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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTB-08/07/2002 - FIGENERAL MEETING August 7,2002 1:30 P.M. A Regular Meeting of the Southold Town Board was held on August 7, 2002, at the Fishers Island School Auditorium, Fishers Island, New York. Supervisor Horton opened the meeting at 1:30 P.M. with the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag. Present: Supervisor Joshua Y. Horton Justice Louisa P. Evans Councilman William D. Moore Councilman John M. Romanelli Councilman Thomas H Wickham Town Clerk Elizabeth A. Neville Town Attorney Gregory A. Yakaboski Assistant Town Attorney Kathleen Murray SUPERVISOR HORTON: Good Afternoon, we are in the school gym. If I could ask you to rise and join with me in the Pledge to the Flag. At this point I would like to ask one of our loudest most demanding and most accessible and most forthcoming voices in the State of New York, Assemblywoman Pat Acompora, up here on the podium to join me. As well, I would like to ask our County Legislator Mike Caracciolo to join me as well. And I do want to start out by saying briefly thank-you all for coming here whether you came out in the SeaHawk with the County offices or you are a department head or an employee who is serving in Southold Town, I appreciate your participation in coming I really think that it is important to have the ability and the opportunity to not only see Fishers Island and meet with the residents of Fishers Island that care to meet with us so I certainly appreciate your participation. And for those of you from Fishers Island, again, I would like to thank- you all as well, this trip is about you. I have a long list of thanks but I will try to keep it very brief. I would first like to start out by thanking John Romanelli for being late for the boat this morning because without someone being late you don't have a boat trip. And I would like to extend enormous thanks to the staff of Southold Town, the highway department here on the Fishers Island side that met us here has been a tremendous help and has been a real asset in making this day work for us. I would like to thank my office, Ruthanne, Joanne, Liz, Martha, John Jerome, the staff at Southold Town Hall for a tremendous job in making my life very easy, as usual. So thank-you very much. I am going to roll this meeting right along, I'll give an opportunity for residents to ask questions of myself and the Town Board after we run through the printed agenda. But right now I would like to extend the opportunity and thanks to Pat Acampora to address you all. PATRICIA ACAMPORA, NYS ASSEMBLYWOMAN: Hi, everyone. The worse thing that could happen to a politician or elected official is that they lose their voice. So I will keep this short. It is always great to be here on Fishers Island and it is truly a paradise, certainly one of the best places in my district. I always come in person, I don't allow any of my staff to have a day off and come here and enjoy it, it is kind of selfish. I would like to thank John, for a great tour that he gave Ann Libassi and myself. Of course, this year you know that we had to work really hard to get the Constables to pass, so I think that you actually have the Constables that have the ability to have a real sense of police presence on the island. It took a lot of doing but we did it and ... (inaudible). This has been a tough year in the State, you all know that September 11 had huge long lasting repercussions to our economy, 2 we did a good job, we got the budget done almost on time this year. We had rainy day funds that we were able to dip into and so the State so far this year is on very sound footing. I am so pleased to see so many people from our State agencies, this year we are very fortunate to have our Commissioner from the Department of Motor Vehicle, Ray Martinez, we also have our acting person in charge of Department of Transportation Tom Oelerich here and of course Steve Halsey from the Governor's office. The Governor truly has been a very good partner in all the things that we have done particularly in regard to Fishers Island. Unfortunately, my partner Ken LaValle could not be here right now, he is out of state right now..(inaudible)...but I thank you for the opportunity and I thank the people of Fishers Island for being very gracious hosts and the members of the Town Board because I think that you get more attention on Fishers Island actually than any other place in the district by having all these wonderful people here from not only the State and the County and the Town departments and you should all take advantage of that. If government... (inaudible)... so thank you for hosting us and having a wonderful day, just keep you fingers crossed that the voice will come on the way back. Thank-you. MICHAEL CARACCIOLO, SUFFOLK COUNTY LEGISLATOR: Good Afternoon, everyone. Let me echo the remarks made by the Assemblywoman and if I could just request that representatives from numerous County Departments and Agencies present too numerous for me to acknowledge personally but I do think that the residents do deserve opportunity, just stand or wave your hand. Okay. As you can see there are a number of officials from various county departments and agencies and this is really an opportunity for you and them if there are issues related to their department to get together and share your concern or request for information whatever the case may be. I also would like to take this opportunity