that close down creeks to shellfishing, it is choliform bacteria and so were are the sources of choliform bacteria? It could possibly be defective septic systems but they are constantly being upgraded every time a house is redone on the water, so you think less and less of that, okay, the pet waste, people who walk their dogs on the road and it gets washed directly into the creek, there is some of that. But then think of how many deer are out them? All that waste. How many thousands of geese, how many hundreds of swans. All that waste is what contributes to the choliform bacteria which closes our creeks to shellfishing. MR. HUNTINGTON: The species that deposit the pollution that is counted as bacteria, that can be choliform bacteria, the species can be determined by DNA testing. COUNCILMAN KRUPSKI: Right. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: We have done some of that. MR. HUNTINGTON: And then we find out who the enemy is. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: And we have actually defined some of that. MR. HUNTINGTON: Yes. So that is what I am asking, with respect to Chris' comments about the community groups, I think that is terrific. And those groups have made good contributions. Our association too, we mapped every drain in our area on tax maps and showed where we would put up stream catch basins and things like that. The only problem is, none of them have been installed. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Well, again, we have handed to us these critical estuaries that we have been demanded that these get addressed first. Arshamomaque and some of those other ones. They are expensive capital projects that we are trying to address as best we can. Some of the other ones, again, although it might be a priority for Fleets Neck, that might not have come up high on the list of priorities for other reasons because of other jurisdictions involved. MR. HUNTINGTON: I don't mean to imply that (inaudible) not do everything we want to do, so we know we are headed towards priority identification of the targets but that is part that I am talking about in compliance. That is why we need the testing. We can't be curing everybody's complaint about the puddle here or this, that, them. we know we Can't. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: We know we can't. Draft Annual SPDES Phase 2 Report Public Hearing 7 Mayl8, 2010 MR. HUNTINGTON: We just want a fair share of what we can do and we want to make sure that we are operating as intelligently as we .can. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Thank you. MR. HUNTINGTON: Thank you. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Let's address Board please. BENJA SCHWARTZ: I am a bit confused, is this public hearing related to resolution 386? SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Yes. MR. SCHWARTZ: I kind of think that Louisa had a point when she said it was inappropriate to authorize execution of a compliance certification form prior to a public hearing. I mean, wouldn't the public heating be a factor in whether or not the report was accepted and wouldn't you want to hear from the public before you made your decision? COUNCILMAN TALBOT: Benja, I think because it states on here the public hearing relating to the content of the report on May 25, so it is going to remain open for another week. MR. SCHWARTZ: This here says that you are directing Supervisor Russell to execute the compliance certification form. COUNCILMAN TALBOT: In conjunction with the ..... MR. SCHWARTZ: Inaudible. As far as I can tell, we don't even have the report yet. When is the report coming? COUNCILMAN TALBOT: A copy of the report. If you read that, it says direct Supervisor Russell to execute the MS4 municipal compliance certification form in conjunction with the town's submission of its annual report following the close of the public hearing related to the content of the report of May 25. So we are giving him the okay to file it next week, after additional written comment. Yes, so we are giving the okay to file next week. MR. SCHWARTZ: What comes up at that hearing? There is no consideration of the substance of the public comment. COUNCILMAN TALBOT: mean? Additional information being added to the report you JUSTICE EVANS: We are giving him... Draft Annual SPDES Phase 2 Report Public Hearing 8 Mayl 8, 2010 MR. SCHWARTZ: Is there audible on this because the last meeting we couldn't hear anything that anybody said here. TOWN CLERK NEVILLE: Yes, you are. COUNCILMAN KRUPSKI: We can hear you. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Martin, will you please address this? TOWN ATTORNEY FINNEGAN: The resolution is necessary tonight because this has to be filed with the DEC prior to June 1. We do not have another Town Board meeting between now and then. This resolution does nothing more than authorize Scott subject to the approval of the Town Attorney, meaning once we close the public hearing and the comments are considered, he has the authorization of the Board to execute a certification which is one component of the reporting process. So, rather than call a special meeting o£the town board, that is what the resolution is accomplishing tonight. And it is not even effective until the close of the public hearing, we are getting comments tonight that will be considered in final draft of the annual report and to the extent that any other written comments are received in the next week, they will also be considered. But is just an authorization to execute one component of the report. MR. SCHWARTZ: And I assume that the bottom line is that the Supervisor will exercise his discretion whether or not it is appropriate to certify compliance on that form. COUNCILMAN KRUPSKI: Well, I think he will work with the appropriate staff who compiled the report to make the decisions. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Right. COUNCILMAN KRUPSKI: I mean, you look at the work of Mark Terry .... MR. SCHWARTZ: He is signing it, that is going to be his discretion. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: And it is going to be my liability, so you can bet that I will make sure that all of the public comment is considered. COUNCILMAN ORLANDO: And the New York DEC will review this and let us know if we have been compliant and done well with it. MR. SCHWARTZ: Okay. Communication you said is an important part of this and I had to look up today what this MS4 means and I wonder how many other people in the public know what the four S's are? You know, hopefully there will be some more communication. There were some comments made at the work session this morning that the priorities are often set in Southold Town politics by who complains the loudest. I have been here long enough to know that is tree but I have not become, have come to the point that I accept that is the way it should be. How should it be? If we are not going to Draft Annual SPDES Phase 2 Report Public Hearing 9 Mayl 8, 2010 judge a complaint by the volume of the speaker, then how do we evaluate and respond to a complaint? And I would submit to you that the answer would be the best informed complaint. Whoever is complaining who is providing constructive criticism and advice and suggestions and I think we need to come together as a community, Fleets Neck, all the various little neighborhoods in Southold Town. The only way we can do that is if this Town Board starts functioning as a, using modem methods of communication, etc. for example, there was a suggestion, well, that was another matter, I will stick to this matter. I submit that the communication of information should be pursued by all options. Not just your public hearings or public meetings, not just your advertisements in newspaper, flyers, posting on the website in the hall, I mean the bulletin board in the hall but also the website on line and at a previous meeting, I think I wasn't there, Supervisor Russell said the website was currently being worked on. I don't know what that means. I don't know what your plans are but all of this kind of information, I mean, there is not a page on the Southold Town website that pertains to the MS4, so if you are going to post a report there, that is great. I assume there will be a link from the home page, where everything else is thrown in. that is all I have to say about the MS4 matter. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Let me just ask you something. One of those things, I agree with all forms of communication, I actually just recently met with a consultant who I think offers us a lot of promise to updating our website and making a good, user friendly website. I mentioned that in the state of the town address. MR. SCHWARTZ: He offered you .... SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: A consultant who made a very compelling case for what we can do with the website as we look to update it. And I think we need to do that and I address that in the state of the town address. But information with the public, I think probably public meetings, going out and having community meetings, would agree that that is a good, good way of reaching that public and getting the message out there? MR. SCHWARTZ: I think the signs show that when you talk about things, a lot of what you say is easily forgotten and (inaudible) the pressure of a public appearance, it is difficult for people to express themselves and it helps if the public is informed prior the meeting of the subject of the meeting and if there is a successful agenda and also minutes of the meeting that are presented and there could be a follow up. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: But just, informal communications with the public. I mean .... MR. SCHWARTZ: Inaudible. A meeting is very important. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: It is, right? Because you criticized me when I did that last year at the Knights of Columbus. You accused me of having a meeting that wasn't duly noticed and that was a meeting with the community. Those types of meetings I think, are the best way of getting people involved in those issues. MS4 is a fairy dry subject. To get people to know about what that means and the requirements is to get out there and Draft Annual SPDES Phase 2 Report Public Hearing 10 Mayl8, 2010 answer questions and discuss those issues with the public on a regular basis. But when I did that, you criticized me. Communication... MR. SCHWARTZ: I criticized you because under the law, the open meetings law .... SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: There was me, meeting the community, there is no open meetings law issue that is pertinent here. I can go out and meet with the community and invite people to come and talk to me and ask me questions, no open meetings law issue involved. It is a public meeting, it is open .... MR. SCHWARTZ: If you have a majority of the Town Board or a quorum of the Town Board at a meeting, it should be advertised as a meeting of the Town Board .... SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: You don't understand that law then. MR. SCHWARTZ: That meeting was not advertised .... SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: It was a public meeting that was held by me, singularly. You don't understand the public... MR. SCHWARTZ: I was at that meeting. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Excuse me? MR. SCHWARTZ: I was at that meeting. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Yes, I know you were and I don't think you understand the open meetings law. MR. SCHWARTZ: I was not permitted to speak at that meeting. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Yes, you were. COUNCILMAN KRUPSKI: Just to answer your comment on the MS4 and the drainage and priorities and what Ray Huntington said about priorities, you know that every, and about people responding because the squeaky wheel gets the grease, you said it differently but it is the same thing, you know, every time there is a drainage issue in the town and the town goes around and we do have priorities, we tried to prioritize our shellfishing areas first. Arshamomaque pond, very important shellfishing area. A lot of work has been done there already over the last 20 years. Water quality improvements at the point of that area being open not conditionally but seasonally okay? A lot of work was done going back to John Bredemeyer, when he was on the Trustees. A lot of work was done in Mattituck inlet because that was an important shellfishing area. A lot of work spearheaded by Jim King and it is still ongoing, okay, there are still a few areas that need work but a tremendous amount of drainage work was done up them. the problem is, in town, every time you turn around every part of town needs a lot of work. And ray is Draft Annual SPDES Phase 2 Report Public Hearing 11 Mayl8, 2010 right about Fleets Neck. Some work was done because of Peggy Dickerson, a big project was done at the end of Pequash Road, okay? Well, it is probably an improvement from what it was. And the town roads were all designed to drain into the wetlands and into the creeks, so we did prioritize but there also, you know, you try to pick the low hanging fruit and when the highway department can do a project at the end of Old Harbor Road, they do it because they can do it. And it is not, it doesn't take a lot of planning or engineering or money. It gets done. So there are big projects like the one in New Suffolk that got done and there are smaller projects like drains that go in all year long. But it is, it is almost like a never ending thing because of the way the roads are designed. MR. SCHWARTZ: When you say, we did prioritize, who is we? COUNCILMAN KRUPSKI: The Town Board. Stormwater Committee. MR. SCHWARTZ: The Stormwater Committee or the Town Board? COUNCILMAN KRUPSKI: Both. MR. SCHWARTZ: My point is, it should be all of us. Including the public. The information should be available. Hopefully will be someday on the website. I don't believe that it is being put on the website as we speak. But we have one town engineer. It is a huge undertaking to remediate all the problems from the stormwater, what is it? The four s's? Municipal separate stormwater sewage .... COUNCILMAN KRUPSKI: Sanitation maybe? TOWN ATTORNEY FINNEGAN: Sewer systems. MR. SCHWARTZ: So that is a huge project and I have heard our town engineer lament that he needs a dozen compatriots to work with him to get the work done. So, I put to you, we have a lot of retired engineers in town and people in town. If they could be informed of what the town was doing, I think they could provide some excellent suggestions and options. There is a lot more than one way to crack a nut. We need to get all of our ideas together and think about all the various options, the cost of those options, the timeframe, the urgency and I do not believe for a minute that a priority list has been composed with a sufficient set of standards on which it was based. COUNCILMAN KRUPSKI: Actually that is not tree. MR. SCHWARTZ: I know that there has been a lot done and I commend you for that and I thank you but I think we need to do more. COUNCILMAN KRUPSKI: We have to keep doing it and it is a money issue. COUNCILMAN TALBOT: If we had all the money, we would do them all at the same time. Draft Annual SPDES Phase 2 Report Public Hearing 12 Mayl 8, 2010 COUNCILMAN ORLANDO: Now, Benja, you come to the majority of the work sessions and probably in the last 18 months it has been on the agenda work session at least six times. We have been asking people .... MR. SCHWARTZ: I haven't seen a priority list yet. COUNCILMAN ORLANDO: I mean, that is how long, Southold VOICE got involved in this... SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: We are busy running around trying to comply with the federal government right now but we will give you a priority list as soon as we can. MR. SCHWARTZ: No, I am not addressing you yet, sir. COUNCILMAN TALBOT: The... SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: I am on the Board here. COUNCILMAN ORLANDO: And Benja, that is now Southold VOICE got involved. They were at a work session, they heard us talking about MS4 over a year ago and they said, oh, we would like to help. So we have been talking ongoing for at least 18 months at work sessions all the time. COUNCILMAN TALBOT: How many roadways go down to, we have 70 road ends that bump into the bay or sound, right? SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: More. COUNCILMAN TALBOT: Mattituck .... There was, you know, Lillian Ball with that project in MR. SCHWARTZ: The question is, you are struggling right now to meet the legal deadline, I have heard a lot of jokes about getting thrown in jail if you don't meet the legal deadline to do the minimum required by law. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: No, we have actually .... MR. SCHWARTZ: I am saying that .... SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: You are misstating the facts. What we had trouble with is we have been so busy trying to address stormwater runoff over the years that we haven't gathered the data and the supporting documentation, so we are basically going back in time to gather that data. That is what that first report is about. It is about the data of what we have done and to outline what we plan on doing over the next several months. We have been so busy doing it .... Draft Annual SPDES Phase 2 Report Public Hearing 13 Mayl8, 2010 MR. SCHWARTZ: Very good. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: That we haven't taken the time to develop the .... MR. SCHWARTZ: My point is that you could be very busy but if focus on doing things more effectively, efficiently and communicating what you are doing as you do it, you won't have to go after the fact and document what you have done. It would already have been documented. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: I think we are ahead of most towns in the progress we have made. I think we probably will have, we probably have one of the best stormwater programs around. Them is a long way to go and there certainly is, to be sure, a lot of money to be invested as we go. Some, not as much as you think. Not every solution needs an engineer, solutions just need man hours but we have talked about creating that master plan, we are in the process of working on that now with Lome Brousseau and others creating that stormwater management plan. The implementation that Ray had just talked about. MR. SCHWARTZ: Do you think you have done everything in your power and do you think you could do or will be doing more in the future? SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: We will have no choice but to do more and we could always have done more but we have done quite a bit. MR. SCHWARTZ: Thank you. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Would anybody else like to address the Town Board on this public hearing? TOWN ATTORNEY FINNEGAN: This hearing is not being closed, it is will be open for seven (7) days for written comments. Copies of the draft annual report are available at the Town Clerk's office for review and just to add one more response, part of the public outreach that is anticipated in the coming year is to post all of the planning documents related to MS4 on the website, so that has already been contemplated. This hearing was left open for written comment until May 25, 2010 at 5:28 PM Southold Town Clerk