Video recording

But, for the people watching live at home, uh, via Facebook, um, or our website, YouTube, whatever, you are going to notice a very different look, whether you're watching live at home or if you're watching this on tape in the subsequent days and weeks. Is that correct, Dan? Yes. Okay, cuz live issue now with Facebook, so We are recording. Just continue. Okay. Um, we've discussed, uh, at several board meetings and workshops over the last few months that we have been demoing, uh, what is called a Mevo camera system. Uh, Bridget Harvey, our, uh, director of communications, um, has been working with an outside firm, and Mr.

Agnew is here from that firm, and we've demoed it and looked at the demo offline, and we said, you know, um, we think we got this thing tweaked where it looks pretty darn good. It's a It's a product that we're pretty proud of. And so we figured, you know what? Enough with the demos. We're going to go pseudo live with it tonight. So, um whether you're watching live or if you're watching this on tape in the subsequent days, I think you'll notice a different look um to the meeting. And uh hopefully you'll have a different sound to the meeting. Um And And I really hope over the next uh few days and weeks that we get some feedback from people about what they think about this look and this sound compared to what heretofore they had uh on that uh audio and video.

Okay. With that being said, our first item tonight is a public hearing. And this public hearing is to waive the residency requirement for the town engineer position. Now, each speaker will be allowed up to 5 minutes. If they take the podium, I will let everybody know that as of now uh nobody has signed in to take the podium. Um Before I put the gavel down and we start the public hearing, um I would like uh for Braden Canady, our head of human resources, to somewhat explain why we're we're having this public hearing and potentially subsequent resolution uh that spawns off of it. Uh Mr. Supervisor, uh within uh town government uh some positions require residency under state law, but many do not.

And so there is an inconsistency between certain department heads are required to be residents and others are not. And that is based on whether they are considered a public officer. There's also the uh ability, according to the uh New York State Attorney General, for jurisdictions to adopt local laws to modify the residency requirements to allow public officers to live outside of the town. For instance, there is more than one of those effect in the town code currently. And so we are requesting an extension of a current residency waiver for the position of town engineer. Town engineer, the town board adopted a residency waiver, a temporary residency waiver about 3 years ago because the candidate that we hired did not live in the town but was intending to move back to the town.

Our recruitment has been going on since last July. And so we feel and we've discussed with the board previously that we've demonstrated a recruitment difficulty that required us to consider candidates who lived outside the town of Webster and who do not intend to move into the town of Webster. Of course, they may change their mind in the future you know when they become even more familiar with how fantastic a town it is. But as of currently they're not intending to do that. And so that's why uh we the search committee and I approached the town board and requested that the residency be waived. That requires a public hearing which is tonight and a vote of the town board.

An excellent explanation of that before we put the gavel down. And if anybody decides they want to take the podium on this. So with that being said, I'm going to open the public hearing. Now nobody had signed in to speak. Is any any of the attendees tonight would they like to comment about the residency requirement of the town engineer position? Sure, Ron. Sir, take the podium. Good evening. Brian Gutman, 228 Millstream Run, Webster. Uh so, I understand our current candidate lives outside of the town, but I'm a strong supporter of that the candidate should live in the town or at least uh directly in a town adjoining Webster.

That's you know, um kind of feel around Irondequoit, Ontario. Uh there are, like they've said, there are other towns uh that do have the waivers for residents who do not or for engineers who do not have to be, but a lot of them do have a stipulation in the state town code that says they should be at least adjoining. So, hopefully the candidate is. That's that's where I fall on it. Sure. Okay. Okay. Thank you, Brian. Anybody else uh want to take the podium on this? Okay. I'm going to close out the public hearing then. Is there any discussion, uh questions from the town board members before we move on to the next uh item?

No, I think we talked about this at a uh workshop recently that there was pretty significant challenges in finding a qualified candidate for this position, and it was open for a long time, and and uh Braden had to go through some pretty extraordinary efforts to find this person. So, I think we're doing what we need to do to get the position filled. Any anything? No, I think what we have to be doing um to get it done to get out town, you know, efficiently run. So, I believe that, you know, whatever uh Brighton have done, you know, good job find the candidates. I fully support of that. John? No, no questions.

Okay. Okay. Uh well, then I'd like to make a motion to enact a local law to waive the residency requirement for the position of town engineer in Webster. A second. Supervisor Flaherty? I. Councilwoman Wright? I. Councilman Cahill? I. Councilwoman Winn? I. Okay. Uh and that spawns right to the next resolution, which is uh before I um read it and make the motion on it or someone makes a motion on it. Brian, you mind if I hand the baton back to you to uh let everybody know about the person that we are going to be appointing. Uh yes, it's my pleasure uh to have provided the resume for our candidate for town engineer.

His name is Keith Mortimer and he is a New York State licensed professional engineer with over 30 years of experience in the uh local area in a uh broad uh uh special in in a in a broad category uh functions. Um he started his career in traffic engineering, but um and working for several local civil engineering consulting firms and has worked as a senior project manager for um Highland Hospital and uh more recently works as a manager of construction and real estate development for a another local firm. Um Mr. Mortimer was very impressive during his interviews. We also to make sure that it was a good fit, we connected him with our prior town engineer so that they could compare notes for an honest assessment of what it's like to look work for the town of Webster.

And he also attended a facility tours of the highway department and the sewer department so that he could get a good sense of what our ongoing projects and such are. And I and I got to say, you know, earlier you said that when Mary Harrington, our last town engineer, her family moved. Um and that was at the end of July and you know, Mary was great. She worked with us for two or three months. Um back in May, June, July last year to help, if you want to call it, in getting ready to hand the baton off to the new town engineer. We we were surprised at just how challenging of a search that was. And one of the things that I think needs to be said before we do this resolution is that um the committee that interviewed candidates, um three of them are in this room tonight, Brayton uh Paul I said, no, uh I don't know that one.

There's only two of us? Oh, yeah, there's five on the committee and only two are here tonight. Okay. Um we had a chance a couple times along the line to have hired somebody. But one of the beauties of our structure of having a five-person committee do these interviews. And these are robust interviews. These are an hour and a half. Um there are 30 questions that are peppered at this candidate. They're almost they're almost designed to cause stress to the candidate because these are our These are our top positions at the organization. These are our leaders. And if they can't handle the stress of a an interview, um how are they going to operate as the leader of the town and for the citizens that we're trying to service?

Um we have made out very well over the last four-plus years using this philosophy, and we've hired some great town department heads. Um we made a conscious decision along the way in October and I think again in January to not tender offers to candidates that we had interviewed. And that was a five-person uh really combined agreement. We just didn't want to hire somebody that we didn't feel was going to do an excellent job. And that's tough because when we don't have a town engineer, there's work that needs to be done, and it falls on people like Pat Stevens, our highway superintendent. It falls on people like Josh Artuso, and it gets outsourced to MRB.

So, it's very easy for an organization to make a feel-good hire because oh, we got to get somebody in the seat cuz we got to have work to do. But in my experience, when you make that feel-good hire, 3 to 6 months after it, you really regret that decision. Um now with that being said, when Mr. Mortimer came in for his interview, and I know I had blocked off uh up to 90 minutes for it, that interview went on for 2 and a half hours, uh And when he left, we all looked at each other and said, "Am I missing something here? I mean, this guy there's no way he could have answered some of those questions.

He couldn't have gotten a glimpse into our culture and what we're trying to achieve." I was just so impressed by it. But, once again, our strategy and philosophy is to not make emotional decisions, it's to make good decisions based on facts. So, we didn't rush to judgment and and go to make a hiring offer. We went through our due diligence, had him go and see the facilities that he would be overseeing and meet the facility managers, had him talk to our past town engineer. Brayton, you can sit continue to do your due diligence reference request and ask some pretty tough questions to make sure that we weren't just seeing a shiny object.

Um and everything just continued to play out well. Hiring is a crapshoot. Anybody in this room or anybody watching this thing, if you're an owner or a manager who hires, you know exactly what I'm trying to what I'm saying. You can do your best homework and and still you don't know what you get until the person's in the position and operating for three or four weeks or three or four months, I should say. Um but we really make a conscious effort at the town of Webster, at least the last four years, to really try to make sure we don't strike out on our department heads. You make the right decision on hiring department heads, and really, and I've said this and it gets some people upset.

It doesn't matter who's sitting on this dais as the elected official, because for the citizens of this town, the day-to-day operations of this town are run by the department heads. And it really doesn't matter at that point who is sitting on this dais as the elected official. And I know that isn't something popular to say as a politician, but I don't think my career is going to end up being a politician. Um I like good organizational structure. I like efficiencies. We've done a good job at it. We have ways to go. You know, we're not perfect. I feel good about this uh process, and I feel good about what it it what what we found in Keith Mortimer.

So, I'll get off my soap box. Any other questions or comments? Uh I think the the hiring practice and interviewing practice that um we've incorporated under your leadership has borne some very good fruit. And the process in which we've gone about the hiring with the team of people interviewing is typically I have found that um a lot of companies have gone to that rather than making a political decision and my my buddy said, you know, this guy's a good guy and doing that. It's proven throughout the years um not to be the proper way of hiring people. It's better to take your time, have a team interview.

Everybody has different questions and will get different impressions based upon the answers of the questions. And one of the key things that I'm I'm glad that you did was to have uh Mary Harentine getting involved in this and having discussions with him because I have an amazing amount of respect for her. I really do. on her opinion? Oh, she does not. And that's what I love about Mary. She's very direct. Yeah. And and you you know, times you you really need that, right? Unvarnished opinion based upon conversations. I just want to say thank you, John, for saying under my leadership, but the fact of the matter is uh we hired Brayton in September, I think, of 2020.

I already had conceptually that I didn't like the way maybe heretofore the town hired leaders, the department heads. But I really didn't quite know how to go about it. He's the one that took You quickly you took a raw concept that I had and he Not to say he kind of chuckled and he said, "Let me show you how we can do this." The guy didn't fall off the turnip truck yesterday in HR. Um And so I got to give a lot of credit to Brayton because he really kind of perfected and I I remember the first one that we did and I looked at the questions and I was like, "Wow, you know, that's that's an interesting and and the way he goes about getting the questions, you know, um from different sources and the there's a purpose to each of those 25 to 30 questions.

I'm going on and on, you know what? And to your point as far as setting this up and putting it the candidate in a stressful position. One of my one of my jobs, I interviewed there was eight people in the room and everybody had different questions. So, it's a little stressful, yes. Did you get the job? Yeah, I did. Uh thank god. Well, Brayton wasn't there. Without further ado, I would like to make a motion to appoint Keith Mortimer as the town of Web Town Engineer for the Town of Webster. Second. Supervisor Flaherty? Aye. Councilman Cahill? Aye. Councilwoman Winn? Aye. Councilwoman Wright? Aye.

Brayton, Paul, one last question is tentative first day? May 6th. Okay. As a professional, he needs to give proper notice to his employer. We wouldn't want to hire somebody that wouldn't give proper notice. No, it says a lot about somebody the way they leave an organization. I go back to what Mary did. She let us know 3 months in advance. I know that was very hard for her, but it was the right thing. It was a professional thing. And not for nothing, as we all know, we have somebody else who showed the professional way to do things in that Dolly Maguire announced two, three months in advance of her retirement.

And that is so valuable for us to be able to start looking for a successor. So, thank you, Dolly. Be tough to find a successor to her. That's for sure. Okay, the next part of the board meeting is the open to the floor where each speaker will be allowed 5 minutes to really talk about anything they would like to. Now, tonight we only had one person sign in, and that is Cynthia Cynthia Doctor, right? Would you like to take the podium? Great. Good evening. Excuse me, I'm hoarse tonight. I want to say that I am very disappointed in the town of Webster for the actions that they have taken. Cynthia, I hate to interrupt.

Can you make sure you're talking into the microphone? Is it that's out there? Yes. I'm here. We can hear you now. I can hear you. Okay, I can do that. Can you also state your address for the record? Sure. My name is Cynthia Doctor. My address is 774 Bell Harbor Trail here in the town. I want to say that I'm very disappointed in the way the town of Webster has handled the EMS situation in the town. One of my great concerns, and I don't know if any or all of you have had the occasion to require immediate ambulance service for a life-threatening situation. And I did a year ago November. Such that I had asked to go to Strong Memorial because that's where my doctors are.

They told me I couldn't make it to Strong Memorial, so they took me to Rochester General. The type of care and concern that they gave me was unparalleled. I had had to call them the year before because of acute pancreatitis. Both times they were wonderful. So when I started, it's kind of through the back door finding out that the town of Webster somehow could not come to an agreement with the ambulance service, I was upset. I told all my friends. They were equally as upset. And now I see we're to this point where tomorrow Penfield is going to be responsible for us. I believe that there has been a distinct lack of transparency and communication.

These are two things that Mr. Flaherty likes to point out that are so important in the town and that people don't come to town board meetings, etc., etc. There's absolutely nothing on the Town of Webster Facebook page regarding EMS situation. Nothing. We like to talk about our brand new highway department, which by the way, God knows how much that costs. It's also mentioned by Mr. Flaherty, who for some reason it is unwilling to look up what I'm speaking. That the Webster Herald is where information is posted. If you Google the Webster Herald and their website, it says it's not operational. Even if I wanted to subscribe to it, how would I?

There's nothing on Spectrum. What I would like to know, and I do not know if in this forum anyone here will answer my questions. I'll ask that question. Will people here answer my questions? Or is this just You can tell me whether you'd answer if I asked you a question. Sandy, I'm going to tell you this. What? Without knowing the question, I can't answer that. I can't answer if you're going to cuz I don't know if you're going to ask me like what are my wife like to do. hear you. I cannot answer whether I would answer your question until I heard the question. I'll I'll specifically ask the question.

You stated in your supervisor column that there were a number of points bones of contention I'll call them between you folks and the ambulance service. I'd like to know what those points of contention were more than one word. Yeah, I can answer that question. I just want you to know you're at 4 minutes and 4 seconds. So, I'm going to give you some slack here. Do you have another question? No. That's it? And you have no Well, depending upon your answer. Well, you you're going to run out of time cuz my answer doesn't count into your it counts into your time. So, how do you how would you like to do this?

will go back to what I said when I came here. That I will make an appointment to talk with you sometime within the next 2 weeks to find out what exactly because it was never published anywhere that I could find. So, how is a resident of this town can I make a decision whether or not you folks were in the wrong or the ambulance company was? Okay. you And we're now at 5 minutes. happily answered my questions. Okay. So, I and I want to ask one question of you. Is this my timer or yours? Uh well, you don't have to answer this question. You said that the Webster Herald you couldn't get a hold of it if you even wanted to, okay?

But you said in your supervisor corner uh column, how did you see my supervisor's corner column? Because somewhere someone said we were losing our ambulance service. Okay. Okay. That's all I need to know. went to the town of Webster website to find very little useful information. Okay. Thank you. Um Do you want to answer the question? Well, we were you're the EMS liaison. Well, with respect to, you know, notifying and also publicizing, I think you're up to 15 or 16 articles. 15. 15 articles. Okay. Right. Yeah. I believe that one of your one of your articles will certainly did identify a couple of the significant differences.

By the way, nobody can hear you now that you're off the podium, so it doesn't Right. So, Cynthia, and I, you know, I I understand the minute you walked in the door when I said hi to you, you know, there's nothing I can say that is going to make you happy or whatever. I call it Pat Stevens our our highway superintendent says, You you hate my face, and that's fine, but I'm going to just I'm just trying to be straight with you. You if you speak from the crowd, that's not how this works. You speak from the podium, you had your 5 minutes, and and now we're going to answer your question, and we're and it's a good question.

Well, that's great. All right? Did Did I understand you to say that you were going to make an appointment with a supervisor to to speak to him individually? That's great because I also understand that maybe I misunderstood that No, I'm not trying to be patronizing. I'm just trying to be factual here that I think it's a great idea for you to sit down with a supervisor and also because of the fact that if I understood you correctly, that you have already met with the EMS, correct? That's great. So, now you're going to get both sides. Thank you very much for doing that. I appreciate it. Okay. So, I think the 15 articles over the last 2 years, and the reason why I always reference how many there are is for things just like this.

Um that when somebody comes and says, "You've You've not been transparent. You You haven't told us why." I feel pretty confident that we have been unbelievably transparent. And I think, and it's funny, this Yeah. She's shaking her head like this, "You haven't been." And Brian Goodman's back there like, "Holy cow. Is there anything more we could have said, Brian, except for going to people's doors and knocking on them?" And you guys published links I'm a I'm a town resident. Yeah. So, I would also point out the fact that we have had numerous discussions in these board meetings specifically regarding EMS.

Yes. To And And And those meetings are on our website. Okay. So, I just want to say this because I think Cynthia deserves No, the actual meeting minutes are there. out that that the the podium is where the the people in the crowd talk, and and this dais is where we talk. So, I'm going to answer the question, okay? Yep. And she doesn't want one-word answers, so you get ready. Um you better time me on this one. I'll try to do it in 5 minutes or less, just like the time that you were given on the podium. In November of 2021, the town board did a resolution to what I call Trump the West Webster Fire District awarding the ambulance, the EMS authorities they had to Penfield Volunteer Ambulance, who Glenn Becker is in the room tonight from them.

We did that because we thought what as a town board, we think differently than the West Webster Fire District leadership and the Northeast Joint Fire District leadership. Their meets and bounds of their district is what they need to think about pragmatically. We're the town board. We need to think of the full 35 square miles that encompass both of those districts. So, we made a conscious decision that what was best for the town was not to split it in half and have Penfield Volunteer Ambulance making the calls on the west side of Hard Road and NEQALS, Northeast Quadrant Advanced Life Support, under contract with the town's municipal authorities, WEMS, Webster Emergency Medical Services.

That would not have been a good play. We made that decision, and I got to say, much to the chagrin of the West Webster Fire District leadership. So, I got to tell you something, Mrs. Doctor. If you're looking for more people that are in the town Flaherty hate club, you should go down there. I hope that they maybe are not thinking that way, but they did not like me at that time, nor this board. That was the right decision. Now, when we made that decision, we stood on this podium that night in November of '21 and said, "I want to make this very clear. This is not us handing NEQALS the whole town, and that's that.

We are going to amend the current contract because the current contract between WEMS, our municipal authority certificate of need, which we're the only town in Monroe County that has one. We just had a major change to that contract because NEQALS now has all of West Webster. So, we have to make changes to that contract. And we NEQALS leadership all the way along with John Cale, our EMS liaison, and myself from June to November of '21 said of course we would make changes. Of course we'll make changes. And then when John Cahill and Patty John Cahill and Patty Cataldi, our deputy supervisor, and our town attorney sat down in December of '21 and said let's start talking about this amended contract.

I don't know really if Neqwa's leadership was that much of an engaged participant in that. They had gotten us to award them the whole town without doing an amended contract. Now, we looked at this and said okay, well, that that was a risk we took, all right, on good faith. But it kind of got really trumped in about April of 2022 because we were under the assumption that if we gave Neqwa's all of West Webster that we had figured out the math, John, and it was about a net $250,000 to Neqwa's annually from us giving them that section of town. And that was re- theoretically going to take care of any financial problems they had.

Well, the New Year's Day of 2022 celebration ended very quickly because by April Neqwa's had applied to the town for $450,000 of our ARPA money. Now, we weren't planning on giving any of our ARPA money to not-for-profits. So, we had to figure out, well, this puts us in a very unusual position. We can't just glad-hand and give that to a not-for-profit when there's a ton of not-for-profits in the town of Webster that might want to have some of our ARPA money, too. So, we set up a situation where you can apply for our ARPA money, and I think 14 different Is that right, Paul? 14 times. 14 applied for our ARPA money, and on July 7th, right?

On July 7th, we awarded Neqwa's on July 7th, 2022, $205,000 of our Nequals money. I'm sorry, of our ARPA money. Here we were taking pictures on July 7th at the board meeting. They got $205,000. Now, remember, 6 months earlier we had just awarded him the whole town, which was supposed to pick him up $250,000 annually for having the whole town. But, you can't make this stuff up, Cynthia. 3 weeks later, on July 28th, 2022, the Nequals leadership came up to that podium and said, "We need $800,000 in a tax district, an EMS tax district, and we need it by January 1st, 2023." That made this town board step back and say, "Wait a minute." That is Hear me out.

You asked for the answer, all right? Okay. We said, "We can't just cut $800,000 checks without figuring out a change to the contract and understanding how your business operates currently, so we're not just handing taxpayer money over to a private company that is not managing that money to the best interest of the taxpayers." And so, that led John to a elongated uh 17-month due diligence process. And here is the money answer. Somewhat overly simplified. During that 17 months, from August of 2022, until Nequals leadership in December of 2023 decided, "We're going to give you 90-day notice, town.

We don't want to be your outsourced ambulance company anymore." All right? They did that on December 29th, 2023. One thing that was consistent, and I kept saying it at this podium, writing in articles. They wanted the money and they didn't want any changes to the contract. They didn't want any changes to their current organizational structure and how they operated, which they operate with a fly car, with a paramedic, and a transport ambulance with an EMT, and they meet at the site. 17 EMS agencies in Monroe County, and they're the only one that uses that as their core model. And they also Sure, it does.

Um And so, they also they also have leased staffing. They take their staff, their EMTs, their paramedics, basically. Yeah. And they And they have a They're a private company. God bless them. They went out and got revenue from Williamson, New York. That's not Webster. They went out and got revenue from Richmond, New York. That's Honeyoye Falls, south of the town, far away. And basically, they reported in their QuickBooks, Paul, that they were they were making money on these contracts, right? Because they said, "We want this money from the town of Webster because it will It really is to subsidize our paramedics' pay and our EMT pay." The problem is, when you looked at the base the details of their paramedics and their EMTs and who they had on staff and how many hours and how many were being dedicated to these contracts, I don't think there is any way you could describe this that we would have Webster taxpayers subsidizing contracts in Richmond and prior in Williamson.

Well, as part of the due diligence process, we showed that that was happening. Right. So, our point was very simple. We're not adverse to giving money. WE'RE NOT ADVERSE TO the town board and the town coffers, either general fund discretionary or setting up a tax district for EMS, which might happen in the future. Right. We're not adverse to giving money. What we're adverse to is throwing good money after bad. And throw because that is not why you elected us. Our biggest job as a town board member, in my opinion, is a fiduciary responsibility of your tax dollars. And we wouldn't be doing our job.

It's a dereliction of duty if we basically just kowtowed and handed $800,000 because you're not going to like it, Cynthia, because, you know, they save lives and do this and that. You asked a question up there, has anybody ever had taken ambulance because they had their have their life saved? You're looking at one of them, right here. I had one of them. Guess what? Then we are aligned, aren't we? But you know what? Well, we both got our life saved by ambulance, we're aligned at least on that. Now, as time went on, it became very apparent, it's one of my favorite sayings, don't listen to what people say, watch what they do.

They kept saying to John and me and Paul and Charlie and whatever, yeah, yeah, we'll make changes to the contract, this and that, but their formal in writing proposals to us was give us 45 grand a month, we're the best, 60. no changes. I thought it was 60. It was May of 2023, they did a resolution and presented it to this town board, 45 grand a month, no changes. And then, that was a resolution in May of '23. And then the other written thing was essentially from their attorney in November of '23 that said, you give us $210,000 by December 8th, or we're going to file with the state that we're going out of business.

Those are the only two formal things in writing we ever got from them. So, they can tell you stories until the cows come home of what they said they were going to do, but the only formal things they gave us was money for nothing, for no changes. And that was always a non-starter with this board. That was a non-starter with this board. We were very clear about this. And I think the narrative became for anybody that does social media is that this was somehow a personal thing between me and Ahmed Mustafa, the chairman of the board. And the funny thing about that is is that not only was it not a personal thing, and anybody who's worked with me knows that my whole, I think, compass of decision-making is like, don't put emotion into it.

We have to go with facts. Is that as as recently as October or November of '23, when John and Russ Ziskin had a committee together that was working with Niantic Walls on a business and operations plan to present to this town board in January with the proposed funding, which was going to be 700 or 800 grand annually. Okay? When it became apparent that Russ would become one of the leaders of Niantic Walls, I said, "That I'll do an Irish jig. I That's enough leadership change for me." I said, "Leadership change needs to be done. Organizational structure needs to be done." I already told you why. Least staffing and the fly car model that all you got to do is look at the data and see how it is not the right model for a 35 square mile town with 4,500 ambulance calls a year that have payer mix that are configured of a socio-economic makeup of this town.

It is not the model you do here, and if you research it, it is a rural area model. We are not a rural town. 45,000 people in 35 square miles, it's not the model. But NEQALS stood their ground, God bless them. We're not changing. You can't tell us to get rid of change our leadership. You can't tell us to change our organizational and operational structure. And that's what they stood on, and we tried to be very Look, we're not adverse to giving you money, but those things have to change. They never did. I got to be honest with you. I did not expect that December 29th that the NEQALS leadership would take the posture of setting up a quick uh press conference and calling the press in and saying, "Hey, we quit.

We're done. 90-day notice, which the contract has." And they executed it. And here we are 90 days later. And with that being said, whether it is to Mrs. D'Amico's liking or not how I answered that question, it was well over 5 minutes, wasn't it, Kyle? Uh 13 minutes. You can We can have more conversation in this when you call Kim Doyle, and I'm sending you an email right now to set up a meeting one-on-one. Now, with that being said, does anybody on the town board have any questions or comments about the resolution that one of you will have to make a motion if we want to move forward with this um about uh outsourcing our EMS in the Northeast Joint Fire District to Penfield Volunteer Ambulance as of 6:00 a.m.

tomorrow morning because that is the formal end of the 90-day notice of Northeast quadrant advanced life support. Is there any I think you did a fantastic job. The question I hear for you is this. The question because I'm pretty I every time I hear um you answer the question, you did it the same thing at um our Republican Committee meeting is how do you remember those dates? I just you It's a sickness to be honest with you, Jack. I mean, honestly. It's It's impressive though. It is. I I wish I could do in front of you. You just rattle them off. I I don't know how else Yes, Brian. Can I Can I I wasn't I really wasn't going to speak, but can I can I speak?

Yeah, I will say the open of the floor is still open. We haven't You know what? We haven't gone to this resolution, so go ahead, Brian. You get a twofer tonight. You get the the town engineer public hearing and you also get the open to the public for anything. Yes, good evening again. So, I I I it's unfortunate she did leave because I did want to say you know I have never come to town board meetings until this whole ambulance situation occurred. Um you you know, I you guys moved the location to the high school because there were so many of us and yes, you were not popular for giving it to to to WAMS instead of Penfield with the call ups service back in the day, but it it is what it is and and and you know, I I think WAMS showed their true colors and uh you know, I I my last 7 years at Xerox back in the day when I worked at Xerox was with the ambulance there and that is where their their you know, an equal started from and so I understand that model and that model definitely is works for Xerox back in the day because employees are all working, so it was a volunteer ambulance at Xerox.

So flat tire and an ambulance worked but that you're you're right that does not work for the town and I'm very happy that we are finally going with Penfield. And again eat You guys have publicized this enough. We've had so many so many meetings on this so many presentations extra that are up on the website. There's a whole section dedicated so I'm not sure what what you missed and and again and too bad that she did leave and didn't realize that. Thank you. Thanks Brian. The only other thing that I would add to this discussion is that this is not a road we originally wanted to go down. We worked very hard putting a business plan together to present to the equals board and um it just didn't go the right direction but we we did a lot of work that committee and yourself time and Paul um it just didn't come to fruition and it's not something that we were designing to do to go this route.

No. And and you know this same committee will be working um and doing analysis going forward for the long-term contract with Penfield. So it's not like we're not following the same footprint. Can we do that? What Yeah. Um anyway I would like to thank you know all those that involved in this uh process and it was a very very complicated issues because of the health and the safety of the Webster residents you know it's my number one concern. So I'm going to support this resolution. Put in the dollar amount, okay? It's done. