Town Board Meeting

great we're good yeah we are is that the high sign y okay well welcome everybody to the Thursday July 18th 2024 Webster Town board meeting let's come to order the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all Denine can you do rooll please supervisor flarey here councilwoman cataldi present councilman Cahill here Council woman when here councilwoman Wright here Town attorney Jesse present well I'm going to take a little executive privilege here tonight and we're going to move what is uh on the agenda the last item we're going to make it first think that's in the Bible last first or something like that is that that's that's very good no that's right in the Bible Joanne okay um we're g to uh look at this application for a license agreement

to install a 6ft tall vinyl privacy fence within the town drain ement at 680 Cottage Brook Lane and um well if you'd like to go up there I will oh then you don't need to and I and I'll tell you why because uh I thought here I want to say that Pat Stevens there is a letter from him uh our Highway super superintendent who Highway oversees drainage um that's what the board looks for if the if the highway superintendent says this is okay it works that makes our job easy on this one so um do the board members have any questions or comments on this no I don't no it looks like there was a fence in place but it's being removed and then the area is being expanded so technically Jennifer this is a a highway department resolution yes yes indeed it is so where's where's I got to go back to the agenda then if there's no further questions I will make a resolution to consider approval of a license agreement

to install a 6 foot tall vinyl privacy fence within a town drainage easement at 680 Cottage brooklane tax ID number d253 second councilwoman right hi councilman kahill hi supervisor flarey I councilwoman cataldi I councilwoman wi I and Joanna I think you already got uh I have his card you have his card he will be your new best friend for the next week you'll be hearing from me okay thank you I was going to say I will send you I'll prepare the license agreement I'll send it for you in your husband's signature okay okay my husband is disabled and can't WR I have po you you can sign you can sign you can sign as POA as you can sign as POA okay that's fine as long as you you do it in front of a notary it's fine in front of a not yeah if you do an ex or do something no you can sign you can sign on his behalf as as as a POA but in front of a and we have notaries at Town Hall have not you can come you can come into town hall we have plenty of notaries okay

okay thank you right you're welcome thank you you're out of here by all means if you'd like to hang around and watch the rest of the meeting that's you're more than welcome to out for a while somebody's watching my husband great out tell them you stay at the whole thing okay so uh I I guess I'll say second up tonight is a public Hearing in this public hearing um is to consider a local law amending section 2 43-14 of The Chap of chapter 243 the property maintenance of the Webster town code um so before I uh open the public hearing I think uh Josh did we have um well I know we had workshops on this in Fall of 22 to Spring of 23 uh we ended up having a public hearing changing the code for Property Maintenance in April of 23 yes we got through our first year cycle and saw

that um it had some holes in it and so we're kind of circling back uh to plug those holes that a layman term explanation this so um we have one gentleman that has signed up to speak at this public hearing so I'm going to open the public hearing now and Paul if you'd like to take the podium uh thank you uh supervisor flarity Town board members and Josh and director Finance um it's uh if I understand this correctly um as you said you're going to want to plug these holes can you please get closer to the microphone by any chance it's very hard to hear you you want me to start over no you don't need to okay if I understand this correctly what you've done here is you've just U uh redone what's in italics under uh enforcement is that correct uh is that microphone not working it doesn't sound like it's on it's very hard to hear him um oh oh that can you hear me now yes

yes yeah okay if I understand this correctly is that too loud it's great okay if I understand this correctly it's uh item uh e in italics that has been uh added in along with the what was already originally in the document itself is that correct my understanding I would say okay Josh is not yes so I'm assuming it's correct and I've read it and I believe that I I think it's going to make uh a lot easier job and let um for uh both Josh and uh Jim and I uh strongly um would uh like to see the U Town board uh you know uh add this in uh I think uh it'll also make a a lot of neighbors a little more happier uh in the in the areas where there is a little bit of Code Enforcement problems um there not a lot of them but there is a few uh it's some really nice neighborhoods um so I'm um I I'm strongly agree that um I I believe you should uh consider it that's about all I got thanks Paul thank you thank you for your comments okay thank

you does anybody else in attendance want to comment uh during the public hearing on this I have a question uh in actually yeah you probably should because um the cameras and the microphones will not pick you up if you're not up there okay and Sir what is your name my name is Richard frier I live 546 Clum Road it's my understanding that you're actually considering um jail time for people that don't maintain their property is that true well or is that Charlie is our town attorney I mean what what we're trying to do is mimic what a lot of the town code already has within it that if you have somebody that is a blatant offender and has gone through many different iterations of this that yes I guess the judge would have I'd be glad to explain it uh there's a reason why we have that in there um we have found not we have found and actually been advised by the court by the town judges that they do not have the authority to issue warrants for people who do not show up when they've been cited for violations of the maintenance code wow the reason is

because there is no authority to basically to fine or imprison the person in other words it's not a jailable offense under the criminal procedure law in order to get give the judge that Authority in other words to bring in people who are not showing up we're not answering the summons the various summons are being issued we need to have a law like this in place uh to answer your question is it uh jailable yes is a practical matter I don't think anybody's going to be jail but they could be but if we don't have this law in there there really is no teeth in the maintenance code yeah because basically what you have now is it's it's typical with a lot of laws law-abiding people are going to abide by the law yeah you tell them they're in violation they're going to take they're going to do what they need to do but there's always that small group of people that are not going to abide yeah and those are the people this is really directed in so you have the code enforcement people doing their job doing their work uh people making complaints about somebody who's not maintaining the property or it's dangerous they don't come into court the judge can do do nothing about it they can be cited 100 times the judge has

zero authority to bring them in so that's really what this is about I see it's about to get them in there the punishment that's on the backside if people don't comply I think once people come before a court I'm sure the judges will know how to convince them to comply with the law it just seemed funny to me uh locking people up for not cutting their grass when criminals are allowed to go free without I think I don't know that I don't know that we can do that for not cutting the grass this is for Vi this is for violation of of the building code which is actually something is a Statewide law oh I see well yeah I'm I'm in favor of it just for the record the other the other thing I wanted to add as I was reading this and we're discussing it it these fines and jailable offenses that looks quite severe but I want everyone to know that our code enforcement officer goes out and issues letters of notification and and there's a whole process to that so they're looking for a response within 30 days or they get another letter so there's a lot of carrots being offered to these residents before there's ever a stick that is brandished yeah I would definitely agree with that and I wouldn't I mean for for for approximately every 100 cases

that our code enforcement uh Department opens and I'll be very honest with you our our cases and Josh you can corroborate this that um we find out about code enforcement uh issues usually from uh people calling in that live near the offender um that's usually how we find out there's there's also a an area on our website where you can um you can send a message yeah to the office and and put in your complaint there yeah yeah so um I'm going to guess for every hundred that are opened um this affects uh where someone is going to court maybe one or two of them because the like Town attorney janesse said once the the the person gets their first letter saying this is what you know your property code enforcement is you're not in compliance most of them just comply they self- remedy and um that's that Montgomery our a Cod enforcement officer I've really liked the way he's handled these things because he will go and he'll see a situation and he'll size it

up and say I 30 days the person will not be able to fix that in 30 days so maybe fix 10% of it um very honest a lot of hoarding situations where there's stuff all over the yard and whatever and 30 days might not be enough time for the person to to clear that all out so I I think Jim has done a wonderful job of really working with these people and the people that that work with him um they eventually get remedy it's really the ones like you said Charlie that are kind of thumbing their nose at us and saying you know what I don't if I don't go to court right now the law has no teeth so I'll just not go to court and it'll get dismissed because there is no teeth and the judges are very frustrated by that so sounds good that's what we're doing so um since nobody else is going to take the podium I'm going to close the public hearing and uh any questions comments conversation amongst the board I've already added my comments I I was just asking questions and and I don't know the law I was just asking Charlie about

the law before um before the meeting started but my question is can we not do the work for I guess in a hoarding situation you probably couldn't go do the work for property maintenance you can do the work Poss I'm I'm talking myself into the I'm talking myself right now right into where we are but if it is just Property Maintenance you can do the work and and send them a bill if they don't pay the bill put it on the tax bill but that's for mowing the lawn corre not for a hoarding situation then yeah and there we could get very granular on a lot of different things just this in this week and I think Tuesday I got a complaint to me because a lot of the complaints that come to code enforcement they also will you know shoot a scatter gun it across the town government and and the complaint came to me about they felt as though their neighbor's house across the street the lawn the this the that it was a mess so I I made sure that Jim knew about it Jim did know about it I was out and about the next morning I said I'm going to drive by and see it myself and we had set up and gone and had a firm go and cut the grass and that bill will be

given to the home owner so we we have the authority to do that okay um I would imagine uh if you have a bunch of uh it's not real property I guess it's chatt I'll call it Charlie we can't go on to somebody's property and start saying we're going to remove this broken snow plow who's to say that that's broken we we can't touch that stuff so U as I started talking I was answering we're very limited by law into going on to private property and doing work very limited which is probably not a bad thing um to do work you know that benefit somebody else's property yep that's a slightly different situation and again as soon as you talked about hoarding and I started asking my question it like well and there's a lot of discretion that has to be used and Charlie you say the laot this day I think that particular house I just described yeah that house has been vacant for a couple of years I think it's a bank foreclosure so the bank's going to get that if the bank is not handling maintaining that property while they're going through what is usually a two or three year foreclosure process then the town's going to take that uh job and put it on the tax bill put it toward

the bank I don't know if we would do the same thing if there's occupants the owners in the house I I don't know Jim's not here to speak on that behalf Josh we we have done that for occupied properties in terms of the lawn mowing when we don't get any response when we don't get any response right Bill Webster does the same thing but I'm assuming that they would get a notice that that's going to be done yes yes right absolutely so yeah anything down here Jenny or John I'm fine um I guess this falls under uh I'm the Le on to there you go your department right so I'm going to make a motion to enact a local law amending section 24314 of chapter 243 Property Maintenance of the Webster town code second supervisor flarey I councilwoman caldi I councilman Cahill I councilwoman w i councilwoman r i all right next up tonight um is the open to the public to I suppose talk

about anything but the property maintenance code that we just talked about in the public hearing nobody signed up to talk uh at that but I also want to any body change their mind on that it's five up to five minutes to talk about anything that you'd like going once going twice sold all righty next up um the mean is carrying on the tradition uh very nicely may I add you that it was 15 days ago we had a Wednesday board meeting cuz I didn't think we get us in here on 4th of July and Denine got the minutes from that meeting out to us all I think a couple days later I've reviewed them um and I make a motion that they be approved second supervisor flarey I councilman w i councilwoman Catal I councilman kahill abstain councilwoman r i and was this you J yeah okay I've looked over the bill this um on Monday and um

everything seemed to be fine I would make a a resolution to approve the bill second councilman w i councilman kahill I supervisor flarity I councilwoman cataldi I councilwoman Wright I and and I reviewed the prepaid warrants as submitted by Paul Adams the Director of Finance and make a motion we approve those second supervisor flarey I councilwoman cataldi I councilman kahill I councilwoman when I councilman right I and I also reviewed the purchase orders as submitted by Paul Adams the Director of Finance and make a motion we approve those second supervisor I councilwoman cataldi I councilman kahill I councilwoman w i councilwoman right I take a deep breath Paul yes Tom your baile this uh the next uh resolution deals with uh Capital project uh which dates back to

2018 uh it was originally to uh build a new police shooting range which is located at the wastewater treatment plant uh then in addition to that they added on an Evidence building which is located at Town Hall so this was um project was to receive a $55,000 Desy Grant uh which we ultimately received last month so 6 and a half years later holy cow we re finally received the grant proceeds so once everything was reconciled out we were short about 9400 so that money will need to be transferred from general fund to uh close out the capital project how did it happen that it takes that long it's pretty typical yeah from J yes yeah okay unfortunately I came back here in 2018 and I remember uh you know the claim had just been filed I think I have no idea why it took six years years but I I was talking actually I was talking with the chief about this and also art down at uh the sewer plant there's still work to be done on that shooting range is

that correct there's an electrical thing that they're going to be installing uh yeah they are doing some additional electrical work at the shooting range and it's not part of it's not part of this project we just handling handling it out of operating funds I think we're going to be seeing that next year it was it was scheduled to happen this year but um the electrical contractor changed his Direction on how he was going to supply that um mostly because of some of the changes that were put in place down there for fair life so the power is actually going to come out of the chem blower building I believe instead of the where it was going to be so that's being delayed until next year well that's what happens when six and a half years go by uh you know things change well maybe it's for the better they would have done it the other way and yeah yeah would have to redo it our Restaurant New York State Desy grants aren't they you know Ambiance yeah um John this is uh well this is finance or this is well it's police police sewer I guess it's you both I would move to transfer $946 n from the general fund to close out the police shooting range and evidence storage building project h021

five second councilwoman cataldi I councilman Cahill I supervisor flarey I councilwoman w i councilwoman r i and our last item tonight uh Paul is going to I think the best to talk to this one yeah and this is when they used to have the fire department with buckets because it was their Grant from a 100 years ago uh this grant uh dates back to 2019 it was a uh very recent uh it's a ready Grant M Mo 61 uh it was granted to the town but the original purpose was to build a fireboat dock for West Webster Fire uh Department um after some time they could not find a good location for this dock so it never happened but we did incur about $5,000 of engineering fees uh and now Josh has applied to the to the state to try to have this money repurposed so it can be used uh for the kayak launch is that right Josh uh the the fishing pier uh proposed as a part of phase two down at Sandbar park right

so we we want to use it for uh for phase two of Sandbar Park so we're waiting to hear on that but in the meantime there's not going to be a fireboat dock so uh I think we should just close this out transfer the 5,000 from general fund and we'll be even on that and then we'll utilize the grant uh through the park Improvement project yeah I if I remember correctly just 78,000 was the grant 73,5 so it's a good size Grant oh okay is that because of a match thing or something yeah I think there's a 5% match so it's considered as $75,000 award but well thank you Josh for trying to put that to another use yeah let's hope we're successful it's it's looking good good the state seems to like Sandbar Park don't they Josh they do they do they do all right well that's uh I guess that's the parks department J I will make a resolution to transfer $ 5,384 38 from the general fund to close

out the West Webster Fire Department fireboat access doc project h225 second councilman Wright I supervisor flarity I councilwoman cataldi I councilman kahill I Council win I well that concludes our agenda tonight I should have bet with councilman kahill the under 30 minutes it's 28 minutes but we do have Round Table what when did we had that bet we didn't oh I should have bet you you should I would have won t I was going to mention something about that when we initially got started but missed it two weeks ago you know cuz the meeting went much quicker anyway um Paul we'll start with you Tom everything's good in the finance department we're working hard on the budget um I'm looking forward to watching the RNC tonight and president Trump's speech I wish him wish him well after everything he's been through over the past weekend my second quite a turn of events um so I wish him well and I think it will be quite interesting stole my thunder what time is that at he probably won't come out

until 10 o'clock that's my guess oh don't they usually have at the end I don't know but that's usually when I'm in bed sleep Paul's in better shape than me he can stay up till 11 or 12 um well I will tell you this Paul has uh done some yman work in the last uh couple months uh on the 2025 budget and um he sent something to me today that was kind of a revision with all the minations or whatever you want to call it of all the movement here and there and fund balance policy and all that and I I I feel pretty confident we are going to be under the tax cap for 25 we'll talk about the strategy there's a couple ways we can go yeah because uh well the 1 and the eth are when the department heads come in and present and I think that's when we'll but uh um pretty pretty good stuff um Josh um things have been pretty active in the Community Development Department um we're working with parks and wre and weda as well as our grant Consultants on putting the finishing touches on um our our Grant application for phase two of

SAR Park which is due at the end of this month um I'm also happy to report that in the coming weeks we will be beginning to solicit for consultant services to finally begin the process of updating the town's uh 2008 comprehensive plan so we're looking very much forward to that effort and I'm sure there'll be uh future workshops and discussions with the board on as we kick off that exciting project much overdue project yes yes uh Jen just want to remind residents that there speaking of Sandbar Park so much discussion of Sandbar Park there's an event at Sandbar Park on uh July 31st it's from 5: to 7:00 so it's a great opportunity to go down to The Sandbar Park see what's going on there there'll be food trucks games hopefully you can catch up with uh friends neighbors and see what's going on down there and hear what what's going to be coming soon great P I had an interesting day today I went down to the Wastewater recovery facility that is being built spent some time down

there and um just the progress on that is incredible they've installed uh two bar screens in the service building and there's a washer compactor and um the amount of water that is being removed from that initial process is just incredible so that'll be saving us a lot of money as that has to be hauled out um that's that's the piece of equipment that removes the rags and all the other pieces that really shouldn't be in there to begin with another reminder of please do not use unflushable wipes um and the digestors coming they're building that in place um and the admin building looks like it's going to be finished by October it's uh really starting to take shape and you can see the different rooms the drywall is up all the plumbing is in place so it's great yeah it does it's it's amazing and when I left there I went to the Arboretum talk about Polar Opposites um and attended a a tour of the herb garden in a lecture and I just I want to remind everyone what a wonderful area I don't mean to still your thunder in Parks but what a wonderful Park the Arboretum is and there's always something in bloom at at every season um but really what's most impressive is both Beverly and Janet gave the lecture

and the tour and everyone who works down at the Arboretum is a volunteer so we we owe just a tremendous Deb of gratitude to the people who give back to their community and work with their passions and and give of their time and talent Char sounds like everything's going great there we go Jenny okay um I would like first of all our hearts are seten to hear about officer jimy reader passing in the light of Duty on July 4th 2024 I attended uh funeral and it was really out thoughts and prayers uh with the Rita family and also su's here and there are so many special events that are happening around our Webster town every Wednesday until um August seven Community Care cancer at holiday 20 Church off of clam Road and the Farmer Market at Charlie saon Park every Wednesday until the end of August and the Waterfront Art Festival on Saturday and Sunday at the end of July there are so much more events

around town you know especially the village yes fast that coming up in August so please come out and support our wonderful events and um our community as well and like always I would like people to come out and support our Webster Museum our Webster Library they needed your help they exist because of your support and lastly I would like to say we need to be kind and United with each other together we grow strong be thankful and appreciate for what you have and be proud that you are American this is the wonderful country to be live in and I'm proud to be an American God Bless America Amen to thanks J well how do you follow that John you don't but speaking of Tours I did uh take an opportunity to stop off the highway garage and uh it's just absolutely amazing a the magnitude UD of that project and B the the scale of what's going on and they are on schedule and doing a fantastic job and I'm very happy for everybody that works at that facility because from going from where

they were to where they where they are right now is amazing and they deserve it in my opinion it is pretty impressive Den you toured it yesterday I did it was amazing I'm very excited for them well we end with you Denine yay week four still in the discovery phase at the town clerk's office it's amazing I'm loving every minute minute of it and learning a lot of different things so very exciting great well that concludes tonight's meeting uh we are adjourned see I told you