Town Board Meeting
Denean, can you take roll call, please? Supervisor Flaherty Here. Councilwoman Cataldi Present. Councilman Cahill Councilman Cahill He's here. He's a coming. Councilwoman Wynn Here. Councilwoman Wright Here. Attorney for the town, Taylor Here. Okay. Our first item up tonight is a proclamation. These are one of the more fun things to do and Patty, is this something that you are involved in? Yes, I have been involved in it. Okay. And is Do you know who is here tonight, if anybody from the I see I see Missy and her husband and Missy, you're going to have to help fill me in on who else is here. So, if you want to take to the podium and let us know and And and actually You know what? You know what I would really like? I'm afraid you're going to have to and Jenny, would you take care of this? I think it's only appropriate for what this proclamation is about. I almost want to send you up there, too, Denean. My name is Missy Rosenberg and I am the first vice president of the Women's Club of Webster
and with me tonight is Diana Holzwasser who is our president. Welcome to both of you. Thank you for being here. And I have the honor of reading the proclamation for outstanding service presented the Women's Club of Webster. Whereas 2025, excuse me, marks the 60th anniversary of the Women's Club of Webster which was officially organized on June 15th, 1965 and whereas the idea to form the club originated from five women: Beverly Ashcroft, Ruth Jacques, Betty Picard, Marjorie Spear, and Nancy Thomas. These women wanted to promote the cultural, civic, educational, and social aims of the community. And whereas their motto, "Friendship through service", has been well defined in the town of Webster and beyond. And whereas the Women's Club of Webster supports our community through service projects, including providing cookies and support for Red Cross blood drives, and sponsoring collections for group projects and charities such as Webster Hope. And whereas over the past 60
years, the club has raised money to support programs in the Webster community, including the Webster Public Library, the Webster Museum, Webster Community Chest, Hope House, Challenger Miracle Field, and several other agencies in Webster, and the city of Rochester. And whereas the Women's Club of Club of Webster continues to host monthly luncheons and regular social activities, including an annual card party and fashion show. Now, therefore, be it resolved on behalf of the Town Webster Town Board and the entire Webster community, we extend our sincerest congratulations to the Women's Club of Webster on its 60th anniversary. Congratulations. I have some very brief remarks, and they will be very brief because Gail and team, you guys aren't here to hear me tonight. Okay. I am. Oh, okay, Tom. But they've learned about the club now. Yeah, well, I was thinking about this and I was thinking back to about two years ago when I was first invited to be a member of the Women's Club of Webster.
And I got to admit, I'm thinking that these are probably some sweet old ladies who like to sit around and drink tea and nibble on crumpets, and I really didn't know what I was getting into. But, it didn't take me long to realize that it was a lot more than that. Uh this club plays an extremely important role in our community, not only through the donations that we give to the community agencies that Patty mentioned, but also through the friendships and the connections that we make, the social connections that we make within the club as well, because of There's one thing that we've learned as we get older, that social connections is one of the most important things that we can do for ourselves to keep ourselves healthy. Now, in the last 2 years, I've made some amazing friends, we shared a lot of laughs. Um I found a whole lot of rewarding ways to give back, and that's what this club is all about, and it's been what this club's been about since that first meeting around a kitchen table in 1965. So, on behalf of President Holsclaw sir, and all of us at the Women's Club, thank you for the town of Webster and the board for this proclamation. It's truly an honor to be recognized by the town that we are dedicated to serve. So, thank you again very much.
Thank you. We're very grateful. Thank you. Thank you. THANK YOU VERY MUCH. UM SO, UH FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVE COME to these board meetings before, uh and if you have the agendas out there in in the audience, uh um town supervisor has uh very little executive privilege. It's more of a hybrid legislative position. We vote as a town board on things, and I'm just one of five votes. But, we do have a few executive privileges, don't we, Kyle? And one of them is I I can take some latitude with the agenda and move things around, and I'm going to use that tonight. I'm going to move to the next in line before the open to the floor. I'm going to move resolution eight up to being voted on right now, and I'm going to for I'm going to not forewarn, I'm going to tell everybody that this resolution pertaining to a proposed Creekside cell tower site in advance of the planning board review. And this resolution has to do with the seeker Nagduck and also the lease. It will be tabled. It will not be done tonight. Um
I'm going to let Kyle explain that in a second, but because I'm pretty aware that most of you here I thought you were here to hear Missy. But I'm guessing you're here about the cell tower, so I want to let everybody know that there is no vote on that tonight. We are going to table it. It will therefore not go to the planning board on August 5th. My guess is if the things that Kyle will explain to you in a second uh get resolved that it will be back here on August 7th for referral to the planning board. And if that occurs, then it would hit the planning board sometime in early uh September. I think their September planning board is September 2nd. Um but before I hand it to Kyle, I just want to make sure cuz some of you are very familiar faces, but I want to make sure uh everybody knows just this quick 60-second backstory on this. On June 5th, we had a public hearing in this board room regarding this cell tower. Um I pronounced your name wrong. Is it Zawacki or is Zawacki. Zawack Ms. Zawacki and the Remingtons came and they spoke at the public hearing about their uh uh being opposed to the cell tower. And that's how It's great. That's how government works, right?
On July 3rd, 4 weeks later, uh 2 weeks ago tonight, we were um in here to I think to a resolution about either handling it at the town board level or do we decide to send it on to the planning board. A lot more people came in to speak from the podium that night. Um so we made a decision to refer it to the planning board that night and did that resolution. That night, Verizon's attorney, Mr. Bergdorf here, said to Kyle and I, "Hey, when you referred that over to the planning board, you didn't tie up some loose ends on the seeker, which is the state environmental quality review act, and you didn't authorize the lease, and you're going to have to do those housekeeping items to tie that up before you can send it to the planning board." I said, "That's not a problem. We'll we'll queue it up for July 17th." I listened to the people that came on July 3rd and how they said, and I'm paraphrasing, "You at the town think you're communicating out to this. You're not. We don't know about these things. I live four houses off, whatever." I said, "Okay, you know, I don't like to hold just to law because law isn't
always ethical and moral and whatever." So, we stepped back and we said, "Well, what do you think we should do on this?" And so last Friday, uh which was I think the 11th, 305 letters went out to residents on streets that the street was if the street was within 1,500 ft of the proposed site, residents of that street got this letter that spelled out the process. We also had 180 email addresses, and that day we sent out that same letter to the email addresses we had, so we felt as though those residents, at least the 180 out of the 300 we had emails, they would get double communication on it. And I'm assuming it worked because that's how many of you who are new faces and wonderful faces are here tonight. And as you probably remember, if you got the letter on you, it said we're going to do this vote tonight, move it to the planning board, the planning board will be the 5th. Well, guess what? It's not a perfect world. We find out in this fluid aspect that some things that now I'm going to hand the baton to Kyle of why we're tabling it tonight. You're up, Kyle. Thank you, supervisor.
Uh So, as you already explained, the this was on the agenda tonight for the town board to review the lease agreement and uh conduct a seeker review because it's a a lease for real property prior to referral to the planning board, the uh town board will engage in You can't hear me? Oh, I can hear you. You've got to talk like right onto the speaker. Normally, it it picks up from quite some Yeah. Okay. I feel like I'm way way on top over here. There we go. Thumbs up. There we go. So, the the town board as part of the process in reviewing this lease agreement will conduct a thorough environmental review under seeker. Um the applicant has provided the uh part one environmental assessment form. In reviewing the documents, the town has requested some additional information, which is forthcoming from the applicant, which will assist this board in completing that review. Um so, for that reason, uh my recommendation is to table this to allow the applicant to provide that information. At the next meeting, uh the or presumably the next meeting, the town board will be able to complete their review and then refer this to the planning board, and the planning board will also conduct their own review, and at that point review the uh the
application itself, assuming the the town board does make that recommendation. Right. Now, does the town board members have any questions about that? Uh mood lighting, Donna. Wonderful. Um would anybody like a cocktail while we're considering this? Uh Candles, please. Okay. Jennifer, any questions on this? No questions, thank you. Patty. No questions, thank you. Jenny. No question. John. No, I am fine. Thank you. I make a motion to table uh the resolution to refer the propo- sorry. Uh where am I here? The pertaining to the proposed Creekside cell tower site in advance of the planning board review. Second. Supervisor Flaherty. Aye. Councilman Cahill. Aye. Councilwoman Cataldi. Aye. Councilwoman Wynn. Aye. Councilwoman Wright. Aye. Okay. Now, we will move on in the sequence that was on the agenda that every if people have the copies of it, which is my favorite part of the board meetings, the open to the public, where each speaker will be allowed up to 5 minutes to say pretty much anything they want as long as it's not uh super R-rated where I have to censor you and
cancel you. Um I do want to just give a couple of uh ground rules to this uh part of the board meeting. Um number one, and and people who are frequent flyers here like the Remingtons and Mrs. Waggy, um it's 5 minutes. The worst part of my job as supervisor by far the last 5 and 1/2 years is when I got to say, "You're at 4 minutes and 50 seconds." Because I can say it soft, I can say it with a smile, I can be mean, there's no way that that doesn't across as ticking somebody off. Please don't put me in that position. I will say this. Ms. Zawacki and the Remingtons, I was shocked at how efficient they were back on June 5th. Each one of them was almost exactly 3 minutes and 10 seconds on the podium. It was phenomenal. Now, on July 3rd, it 4 weeks later, I was put in that position where I had to be the buzzkill saying, "You're at 5 minutes. You're at 5 and 1/2 minutes." And people kept on going. Please don't put me in that position. Be respectful to the fact that there are several people that signed in for this
tonight, okay? Second rule, and a little bit quicker. 5 minutes. You get up there, you can say anything, which people sometimes say they take the opportunity to ask questions. I want the town board to answer this question, and sometimes they rattle off five questions, 10 questions, 15 questions. We are not here when you're done at that 5 minutes to answer those questions. Offline, we will get for you those answers if we can hook you up with the correct department head or person in town governance that can, but we do not do that tonight point of sale. And last but not least is the only people that speak are at the podium. So, you'll speak at the podium, and potentially somebody will get up there with a counter position to what you have, and if you're in the crowd, we have chaos if all you say, "Oh, that's not true. That's not true." Please don't do that. Have the respect of who is up at the podium to give their speaking, just like they will have the respect for you at that podium, because it's very possible that 10 of you will have the same position,
and you might, when the person's done, clap. Okay. But, when somebody gets up there and has a counter position to you, it is not acceptable to sit here and catcall from the audience. Those are my rules. Or, they're not really my rules. Those are just the common sense rules of conduct so we don't become animals. With that being said, our first speaker tonight is Kevin Lockhart. Hello. My name is Kevin Lockhart from 100 S.U. Kettellberger Park. I came here today to support the people who came out to give their opinion on the Creekside cell tower and ask you all to reconsider appointing the steering board committee. Um that is number 11 on the agenda tonight. I made a big fuss over the last couple of weeks about getting this resolution put onto the town board, but I'm here today because after we took after I was able to and the town were able to negotiate a point where this decision was taken was taken off of the town supervisor and put onto the town board as it should have been. The issue
still remains that the appointment process and the selection process occurred in a meeting with the village mayor between the village mayor and between the town supervisor privately and along with they sent it over to the New York State Melissa Color for review on the project to approve the step. And the result is that the selection process was not open to the public. Um people did not know about it. They weren't allowed to participate or even have an opportunity to participate. Of the people who the 14 or 15 or so people who were allowed to apply to the steering committee. They which is a very very important advisory board that the town of Webster is deliberating about forming tonight. But actually it's questionable whether they legally can because the town it's the town supervisor appointed handpicked every single person on the committee for the comprehensive plan steering committee. And Jen sits is a town board member who sits on the committee. So how are they both going to vote for yes to pass this? They have to recuse themselves because the the supervisor had a direct hand in selecting the committee. He's directly
involved in the process because it was not a closed process. It was not deliberated by the planning board for instance. It was done privately. We're 7 months down the line from the CP from the comprehensive plan committee first kickoff meeting back in around January. I think it was January 20th. And there's been about two meetings so far. And the meet the steering committee only just recently convened and had like a a semi-formal meeting prior so they were I was making a big fuss because the steering committee was not appointed until supposedly tonight, but the process is very I'm very skeptical of the process because they're only doing this because I pigeonholed them into a very uncomfortable corner and outlined a series of unfortunate facts related to the towns source from the town's own documents showing that they were not following town law 272 about forming a steering committee and how to go on about doing that. So the only way we can make up for the discrimination the the emails being just so bizarre and offensive in some cases when I was starting with of them reviewing
all the documents, and at one point they named me, I think I mentioned this last time, they named me specifically and said, "We're going to come up with messaging to discredit Kevin." So, the town put the communications department together with the planning department, and they they colluded to come up with messaging. What that messaging is, I don't know. Maybe they're using that messaging tonight. Maybe an application to the steering committee topic, or maybe an application to the Creekside cell tower. But, at the end of the day, I get the sense that these people are trying to build consensus. I'm very skeptical of the whole process to date. I don't Nobody was allowed to apply for the most important steering committee. It's deeply offensive the way that this board is disregarding all the people, the way that the town supervisor thinks that he has the privilege to appoint every single member of the steering committee, give two seats to the same organization, cut everybody out. They have three steering committees assembled and active at this point, if I'm not mistaken. It's just a conglomerate of all the town officials, and they include each other, but then they exclude us in the most ridiculous ways. So, I'm asking tonight to recuse yourselves, and rightfully so,
therefore producing what is fundamentally not a quorum. You would not have four voting members in this case. So, I believe that tonight it would be utterly offensive to the people of Webster. Sorry, I was just at the city hall in Rochester. I had to They I'm like, okay. So, it would just be utterly offensive to everybody in Webster. They show such brazen disregard towards us in many ways, like including you have 4 4 minutes and 50 seconds and DON'T DON'T DON'T INTERRUPT ME, YOU YOU BUFFOON. Stop it. You're acting like you're acting classless, supervisor. I'm telling I'm being very serious right now about the comprehensive plan and the selection process that you absolutely fumbled. And I think this town needs to make a darn good effort tonight to begin to correct the course on this on the revision of this document. And it just goes to show a pattern of misbehavior by this town that defers judgment for lack of a better term. And I don't appreciate being treated this way and for you to be mistreating these taxpayers, either. What's the time, supervisor? Uh it's 11:00 time. Do you have any questions for me
tonight? Do you understand what is expected of you tonight? Thank you, Kevin. To recuse yourself. Thank you, Kevin. Okay. Thank you. tonight is Mark Avallone. My name is Mark Avallone. I live at Gravel Road. I'm a service connected disabled veteran. I was the first 100 World War Gulf War. And uh me and Thomas had a appointment to speak. And he failed. I just want an appointment with him to speak about an issue I have. Can I get that? Mark, I I said I was going to answer questions and I'm going to be honest with you for your privacy, both HIPAA and legally, I am not going to talk about this right now. So, is that all you have? I just want an appointment with you. Okay. And is is that it? Yes. Okay. Thank you. So, you're failing to appoint me. Okay. You You know why No, I don't. that
Yes, you do. Yes, you do. And we'll talk about it offline, okay? And if like I said, for your HIPAA and your legal rights, I'm not going to get into details of the Webster Police Department and what is going on. Thank you, Mark. I appreciate you coming tonight. Okay, our next speaker is Brian Bixler. Thank you so much. Brian Bixler, 1223 Scenic Circle. I came to express my opposition to the cell tower for just a couple points. Um, one is the expressed need lack of coverage. Myself and my neighbors have not experienced that. Um, it in that area, so I challenge that. Secondly, the proposed site is not declared, but certainly functionally green space. Um, disrupting that would be disruptive to the wildlife there, certainly to Milk Creek. Um, you know, I'm I know you're going to do an environmental survey, but you know, we'll see how that works out. Uh, secondly, I do believe, you know, should you prove need due to lack of coverage, there are other locations
nearby that are industrialized. They may not be town property, but areas that would certainly less be less disruptive to the community and their neighbors. And finally, I cannot imagine that the savings in my town property taxes through a reduced assessment is going to offset the actual reduction of my property value. So, thank you. Thank you. Can I just say I'm going to clap, too, because 1 minute and 3 seconds, he is the MVP right now, by far. We'll see. Uh Rick, where's Rick? Rick, you don't get his extra 4 minutes. No, you do not. If if right now nobody can hear that and they're video taping this, anybody watching at home live or they have no idea name is Rick Steraci. goes. And I live at 1491 Providence Drive. I've been a resident of Town of Webster for 20 20 years. So, like they say, you know, time flies when you're having fun.
Um so, I'm here to to urge you to deny this application for the proposal of the 135-ft cell tower. Uh first of all, it's the wrong location. You know, it's in a residential area. It's near homes, where children play, where people go out and enjoy the the uh area. And a cell tower that height is going to hurt the character of the neighborhood. All right? 135-ft structure will dramatically alter the landscape. Okay, you're going to see this from everywhere. All right? In addition to that, studies have shown that home values decrease on the average of 20% when they're close to a cell tower. Okay? So, now more importantly, I think, than than the value of everybody's house, which is important everybody, is the potential health hazards. There's been a lot of studies, a lot of studies around the world, a lot in Europe, very few in the US, which is surprising, or maybe not surprising. But, I think what happens is the people who want to put the cell tower here will cite the fact that
they are well within the FCC guidelines, okay? But they don't tell everybody that the guidelines that they're talking about are 25 years old. I'm in the electronics business and I know that the ability of or the capability of these cell towers now are way different, way more powerful than they were 25 years ago when they wrote these these guidelines. The other thing is it's been proven, it's been studied that young children, and we have a lot of young children in that neighborhood. I know in on Providence Drive we have a lot of new families moving in with very young children. Young children have their their their systems have not fully developed. Their their immune systems have not fully developed. Some of them, you know, a younger very very young children have thinner skulls yet. They haven't fully developed. So, that radiation over time is going to build up, right? And against somebody that doesn't have a fully developed immune system, it's going to hurt them. And nobody in this room will be around when those kids are affected, including the people who want to put the cell tower in. Right? The the the the World Health Organization in 2011 declared radiation
from cell towers to potentially be a a class 2B carcinogen. And a carcinogen is something that causes cancer according to that organization. So, do we really want to put this cell tower next to houses, next to homes, next to families? Right? This doesn't make a lot of sense. The other impact, and somebody else said it, is the impact on wildlife. You know, birds, animals, this thing's right above the creek. So, what's going on? We're going to we're going to throw radiation on the creek? We're going to throw radiation into the air? Right? It's going to it's going to pose a lot of problems for birds, the bats that are everywhere, which eat the insects, right? So, the ecosystem that's that's in that area is also going to be affected. Okay? Fish Fish are in that creek all the time. Do we want those fish to be irradiated? Yeah, they'd make them bigger, but certainly not better. Right? There's got to be an alternative, and we really should be asking for an alternative. So, I'm going to ask the community. I'm going to ask our board here to demand some things from the people who want to put this cell tower in.
All right? Find a safer location. I don't want it around the houses. We got a lot of industrial areas. We've got a lot of areas that would not be affecting families. All right? Demand the environmental evaluation, but do it pick a third party that has nothing to do with the people that are going to benefit from putting in the cell tower. All right? You got to get a third party that's totally independent. All right? I'm going to ask this board prioritize the taxpayers and the citizens of Webster. Okay? Prioritize our future, our grandchildren, our children, their children's future. All right? I don't want another Love Canal here. I know it's not that bad yet, but that's what they said about Love Canal. All right? So, I have a a bunch of documents that I'd like to give to the board or the planning board, you tell me which one. All right? And again, I'm going to urge you to look for a better solution. making friends. He's at 4:55 right now. done. So, thank you for your time. All right. And you know what? Josh, can you take those, and we can get them to the town board? Right now, we don't need to get into the planning board because it hasn't been referred to the planning board. you six copies. THANKS, RICK.
I TIM, YOU HAVE NICE HANDWRITING, BUT it's really Is it Tim Clymer? How what It's Clayback. Clayback. Clayback. Okay. Okay. Well, we'll we'll get it. Yeah. I'm uh Tim Clayback, a resident of uh Providence Drive. Been in Webster about 13 years now. Um so I'd just like to say that as far as this cell tower proposal, um I I have serious concerns about long-term health effects. I mean it's really only the last 25 years that we've been putting up these towers and it's and increasing exponentially. There's no good long-term studies of the health effects of cell tower radiation, particularly on children. And if you were to go to the uh American Cancer Society they say at this time there's no strong evidence that exposure to RF waves from cell phone towers causes any adverse health effects. However, this does not mean the RF waves from cell phone towers have been proven to be absolutely safe. Most expert organizations agree that more research is needed to help clarify this, especially for any possible long-term effects. So, like Rick brought up earlier um we have we have children that are in their developmental stages and nobody in
scientific community can say what the effects of cell tower radiation will be when they're hitting their 30s or 40s or 50s later on in life. So, you know, we have mostly older people in this room. It's not going to affect us. We don't know how to to affect these children, right? If you were to walk out on Lawton Flower tonight, there's many young children riding their bikes, playing ball, doing those type of typical childhood sometime activities. I think the board owes it to the next generation to look out for their welfare. Um another thing I'd like to say is that there there's I think many other alternative sites within the town of Webster that are commercial or industrial zoned that make a much better op- opportunity for cell tower location than a residential community, especially over with Mill Creek. Um And the last thing I would like to say is I just like the town board to make sure they're taking into consideration the the residents of Webster. Uh nothing against capitalism, corporations, but Verizon is a $170 billion market cap value company. It's one of the top 100 most valuable companies in the entire world. Their interests are different than what are ours are. Please take our interests into consideration as you take this matter under advisement. Thank you. THANK YOU, TIM.
LORI BARR IS NEXT. I'M HERE FOR three sec. Yep, I'm here for three sec. Okay, so Lori No, I'm I'm giving my time to Teresa cuz she was late to sign So you you do you don't want to speak tonight? No, sir. Okay. Call the coach. I'm just kidding. Yes, I I was late cuz I um coaching my my son's Little League team, Savannah Bananas. Yes. Um Um thank you. It's great to see all of these um faces here and all of our neighbors. It shows that there is truly um a feeling about this. There is definitely um an impact to the community. Um like many of us, we're here because I'm here because we believe the proposed tower is being placed in the wrong location. And we're asking to stand up for the residents you represent. The last meeting, it was stated that alternative locations could be provided to the board. My question is, has that list been provided to the board?
Has that been reviewed? Uh the gentleman here spoke in the last meeting that, you know, some of the locations were denied because they were, number one, residential areas. I think this is a residential area. Another another reason why other locations were denied was because they were wetlands. And I'm pretty sure on the map of what the packet says it it's list some wetlands right around there. So, I I just want to follow up on that to make that make that point. Um because before approving a project that impacts our neighborhood forever, the full the community deserves a full transparency to know that every reasonable alternative has been explored. Again, I've said this before, we're not opposed to improved service, we're not opposed to technology. We're opposed to sacrificing these residential areas. Webster is beautiful, it says right behind you, it's worth it's worth living. I'm not sure if it is when you have a cell phone tower in your backyard with all of those unknown risks. Um Verizon has re- has resources to relocate the tower. Um
but will only do that if we if we ask for that. Other towns have done this. Other towns have said no to these things. Um you have that right and the responsibility to do it here. This is not just about a tower. It's about protecting property values, preserving the character of our neighborhood, and standing up for the people who live here. Not large corporations, as we know that Verizon is not small. We're simply asking you to do what is right for the people. The board, you have a choice. Okay? You can approve something from a little piece of land, get a little cash. You can do that. Um it'll benefit Will it benefit each of us? I don't have any problem with my cell phone service. And no one in the neighborhood does. So, it's kind of kind of weird. Um but anyways I I again, you have a choice. You have something that can benefit Verizon or you can advocate for a solution that respects our community and our residents. These residents. And
we hope you choose to protect and respect your residents. Thank you. THANKS, TERESA. PAT ADKINS IS UP. CAN everyone hear me? Yes. Hi, Pat. My problem is I don't have a hearing problem, but there many friends have said there's problems hearing online. So, here I am. I am the direct line straight beyond my back door where the cell tower will be placed. I have not had anyone from Verizon to come say here's what you will see. Here's what will be taken out from this wonderful natural setting that does impact the natural area that has been reduced
by the tremendous, although I do understand, monies um buildings in the area. I get all that. No one has come and said, "Here's what you will see out your back window." Along my house, there is a town road that leads to a sewer pumping station. They access it twice a day, understandable, at my continual nagging, we'll leave it at that, it was finally put a chain link fence that can only be accessed by those people. We had, you can look it up, drug deals going on back there. We had dumping of stuff that shouldn't be there even though it says private property, do not be here. No one's come. So, I agree with
everything with the technology. I understand all of that, but personally, nobody's knocked on my door to tell me what is going to go on with my house. I don't know whether the trees that I look at, yes, my property ends at the creek. I don't know the trees beyond that if they're going to be cut down and now I'm going to look at a tower that, because of the height, has to have by law flashing lights on it. I have no idea. No one has come and knocked on my door. So, it is very personal for me. I agree with all of the other people who have talked. But, this is what has bothered me. I admit I'm late to the party. I've taken care of my 94-year-old parent and just buried my dad. So, I'm late to the party, but I still want answers. Thank you. Thank you, BETH. THANKS, BETH. OH, BOY. I AM VERY CONCERNED. I'm going to not going to make out well with this
name. Is it Miriam Janke? Miriam Janke. NOT TOO BAD. SO, thank you. I'm not as prepared as I normally would be. I did just find out, thank goodness for neighbors telling me about this cell phone tower. So, I just have a few words and I'm sure I'll make up time. What is your address, Beth? ma'am? I'm sorry. Sure. So, I live at 456 Time Drive. Yeah. And Miriam, can I just say I I couple people from Time reached out to me this week, not Time magazine, Time Drive. Yeah. And said, "Why didn't we get the letter?" And I said, "Yeah, we we And I said this earlier, we we sent it out to any street that was in 1,500 ft. Time is beyond that." Um so, we didn't send it out to Time, but Okay. Sorry about that. But, I'm glad you found out. neighbors that are always sharing. So, perfect. So, um I am a recent cancer survivor. Um and as a result, I'm pretty concerned about uh the installation, the proposed installation of the tower.
I've had radiation, um and it has lasting effects. And so, um you know, I hear about this and you know, I'm now I'm getting upset and I apologize. Um but I don't ever want to go through that again. And you know, I had cancer in 2017 and I still have those effects from radiation. Um so, it is deeply concerning to me. I I would imagine it would be deeply concerning to everyone, children. Um so, So, while I understand the need for better connectivity, I also believe that we need to prioritize the health and well-being of our community. The long-term effects of constant exposure to electromagnetic radiation are still being studied. And again, given my medical history, I feel especially vulnerable to any potential risks. I would like to urge you, please, to reconsider placing this tower so close to homes and families. Our neighborhood really deserves safer
alternative. I appreciate your time. Thank you. THANK YOU VERY MUCH. THANK YOU FOR YOUR PRESENTATION. OKAY. UM NEXT up is Stacy Shawn. Oh, sorry. Hi. So, I live at 12:57 Wildflower Drive. I was here on July 3rd. Um so I just wanted to say thank you for listening to us and I did get the mailer which I definitely appreciate, you know, you like reflecting on that and um sending that out. Um so I just want to kind of say I'm here to definitely oppose the cell phone tower. Um this is to no benefit to the neighborhoods that are around this. This benefits Verizon. I guess it some on some level it's going to benefit the town financially. But when we elect people to represent us, we are electing you to have our back and to to hopefully stand up for us because our houses are there. We have no say in this at this point. If you just if you give permission to plunk a cell phone tower in our neighborhood, we're
not choosing to move there. If you plunk a cell phone tower in a field, I can choose to purchase a house and build a house there or not, but my house is there. I would I I wouldn't have chosen a house there if I knew there was a cell phone tower there. I would have picked somewhere different. I don't have a choice. My house is already built. Please don't do this to us. We are There are so many people here because of the mailer and because of the town saying, "All right, we do need to let more people know." There's enough people here saying, "Please don't do this to us. We don't have a a choice. We're It's all of us against a big corporation and we're hoping that you have our back and decide not to do this for the sake of the whatever the lease said, $20,000 annually. Like, please have our back in this and support all of us in these neighborhoods who don't have a choice if you choose for us. Thanks. THANK YOU, STEPHANIE. UH NEXT UP IS Christine or Dave Remington. I'll go before her letter
I respond before someone else if someone else prefer to go. Okay, then um I'm going to it did anybody come in later that didn't sign in that would like to speak? Sir, jump right up there. And can you give your name and address? Uh James Annis, uh 1222 Imperial Drive. Um I don't like the location that you guys picked. I would say no to all of it. Um I do know somebody that does this for a living and I asked him to look into this and I proposed I don't know how anybody feels about this, but I proposed the Webster uh Presbyterian Church very close to this location on 250 and uh putting within a bell tower. So, it's not seen. It's it helps the church out. I know that that church has been struggling with ideas of how they're going to replace that roof someday. It would solve problems for them. And I did talk to them and they did think it was a good idea. They were interested in having Verizon contact them. I did call the town uh Verizon's
attorney and uh and I left a message with all that information. I did not hear back. So, I oppose it. No. Thank you. All right, thanks, James. Is there anybody else who came in late, didn't sign in, wants to speak? Going once. Going twice. I have one last person here, Mike Crosby signed in. Mike Crosby, Verizon Wireless. Radio frequency engineer. Um You know, it's tough, you know, listening to everybody's concerns for sure. Um And I just want to provide a little perspective of how I've gone through this for 30 years of hearing from communities across New York State and Pennsylvania in these situations. And for some perspective, just so that, you know, just to provide a little humanity to the appreciation
for what everybody's had to say. When I was in college and I decided to be an engineer, I took a class called technology and ethics. And the main takeaway from that class was was as a young engineer and coming into whatever the business, whatever the sector, whatever the technology was that you were going to be working in, this class taught us to take into consideration your impact on the community. And it used examples like Albert Einstein and the atomic bomb, you know, and many other types of examples of how, you know, great engineers or scientists or physicists throughout history have created things that have been of a negative effect. And so the you know, that's always the anchor for everything that I do and how we build out the network and build it out in a in a way that's right for the community. And and while I can appreciate uh you know, where everybody's coming from, I think there's some important things to take into account that uh specifically on the health effects, um these sites are safe. The sites are These sites are located throughout our communities, throughout the states. They're located on the roof of hospitals. They're located inside hospitals. They're located inside and on cancer
cancer treatment centers, schools, um apartment complexes, and when we're building out the network like we are here in Webster uh and we have large gaps in service like we do have here, we try to work with the municipality to try to find the best way to site this location that has the least impact on the community. We've tried to do that here and we found a a town property, a town parcel that allows us to try to minimize that impact. That's what we're trying to do. It's not perfect. It never is. Um you know, but I do want to you know, touch on a couple other things were mentioned about the health effects because you know, a lot of times we don't get into the health effects because this is something that's actually preempted by the FCC. And I I would imagine that you could understand for good reason because these topics have a tendency to spiral. Um but the WHO was mentioned. And I'll just read what their statement is on this. Um recent surveys has indicated that RF exposures from base stations and wireless technologies in publicly accessible areas including schools and hospitals are normally thousands of times below international standards. From evidence accumulated so far, no adverse short or long-term health effects have been shown to occur from the RF signals produced by base stations. There's I have a list of all the major