to not only welcome but request if the newly elected Sheriff of Suffolk County, A1 Tisch, could please stand so that we could meet our new Sheriff. Just briefly echo my thanks and appreciation to Supervisor Horton, members of the Town Board and the residents of Fishers Island for giving me the opportunity for the last 11 years to represent you in your county government. Without any further ado... (inaudible). . an opportunity to hear your concerns, I hope I will be able to respond to them so I look forward to that dialogue and to enjoy the rest of the day. Thank-you. SUPERVISOR HORTON: What I am going to do is may be an arduous process but I think that it is necessary because the residents of Fishers Island may have specific questions targeted to our various County, Town or State officials so what I would like to do if you are from the County or State, stand and state your name and your department. (List of County, State and Town officials present at Fishers Island meeting attached.) I think that we got everyone and I hope that was as much fun for you as it was for me. I was going to dazzle you all with my impressive memory because I had the whole list committed to memory but I thought it would be better to hear from people themselves. I just have to say that for me this is also interesting because what we have here is several people from several departments that actually have a direct effect on Fishers Island if we tap into the resource. Anywhere from, if you have an interest in historic preservation to land preservation. If you have a highway issue, we have Pete and the State DOT here. We have the Trustees, we have everybody spanning the gamut and if you have specific questions that come to your mind today, we will all be here. If you didn't catch a name or a department, come see me after the meeting and I will point you in the right direction. So I want to thank-you all for coming and we will commence the meeting at this point. What I would like to do at this point, as you all know at the public meetings of the Southold Town Board, we offer the public an opportunity prior to the reading of the printed resolutions, if you have a question or something that you would like to address in regards to any of the resolutions on the printed agenda I will offer you the opportunity to address the Board at this time. I would ask that you actually step to the podium so that we can get your name and place of residence for our records. Would anybody care to address the Town Board on the printed agenda? In that case, we are going to move right along. I. REPORTS 1. Southold Town Justice Court, Bruer - July 2002 II. RESOLUTIONS #517 Moved by Councilman Romanelli, seconded by Councilman Moore, it was RESOLVED that the Town Board of the Town of Southold hereby requests Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spoda to designate Southold Assistant Town Attorney Kathleen Murray~ as Special Assistant District Attorney, to serve at the pleasure of the Town Board. Vote of the Town Board: Aye: Councilman Wickham, Councilman Romanelli, Councilman Moore, Justice Evans, Supervisor Horton. 3 This resolution was duly ADOPTED. #518 Moved by Councilman Moore, seconded by Justice Evans, it was RESOLVED that the Town Board of the Town of Southold hereby authorizes and permits the Village of Greenport to install a 4' chain like fence around the "Baymen's Dock"~ Sandy Beach Road~ Greenport~ NY~ to curtail theft and vandalism at the dock, as attached. *map is being prepared and will follow .... The dock is located in Stirling Basin, in the Village of Greenport and the parking for the dock on Town Property (Sandy Beach Road). SUPERVISOR HORTON: ! would like to say that oftentimes there are very few ways that local government can interact with industry or business to actually protect it from most, we try our best, through legislation but this is one of those ways where we have a Baymen's Dock that has suffered, the people who use that dock, they keep their gear down there and they suffer quite a bit of vandalism so this is a joint effort between Southold Town and Greenport to protect that gear and make sure that when they go down to the boat in the morning they still have their clam rakes and all of their gear intact. Vote of the Town Board: Aye: Councilman Wickham, Councilman Romanelli, Councilman Moore, Justice Evans, Supervisor Horton. This resolution was duly ADOPTED. #519 Moved by Justice Evans, seconded by Councilman Wickham, it was RESOLVED that the Town Board of the Town of Southold hereby authorizes and directs Supervisor Joshua Y. Horton to sign a grant acceptance letter for the Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program (WHIP) for Dam Pond Preserve, in the amount $3,870, subject to the approval of the Town Attorney's Office. SUPERVISOR HORTON: Again, briefly on this the Dam Pond Preserve is something that has been in the works for quite some time between the Town and the County. And when we purchased a piece of property, it just doesn't fall into the Town and County's hands and then go left untouched, we reap a lot of benefits from the County, State and Federal government in regard to maintaining that property and assuring that it is accessible by the public and accessible to public standards. Again, this is a grant enabling us to maintain our preserve properties. Vote of the Town Board: Aye: Councilman Wickham, Councilman Romanelli, Councilman Moore, Justice Evans, Supervisor Horton. This resolution was duly ADOPTED. #52O Moved by Councilman Wickham, seconded by Councilman Romanelli, it was RESOLVED that the Town Board of the Town of Southold hereby accepts the resignation of Muriel Seiling from her position as part-time clerk in the Justice Court office effective July 31, 2002 SUPERVISOR HORTON: ! would like to say one thing about Muriel, who ! will acknowledge at our next Town Board meeting. Muriel is well into her 80's and served the Town faithfully, when she decided that she couldn't work full-time anymore, she went to three-quarter and then to part-time. During my first month as Supervisor ! had a tendency to not wear a jacket at the Town Board meetings and then ! showed up to say hello to the Justice clerks one Monday morning and Muriel said to me, "Mr. Supervisor, with all due respect, wear a jacket to the meetings." ! said, "Aye, aye." Please call the roll with regret. Vote of the Town Board: Aye: Councilman Wickham, Councilman Romanelli, Councilman Moore, Justice Evans, Supervisor Horton. This resolution was duly ADOPTED. #521 Moved by Councilman Romanelli, seconded by Justice Evans, it was RESOLVED that the Town Board of the Town of Southold authorizes and directs the Town Clerk to advertise for the position of School Crossing Guard for traffic post at Route 25 and Maple Avenue, Mattituck at the rate of $27.98 per day. Vote of the Town Board: Aye: Councilman Wickham, Councilman Romanelli, Councilman Moore, Justice Evans, Supervisor Horton. This resolution was duly ADOPTED. #522 4 Moved by Councilman Moore, seconded by Councilman Romanelli, it was RESOLVED that the Town Board of the Town of Southold hereby designates Ferry District Board of Commissioners Chairman Reynolds DuPont, Jr., Ferry District Manager Thomas Doherty, and Ferry District Assistant Manager Nina Schmid as signatories on the Fishers Island Ferry District's ATM account at Fleet Bank; said signatories are in addition to the Town Supervisor and Deputy Supervisor. Be it further RESOLVED that two signatures are required on all withdrawals by Ferry District Board of Commissioners Chairman Reynolds DuPont, Jr., Ferry District Manager Thomas Doherty, and Ferry District Assistant Manager Nina Schmid on the Fishers Island Ferry District's ATM account at Fleet Bank. Vote of the Town Board: Aye: Councilman Wickham, Councilman Romanelli, Councilman Moore, Justice Evans, Supervisor Horton. This resolution was duly ADOPTED. SUPERVISOR HORTON: That concludes the reading and the voting on the printed agenda and the resolutions, at this point, I would like to make available to the residents on Fishers Island the Town Board for Town related business. AL STICKNEY, CO-PRESIDENT FISHERS ISLAND CIVIC ASSOCIATION: My name is A1 Stickney, I am Co-President of the Civic Association and in behalf of the Civic Association we would like to thank you all for coming, we appreciate you taking the time off and it is great to meet everybody and to see some familiar faces. Thank you all. I have three questions, one could we actually get a status of the constable situation, has it been passed and so forth. SUPERVISOR HORTON: I will answer that right now actually. As Assemblywoman Acampora mentioned the bill has passed the House and Assemblywoman Acampora pushed really, really hard and probably expended a lot of political capital to move that. There was quite a bit of opposition to it, so the Assembly has passed it, Senator LaValle also went to bat for us and the Senate passed us and it is now either in transit to the Governor's office or in the Governor's office to have the finalization of that bill. AL STICKNEY: Is there any date certain on that? SUPERVISOR HORTON: There are no particular or determined dates on that but it will be in the near future and it is accompanied with a letter of support by myself, the President of the Police Benevolent Association, the Union and Chief Cochran as well. AL STICKNEY: This will I assume, give the constables full power to be basically policemen? SUPERVISOR HORTON: They will have to go to training and it will give them civil and criminal authority, if they are going to carry a side-arm or a fire-arm they will have to do so under the special private permit. AL STICKNEY: That's great. Thank-you so much for all of your efforts. SUPERVISOR HORTON: After the meeting, actually, a representative from the governor's office is here, Steve Halsey, I can point you in his direction and you can have a one-on-one discussion with him if you would like to do that. AL STICKNEY: Well, the main thing is to make sure that things are moving along and it sounds like they are. SUPERVISOR HORTON: Yes, everyone has worked very hard on it, right from the Town of Southold to the Governor's office. AL STICKNEY: The second question is-we have some comments made to me and I think that I know the background now and the answer to the question-it would be great going forward next year to have some sort of a second notice for our tax payments sent out. I know that some of the people been done 10%, I hope that is not a major revenue source for the Town but it would be great. I understand that Marilyn passed away and I am very sorry about that and I am sure there was some disruption as a result of that. It makes life easier because some of us have senior moments when paying bills. SUPERVISOR HORTON: I will address that very briefly, that was an unfortunate decision, one that did lead to a bit of chaos and some misunderstanding between the Town and our residents and I think that the Tax Receiver's office will decide next year to send that second notice out. AL STICKNEY: Thank-you. The last thing is that I would like to thank Peter Harris for getting the line painted on our streets and providing the reflectors and so forth. They were definitely needed and hopefully they will last for quite a while. It is a safety measure as you can imagine. Thank-you again for coming. SUPERVISOR HORTON: Likewise. Thank-you very much. Would anybody else care to address the Town Board? Are there members of the Town Board who would like to impart anything to the residents of Fishers Island? JUSTICE EVANS: I have a couple. I wanted to thank a couple of people. The Department of Motor Vehicles sends a crew out every year to take care of licensing and registration, sort of full service Department of Motor Vehicles on the island for the day. It is extremely helpful to the people out here not to have to travel all the way out to Riverhead to do licensing, so thank you very much for doing that. Also, thank-you for the hard work that both of you did for the Constables and hopefully the Governor will sign that and we will get that on its way. I also want to thank the School Board for letting us use the school and the Highway Department, particularly Joe Corrigan because be set up all of the seats and the tables and everything all by himself this year. Great, now I know that he can do it so he will probably do it every year. Also, Mike Imbriglio-who is not here-but he set up the sound system so thank him. And everyone else thank-you to the residents of Fishers Island for participating in this and for all of the people in the Town, County and State for coming, it really does afford us an opportunity to meet face-to-face with people, get questions asked that we don't have a chance the rest of the year to do. Thank-you for all of that. I wish that more people would ask questions because this is really your opportunity to ask the Town Board or afterwards to catch some of the other people here. Also, if there are any Fishers Island residents who have children or grand-children in the car seat or booster seat stage, Southold Town Police are doing a safety seat, child seat check to make sure that you are installing them properly and they are also giving away free booster seats for your four year olds who are also 40 pounds, so it is an opportunity to make sure that your children are safe in your car. Thank you for coming. SUPERVISOR HORTON: I would like to mention an initiative that we have launched in Southold Town, something that I am working on with the Trustees for this tremendously hard-working Board and the Highway Department and our Conservation Advisory Committee, what we have done is first acknowledge the impact that storm water run-off and road run-off has on our estuaries any of our inlets and tributaries and even any of our beaches ends, to that end we have set out on an inventory mission. We are inventorying all road ends that touch or near the waters edge. Once we inventory all of those, we will prioritize through the means of science and working with Cornell and our Trustees to prioritize what road ends are having the most negative impact on our estuaries and inlets. Once we prioritize those, I have been working with the Department of State who has been extremely receptive and the County to move forward with seeking funding for storm water mitigation that will have a long-term effect of revitalizing and keeping in good health, our estuaries. The effect that that has on the public are extensive and long lasting. Fishers Island is certainly included in that and the Trustees have a tremendous amount of information compiled about Fishers Island, your inlets and all of the waters edge, we are looking at that extensively. That is something that will be included under the local waterfront revitalization plan and the ongoing initiative that the Town Board has already made a commitment to. I want to let you know that we are keeping an eye on the waterfront, without a doubt. At this point, if there are no further questions we will close the meeting. I do want to thank the school and say how impressed I am with this school. I walked down the hallway and noticed a few things that really stood out to me. One was a picture of the schooner Harvey Gannidge. It was kind of touching to me because I was actually on that schooner, as she was a sail education vessel, I was on that ship when we were working with the Fishers Island students. I thought that was fantastic to see a picture of her up on the wall, there is no educational connection like being in touch with your natural surroundings there is nothing more empowering than that. As well, I noticed a book in the library of America's Cup defenders so hats off to the librarian who ordered that. I also noticed that you have a bit of a garden area with a greenhouse, I would like to speak to somebody to know more about the program that revolves around, I am assuming that you have a growing effort here so I think that is fantastic. It looks like a lot of hand-on, experiential education on Fishers Island. So with that I will close this meeting. 6 Moved by Councilman Romanelli, seconded by Justice Evans, it was RESOLVED that this Town Board meeting on Fishers Island be and hereby is adjourned at 2:06 P.M. Vote of the Town Board: Aye: Councilman Wickham, Councilman Romanelli, Councilman Moore, Justice Evans, Supervisor Horton. This resolution was duly ADOPTED. Elizabeth A. Neville Southold Town Clerk