organizations that make up the panels uh that advise these government agencies, the FCC, the FDA, National Cancer Institute, American Cancer Society. They basically all the say the same thing. These the the levels that are used um to determine what's safe and what's not safe from an RF energy RF emission standpoint has been measured for far more than 50 years. And while the Telecommunications Act of 1996 is somewhat old um by our standards when we look back on that. These every one of these agencies all says something I think is very prudent, which is it needs further examination. We need to continue looking at that. And that's something that's been going on for as long as I've been in the business. And I have been doing this for 30 years prior to the Telecom Act of 1996. Um So, you know, one last point that I like to make in these situations and I and I genuinely share that you could look this up on the internet. You can search this. Um I share this again for perspective because I think that's important for all of us to, you know, at least question ourselves. Are we looking at this in an accurate and a fair and and reasonable way? And how RF energy works, how the cell sites work with the with the mobile phones
is very important to this concept. The cell sites that we use for cellular communication are generally very low power. These This is not like uh AM, FM, or digital TV broadcast, but often times it's thought of somewhat of that, and it's not like that at all. The the mobile phones that we all or most of us carry on our I have mine in my pocket right now. Um These the mobile phones are the highest level RF exposure that any of us will be exposed to as far as comparing with the cell site, the base station, which is what we're proposing here on Creekside. And and Mike, you're at 4:55, so if you can just finish up that point. last the last part of this is is and I'll wrap this up. Thank you. Is that when we don't have a site in an area, we have a coverage problem, the mobile phones have to ramp up their power, and that increases that RF energy level that we're all being exposed to. When the cell site is and this is a public utility and when it is located strategically and centrally to the area that the users need the service, which is what we're proposing here, it allows the mobile phones to power down, which reduces the RF energy exposure levels that each of us are being exposed to. So, I hope that that concept is something that you can
explore. Search that online. It is It is common sense in in the RF world. Um and and this generally would improve the RF conditions for each and every one of us that this cell site would be serving. Thank you. Hey, Mike, just one question before you step down, if I could, please. Um you referenced the um RF energy standards. Who Who establishes those standards? So, that's established by I can get you more complete answer on that for the next meeting. Um but that's established by uh a a combination of a number of different agencies. It's in this document that I have here. I'll pull that out and provide a more detailed answer on that. Um but it's a combination of many different institutes and agencies that advise these boards I wish I could find it quickly here. I'm not sure if I can find it. Yeah, I'll have to see if I can find I don't have that part memorized. So, I have to find that for you. But there is a there is an agency that advises the different various governments. And I have different government statements on this as well. So, maybe that would be helpful uh if health effects are something that Well, come on back in 3 weeks, Mike, on August 7th. Yeah, if you could get that over email it over prior to the meeting, that'd be
great. All right. Thank you. agenda item tonight, you you would like Yes. to speak, also. Okay. Uh we're not done. All right. No, or we A good evening. Robert Burdorf the law firm Nixon Peabody here tonight on behalf of Verizon Wireless. I want to make one more point on behalf of Verizon Wireless about these alleged health effects. Uh we have supplied plenty of data. Uh plenty of facts. And if people choose not to believe them, that's up to them. But the information that was supplied and as Mike said, this is a radio signal that's been around for 100 years. If they choose not to believe it, we can't change that. Those are the facts. But that information was supplied as a courtesy because this topic, and I want to make this legal point, this topic is preempted by federal law. A municipality cannot consider alleged or perceived health effects when making decisions for the siting of a cell tower, period. So while we have engaged on this topic and we've supplied information, we are done with this topic. We are done with this topic with the planning board and the zoning board. We will not address it again. We've supplied materials and even in the zoning process,
we will not address it again. And if the town turns it down because of health effects, it would be reversed by a federal court. It's that simple. That's what the federal preemption is. Well, my only my only response to you, Mike, Mike, the uh Sir, other points that I've got here. Okay. We are done with that. We are done with that topic. Hold on, everybody. How quickly we all forget. Remember my rules? One person speaking. Remember I said you're going to have 10 people say the same thing, you'll get a counterpoint and human nature is you'll start yelling from the crowd. It happened. It happened from the board, too. You can continue on and then Councilman Cahill, if you would like to ask him at the end of his 5 minutes or 3 minutes, then you can do that. Yes, I will. I will wait. My apologies for interrupting, sir. No, that's right. The the the other topic I want to hit briefly is alternate locations. As I said last time, we don't care where we are as long as it works from a technical standpoint without unreasonable cost or unreasonable delay. That's the law. We have supplied a search area. We've heard it from a bunch of people here a "You need to go someplace else, but nobody else in that search area has been supplied with that. Provided a courtesy
copy to the neighbors. Um, nobody's come with us with a site that they think is better within the search area except for one gentleman, and I uh about the West West Webster Presbyterian Church. I don't know if he's still here. Um, and He's going out of town right now. Okay. We I did immediately refer that to RF to take a look at it. It's just outside the search area, but we would look at it because again, we don't care where we are as long as it works from a technical standpoint. But for all these folks who keep saying there's a better site, tell us. We'll investigate it. You've got the search area, you've got the information, we've supplied it to the town as a courtesy, we would supply it to the neighbors, which I assume it has been disseminated. Um and that's where we are. So, uh aesthetics, one person said that Verizon has not said, quote, this is what you will see. We've supplied photosims to the town, we've supplied photosims as a courtesy to the neighbors. Nobody's come back to us and said, here's another view we'd like you to look at. So, we keep supplying this information and we're accused of not uh providing the information and yet it's it's still there. One of the one small one I want to hit, flashing lights. No one told there's no flashing lights and we have said that. In fact, I said it at the last meeting. Anything under 200 ft unless it's an FAA approach
slope, which this is not, does not require aviation lighting. So, a lot of the information is there and it keeps coming up, we keep supplying it and it is frustrating because we keep putting it out there and I know there's some new folks, um but nobody appears to be reading any of the information we've been um supplying. So, the only other thing I want to say is that what we cannot do is go away. Under our FCC license, we have to provide service. Under federal and state law, it allows us to do it as a public utility and a site that works, which basically means within the search area. Regardless of what of what uh community sentiment is, and regardless of what even some code provisions say. Uh we have to be allowed a site that works, and we are willing to work with the town as we do across the state, across the country, to find the best site. And we spent 3 years with the town at its encouragement and its invitation to look at this site, 3 years. So, that's why we're a little frustrated because we are happy to look at other sites, but nobody's telling us where they think a better site is. I'd be happy to answer any questions now. So, what other sites did you look at? I know um
at our last meeting, attorney um that was here at the time had asked what other sites did you look at, and I don't believe you provided those sites, but said you would you would email them to us. No, I didn't say I would email them to you. There's a search area, and in that search area, essentially it's not perfect, but essentially everything in that search area was likely to work, and essentially everything out of it will outside of it will not. Now, sometimes with topography and so forth, it's not perfect. Sometimes something just outside of it will work. Uh you know, it's not a not a perfectly right line, but that's the bull's-eye. So, we have to be roughly in that area, and we mentioned that there are a lot of residential areas when they got scrubbed cuz we don't typically go on a residential lot. Right. Um there are wetlands, so we can't go directly in the wetlands, and we looked at a whole bunch of other areas, but your code says to first look at municipal property. So, that's why we ended up looking at this site, and we were encouraged by the town to look at this site. We have looked at a bunch of others. We have three other private ones we're looking at right now because this has taken so long, we're looking at other sites. Okay. We will not we will not Those will come out in the zoning process after we have a lease signed with those people. So, the other thing is it it you know, I
there's every meeting that we have regarding surrounding this topic, there are more and more and more people. And they're residents that live in these areas expressing concerns. They're doing their research. And you get up there and I don't need to admonish you, sir. I really don't. I have I respect it all the work that you are doing Verizon Wireless. But when you get up there and say, "I'm done talking about health effects." You come off as condescending and dismissive. And I wish you would not do that because what they're saying comes from their heart and they're doing a lot of research. And you will see more and more of these people, our constituents, our residents coming forward doing their research and presenting their research. And as far as, you know, reference to the WHO, the WHO has zero credibility after what they just went through with COVID and the lies that they told and have been proven wrong. I I don't know anything about that. Yes, I We're done. We're done. We're done. We're done. Can I You know what? We'll have time on August 7th to get the whole gang back together. That's not me. That's That's federal law, sir. We're done. That's fine.
We're done. We are done. Geez, you'd think after 5 and 1/2 years I'd know how to run a meeting a little bit better than I am, wouldn't you? Well, next up on our agenda tonight, which is why everybody is here, they want to hear about us approving the minutes from 2 weeks ago. Denine, I give you a lot of credit. Usually you get those minutes to us within about 5 days. Well, you had to write a war and peace because they were pretty robust minutes from 2 weeks ago, but you did get them to us. I reviewed all 17 pages of the two workshop was like five regular meeting was 12. Anyway, I make a motion that we approve the July 3rd town board workshop minutes. Second. Supervisor Flaherty. I. Councilwoman Wynn. I. Councilwoman Cataldi. I. Councilman Cahill. I. Councilwoman Wright. I. And I make a motion that we approve the July 3rd regular town board meeting minutes. Second. Supervisor Flaherty. I. Councilwoman Cataldi. I. Councilman Cahill. I. Councilwoman Wynn. I. Councilwoman Wright. I. Who did the bills this week? Me.
All right, then. I've looked over the bills and they seem to appear um correct. So, I would like to make a motion to pay the bills, please. Second. Councilwoman Wynn. I. Councilwoman Wright. I. Supervisor Flaherty. I. Councilwoman Cataldi. I. Councilman Cahill. I. And I reviewed the prepaid warrants as submitted by Paul Adams, director of finance, and make a motion we approve those. Second. Supervisor Flaherty. I. Councilwoman Cataldi. I. Councilman Cahill. I. Councilwoman Wynn. I. Councilwoman Wright. I. And I've reviewed the purchase orders as submitted by Paul Adams, the director of finance, and make a motion that we approve those. Second. Supervisor Flaherty. I. Councilwoman Wynn. I. Councilwoman Cataldi. I. Councilman Cahill. I. Councilwoman Wright. I. I want to thank Paul Adams for getting the the budget amendment out to the to the town board in a timely fashion. Does Does have any questions on that amendment? I do not. No, it's an important amendment that's going to help finish a long-term project
and we're excited for it to be done soon. Yeah, it's in regard to the Finn Park retention pond project which dates back to 2016. We've received quite a bit of grant money to get it done, but it's going to take a little extra from the general fund to balance out the project. So, that's the amendment moves $100,000 from general fund to the project. Okay, I make a motion to approve the budget amendment as presented by Paul Adams, the director of finance. Second. Supervisor Flaherty. I. Councilman Cahill. I. Councilwoman Cataldi. I. Councilwoman Wynn. I. Councilwoman Wright. I. All right. The honorable and it's so great to see uh Charlie Genese. All right, can we clap for him by the way? All right. Charlie's in the house, all right? Good to see you all again. Good to see you, Charlie, and I want to thank you. You you supplied the board with some memo memos and some briefings. Did you use AI? Come on, Charlie. I know you're a technology geek. Um Oh, no. But Charlie did give us a little background. Donna's not here. No, I I I told her she might as well leave because I I figured if you have any
questions, I could hopefully answer them. Yeah, and and I always is this tertiary? Is that what it's called? Tertiary? Yeah, isn't that when you do the the settlement of a assessment and Oh, tertiary. Tertiary. I knew I was saying You were close. What is tertiary? I I That's third three level. I'm an accountant. I'm not an English major, but tertiary. Okay. Oh, with the attorneys in the room I'm getting So, does anybody have any questions for for uh counselor Genese, the long-term long-time town attorney who I'm so happy is still working for the town on the assessment-related issues. I don't have any questions, but thank you for all the work you did on this. All right, I just want to let you know this is this is only a part of what we're doing. The only reason I'm here tonight is because I have to Well, I don't want to give Paul a heart attack, you know, we asked for $43,000 in in taxes and uh or to be refunded, but the if you look at it this is a large part of what is the town center. Correct. And um they're going to drop one year of the proceeding. We It's It's a global settlement. There's a lot more to it,
but um uh we think this is a very fair decision and we believe in the school district is very much on board for this as well. They haven't formally approved um the settlement, but uh they are going to. So, I don't know. Thank you, Charlie. much. Yes. That's it. All right, thank you, folks. I just want to, you know, as far as the detail of this resolution, um I know it's Core Holt Road. Uh I want to see if we have like the tax account numbers on the resolution just to make sure it's read into the record. Um And of course I'm scrambling now. I do see personal numbers on this resolution. Uh Yeah, yes. Yep. All right, I am going to make sure that I add into this Mr. Supervisor, Yeah. can I just add one one thing and make it might be easier. Um If you want to uh break down break down the the payments for each of the properties, it might be I was going to read that in. Okay. Because it's it's in the resolution. Um Uh no, the break
The actual breakdown is not. Um Uh Deneen was very helpful in getting this to us. Oh, you're right. That's just the assessed value draft. Right. For for 9 for 913 917, the uh the amount is 15 15,521.84. For 1032 1046 Ridge Road, the amount is 7,153.14. And for 1058 1070 Ridge Road, the amount is $20,913.67. So, the total is the 43,588.65. Okay. All right. Thank you. Watch this. You ready? I make a motion uh to to settle uh to consider settlement pros including payments of refunds to resolve two years of litigation for the three parcels of land owned by Core Holt Road Company LLC uh located at 913 917 Holt Road, 1058 to 1070 Ridge Road, and 1032 1046 Ridge
Road. The details of that are that 913 917 Holt Road is tax parcel 079.12-1 -1-19.112 and the money associated with that settlement is 15,521.84. 1032 to 1046 Ridge Road is parcel number 079.16-1-1.11 and that settlement amount is $7,153.14. And 1058 to 1070 Ridge Road is parcel number 079.16-1-2.11 and that settlement amount is $20,913.67 for a three parcel total of $43,588.65. That's my motion. Second. Supervisor Flaherty. Aye. Councilwoman Wright. Aye. Councilwoman Cataldi. Aye. Councilman Cahill. Aye. Councilwoman
Wynn. Aye. Now, I usually do this beforehand, but I'll give a little postmortem on this. Um, this this is the plaza across from Wegmans. Right? Correct. Okay. It's it's actually it's about two thirds of the entire You got it. And I love going to Kohl's and I love going to Dick's and I love those places, right? And the reality is is that the owners of that company said, "Wait a minute. You got you got us assessed on those three parcels for almost $30 million and we want to contest our assessment." The you know, it's this is like an editorial, but it's great that you're doing the the reval because part of the problem is that the the equalization rate has driven uh Yep. residential rates and it's adversely affected commercial rates unfairly. So, And I won't get into devil in the details. That's the for the Come to the July 22nd at the library 6 to 8. You'll hear all the things about the revaluation. Thank you, board. But at the end of the day, uh as they came to grieve their assessment and then their attorneys and Charlie and we went through this and it
really if anybody's been in the lawsuit, nothing personal guys, the attorneys win in lawsuits, not so much the defendants and the plaintiffs a lot of times. So, settling this and having the town refund uh, already paid taxes of $43,000 to this property owner, um, based on the the the briefing memo you makes a lot of sense. Right. Because there is this is more of an art than a science, we could fight this to the end. Charlie will pay you $100,000 in legal fees. Let's fight it to the end. Right. And then we win. and expert fees, too, you'd be hiring because the the appraiser's going to have to testify. You got it. I mean, I know this. We've gone through this before. Yep. So. And as Paul can tell you, really what they do is they withhold the money. Correct? It isn't so much that we're paying, it's just they're withholding it. Yeah. It's more like a debit, really. Mhm. And a So, for the people that are still in the room, that's the postmortem of what the heck just happened. And that that is it. And in your home, you can go and grieve your assessment every year and, you know, um, I don't know if you'd ever get a refund like that because usually grievances is going forward. done or I've ever negotiated. But, it's
I feel good about it. It's I mean, I think it's for the town's benefit, so. Based on your wonderful briefing that I know wasn't AI generated. Thanks. You can send me a copy, right? Yeah. Thanks, Charlie. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. And I feel terrible and I thought about this. Um, I probably should have moved your resolution up. I mean, if you have young kids at home or whatever, I mean, you now it's 5 to 9. We could have gotten this out of the way. Do you remember about uh, almost 3 hours ago these two people in the back from Montante and Xerox did a workshop presentation? Uh, Second. Supervisor Flaherty. Aye. Councilwoman
Wright. Aye. Councilwoman Cataldi. Aye. Councilman Cahill. Aye. Councilwoman Wynn. Aye. Okay. Our next resolution up tonight is the town board's decision really on whether we pursue building a dog kennel, a dog holding area here on the town hall campus or at another town owned site. We've been talking that possibly the highway garage. Um This option was in a workshop presented by Keith Mortimer, our town engineer, and also by Barbara Hollins, our animal control officer, 2 weeks ago. It was in the minutes that we just approved. It was a pretty uh robust conversation. It was a 38 minute workshop presentation with questions, answers, whatever. And it really came down and we explained at that time a lot of where we got to this point, I'll say in society or at least in Monroe County, uh, towns are now trying to figure out what to do with their, uh, the dogs that the animal control officer
picks up. Because previous to 2022, we had basically that outsourced to Pittsford Animal Hospital, and we all lived happily ever after. Pittsford Animal Hospital said, "We're giving you 3 months notice. We're out of that business." And that move made not just the town of Webster scramble for what to do with these, what is about 24 dogs a year, to Monroe Um, but every other town in Monroe County. And all the town supervisors went to the county executive and said, "We're we're we're really got a problem here." And sometimes they're like, "Ah, it's not a problem. We get one dog a year." Other towns are like, "We Irondequoit, I think, gets 80 or 100 dogs a year." So, it was really going to be tough on them. The we were pitching the county to take it over instead of having 19 towns try to have 19 animal control officers because people like Barb Hollands don't grow on trees. And so, to have 19 of them is very tough. We thought, "Could we get this at the county level and then quadrant it off, blah, blah, blah, blah, it didn't go any place." So, then the town said, "Well, what are we going to do?" And so, Barbara drove, uh, a process of going to eggs and markets, agriculture and
markets, and we applied for a grant back, uh, I'm sorry, in February of 2024. And in April of '24, about 15, 16 months ago, we got awarded a $400,000 grant. That's the good news. Then we went and looked at, I'm not making this up for the people that are hearing this first, we went to look at designing and getting cost estimates estimates on a and a and a this is not a misquote, 1,000 square foot facility. You know how big your house is, right? A 1,000 square foot dog house, basically. A million bucks. And so the board said, "Whoa, whoa, wait a minute. A $400,000 grant, that's nice, but net of that grant, the town taxpayers are going to have to pay $600,000 for this facility where historically, over the last 3 and 1/2 years, we average about two dogs a month." So that got us kind of looking at different designs, and this was all presented 2 weeks ago, but we also, and and and Councilman Cahill somewhat drove this a couple months ago saying, "Well, let's look at a
plan B." And actually I see he did and Heath Mortimer, town engineer, whose facility management, and so they started looking at that IMA. Now that's something, I'm sorry, a an outsourcing it to another town. Considering going to an Irondequoit or a Penfield or an abutting town and saying, "Hey, if you got a kennel and facilities, could we maybe send our two dogs a month over there and cut a deal with you?" And this was something that Barb Heilands had gone out 2 years ago and looked at, and at that point, it didn't look like from her research that it had any legs. And that led us to going for our own kennel and the grant, and I won't be redundant. But the town board, you know, as was said here a lot tonight by the the residents were here like, "Hey, we're hired or elected to take care of the town and watch out for the town citizens." And I've said this many times from this podium. I would argue that the most important job of the town board, it's not a state legislator or county legislator or a state assemblyman or a or a a congressperson. Those are different jobs, but our job is to be the steward of your taxpayer money. So, when we looked at that and said,
"Wow, uh $600,000 for a a 1,000 square foot dog house, um is that justifiable?" And in a lot of ways, that's a subjective question, right? That's a subjective question for for for people that love animals and this and that, they would say, "Absolutely, you should spend $6 million." Other people have come back to us and said, "Are you crazy to even think about doing that?" So, it's been a very tough situation over the last 15 months as we've discerned this, but tonight is the night uh where the board has gone back and forth and this and that and um I I will say that, you know, I can make this motion or does somebody else want to make it? I have no problems making it. Looks like Go right ahead. You guys are not sick in here hearing my voice? A little bit. A little bit, but okay. Well, I make a motion uh for town governance um including um Keith Mortimer as the facility manager and Barb Holland's as the uh animal control officer and any chosen team members of theirs to pursue with other municipalities
an inter-municipal agreement option for housing our stray dogs. I'll second that. Supervisor Flaherty? I. Councilman Cahill? I. Councilwoman Cataldi? I. Councilwoman Wynn? Uh I and I would like to say something here. Um cuz everybody here in Wappingers know that, you know, we all love dogs and as I went, you know, door to door, I saw the kindness toward their pets and the care for them. And I think with um Councilman Cahill, you know, um is heading for the IMA for the best solution is to save a lot of money for the taxpayer since we only have two last dog a week, you know, um a month actually for shelter. And I I have a suggestion. I think that, you know, we have been um doing business with Penfield Ambulance since Webster that you know, with Webster and they do such a great job. Then, you know, it's this is the great way for us to look into other towns to participate and to save the towns' money.
And um also too, I know that there is the local government efficiency grant that administered by the New York uh Department of State. Local government each uh town can get up to $200,000 per project. If uh Webster, Penfield, or Irondequoit, whoever could join together and each town should you know, could have $200,000 for each town. So, and these applications could go through the CFA portal. And um I hope that, you know, um we should look into that. Thank you. Councilwoman Wright? I. Is that everybody? Yeah. Okay. I love Sure. Uh postmortem on that. Um I will get together with Dennis Kohlmeier, who is the chief of police, who that the police department oversees animal control. I will also get together with Barb Holland as the animal control officer who has a very close relationship with Ags and Markets. I get together with Kyle, who is the
town uh legal counsel, and uh we need to, within the next week, in my opinion, communicate to Eggs and Market that we will not be moving forward with uh a redesigned submission into them, uh nor will we be pursuing signing the contract. I think they sent us the contract template back in February or March of this year. And they now even It took them a year. Doesn't matter. They now are like, "Hey, what's what's your hold up? Why has it been 4 or 5 months since we sent it to you?" It It's just It's just the right way to to treat people, even if they're in a government agency. We need to let them know, as far as I'm concerned, by the end of next week. But the way in which we will let them know, I think that needs to be discussed and measured and and all of that stuff. So, I think it's unfortunate that we have to give back or or decline a large um grant like that, and I appreciate Barb's your work in in going out and securing that grant. It's just really tough. It's like $600,000 is an awful lot of money. It's probably probably going to be even more than that at the end of the day.
Um and hopefully more towns actually who can afford it will build kennels and and it will allow for the 19 towns in Monroe County to work with each other, meaning we can have an IMA with multiple townships to make it easier to manage that. So, Yeah. And the And the government And Albany looks very favorably upon municipalities working together. That's why they have the grants out there. Right. Anyway, Um Thank you, Tom. Thank you, everybody. Very tough tough one. Uh next one, does anybody have any questions of this resolution? I know Pat is here. Uh late in the night is our highway superintendent, but uh I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, part of this uh ties into the fact that we are applying for a CFA grant by July 31st, which is only 14 days off. Um and I hate I don't have any questions. Jenny and I like I got to say this just because if people read the minutes and say why did if CFA for that grant for 200,000
per project for the for the the dog stuff that you referenced, if that's CFA, that's 2 weeks off, we we don't have time to coordinate applying for that CFA grant. I mean, that's why we were here 2 weeks ago uh deciding which grants we were going for. They're they're that's not going to happen. I just want to make sure everybody understands that. Maybe that's a CFA thing once uh for next year, once we start talking with Arawanda, quite Pennfield, uh Walworth, whoever. Um so, little sidebar. Does this have I mean, is this a multiple thing, Pat, that one, we're moving forward in the process with the salt barn, but also two, as we apply for the grant, we probably need to have this as a checkbox? Uh yeah, those are those are both facts. So, we'd be doing this anyway. Um we didn't complete the full design of the salt barn uh back when we did the original seeker. So, we want to make sure that uh that determination is fully accurate uh when we get ready to bid and go to construction. So, there's some minor adjustments, some amendments to the language needed. Therefore, we have to re- uh go through the process again to be very thorough about how we're handling it, make sure that uh the final plans that include the salt barn that we're working toward completing um are reflected in the secret determination by this board. So, first
step is to declare the intent to be the agency and then move through the process to get that finalized in line with moving toward bid. Um and then yes, at the end of this month we're applying for uh the grant opportunity, which is exciting. Okay. Your department? I'll make a motion for the Webster Town Board to declare their intent to be lead agency for the revisions to the existing highway facility seeker documents to incorporate the salt barn replacement and truck wash bay. Second. Councilwoman Wright. I. Councilwoman Cataldi. I. Supervisor Flaherty. I. Councilman Cahill. I. Councilwoman Wynn. I. Um the next one is I'm going to air some dirty laundry about uh about me. Uh I got two contracts in the mail from the Webster School District on I think Tuesday with instructions. Uh Brian Neenan, the Webster school superintendent, had already signed both and had them notarized. And then I was to sign both, have them notarized, send one original back to the school district, and keep one for Deneen in the clerk's office.
I'm an anal guy, came from an accounting background. I said, "Okay, I can do that." I went over, I got it signed this and that. And all of a sudden we noticed that it had the resolution number that the town board authorized me to sign the school resource officer contract for the year. Well, I signed that and got it notarized on Tuesday, the 15th. So, do you know your your Latin? What non pro tunc means there, Kyle? Won't you educate us, Supervisor? Oh, come on. It's Charlie's the one that taught it to me. Um if you would be as kind to board to a non pro tunc as to make What is the definition in Latin? I got to go look it up, but um from a procedural standpoint this is how we just correct sequential issues. Um I'm going to look it up. You know what, you're right. You know, did you not have to learn Latin in law school? I actually took Latin in high school. Now for that Now for then, it is commonly used in legal context to indicate that a court ruling or order applies retroactively to correct an earlier thing done. The earlier thing done was I
signed that prematurely before the vote before the board approved me to sign it. So there you have it. If we're finished with the Latin lesson I just want to say that this is something we've been doing for quite a while in partnership with the Webster with the Webster School District and law enforcement and we provide two school resource officers, ideally two um to the district um for student services and keeping them safe and just creating good relationships with law enforcement. And I I think it's something that's been a really positive program. Um the school district actually pays the salaries of these two officers during the school year. And then when school is not in session, they're back with us. We're paying their salaries, but now they're uh available to us for traffic enforcement. So I think this has been a win-win and uh I move that we authorize the supervisor to sign the 2025-2026 school year school resource officer contract. Second. Second. And thank you, Patty. Councilwoman Cataldi? Aye. Councilman Cahill? Aye. Supervisor Flaherty? Aye. Councilwoman Wynn? Aye. Councilwoman Wright? Aye. Doreen, that means you're going to mail it out tomorrow, aren't you? That's correct.
Thank you. And you'll keep one for yourself. That's right. Okay. Uh Kyle, um I'm going to defer to you on um first of all, um Councilwoman Wright had asked uh earlier this week, "Hey, when we go to do the approval of the comprehensive steering plan comprehensive plan steering committee, should I recuse myself since I'm on the committee?" It's an interesting question. And then and and I won't want to um I hate to I did not handpick these uh people. That's That is not how this happened. So, I don't see any scenario where I have to recuse myself. But, Tom, stop. Tom, stop. Kevin. Kate. Please don't be Kevin, Kevin, this is not appropriate. Please don't. Kevin. What? Can we Kevin, I'm going to I'm going to just say it one time. If you don't stop talking if if if you don't stop talking, I am going to have and I know that you've had this done before. Do you do you want us to have somebody come to remove you? antagonistic. I don't appreciate it. Just stop talking to me, please. That I can do. Okay. So, your legal opinion on this? I
I think it'd be appropriate for Councilwoman Wright to to recuse herself uh from the vote since she is on the um committee. Uh Supervisor, um I I see no reason that you would need to recuse yourself. Uh you're not on the committee. The uh planning or excuse me, the town board here is uh approving the formation of this committee pursuant to town law 272A Nunc pro tunc uh since we just learned that phrase. Um so, they are also approving the board as is uh presented here. So, Yeah, the steering committee. And and interestingly enough, um, it's funny and Josh, you could attest to this, uh, one of the lessons I've learned about this, uh, 2008, um, comprehensive plan update is uh, good news, we got a $100,000 grant from New York State for this, uh, update, which is very helpful, uh, to paying probably close to half of what this is going to cost, uh, over the two years that it goes on. So, that's good. But it's the golden rule, they have the gold and they make the rules and their $100,000 grant delayed us from launching for almost two years because they had to
bless every single thing that we did. And over those two years, basically all of '23 and all of '24, we just became like, you know, that you know, the the state's got to bless everything and and back in January when we were going through a process with a collaborative process, uh, to figure out the steering committee and how it should be configured and it was like, you know, get somebody from the school district, get somebody from planning, get somebody from zoning. And so, we really tried to follow that and we consulted with the Department of State in a in a lot of communications and they basically guided us as we configured that committee, the steering committee. And then you had a January, late January, early February orientation for the committee members, um, and then in June 12th, you had the first really committee meeting where at least Calliers are are uh, our our consultant and the planning staff of Josh presented to date how much public engagement we had gotten, but really the steering committee didn't do anything there of any substantive uh decision maker anything.
And somewhere between then and whatever and now um I don't even know if I would call this non pro tunc, but you know what? Um it's fine. I mean because the steering committee's next meeting, which is probably in August, maybe September. September. Probably they will start doing substantive things. So, this is probably a proper move to just, you know, put a ribbon around this that the state is happy with the the steering committee as configured. And one can make the argument that based on town law, whatever, that the town board should do a resolution approving this steering committee as configured. So, that's what we're doing tonight. State your motion. Uh my motion is to approve the comprehensive plan steering committee as currently configured. Second. Supervisor Flaherty? I. Councilwoman Cataldi? I. Councilman Cahill? I. Councilwoman Wynn? I. Councilwoman Wright? I will recuse myself for the former explanation. I'm on the committee. Great. And then Jennifer, if you can finish this off. I will make a motion to approve the
following items for auction from the highway department. There is a list on the agenda of 1 2 3 4 5 6 items and I approve them for um for auction. Second. Three seconds. Councilwoman Wright? I. That's a new one. Councilman Cahill? I. Supervisor Flaherty? I. Councilwoman Cataldi? I. Councilwoman Wynn? I. Okay, I think it's been a pretty long night. So, I've been a bi- uh I've foregone the round table tonight, but I am going to make a motion for us to go into executive session under section New York State Public Officers Law section 105, section 1 um -e. What's the reason? Uh that's not the one. Uh here is the personnel personnel. Where am I Where am I missing personnel? Uh Come on. Why am I missing from the matters of public safety if disclosed? Um
Uh actually it's I'm going to It's section 105 uh 1 a. Matters which will imperil the public safety if disclosed. And where's the personnel? I like the personnel better. It's more answer it with this and Oh, here it is. F. Medical, financial, credit, or employment history of particular person or corporation or matters leading to the appointment, employment, promotion, demotion, discipline, suspension, dismissal, or removal of a particular person or corporation. I would say it's under 1 a and f. That's my motion to go into uh executive session. Who's attending? Uh and I'm inviting uh Kyle, sorry. I'm inviting you and I'm inviting Paul Adams is the director of finance. To be with the town board. Second. Supervisor Flaherty. I. Councilwoman Cataldi. I. Councilman Cahill. I. Councilwoman Wynn. I. Councilman Wright. I. Okay, that's funny. I don't even know what to say. Well, that concludes the formal part of our board meeting to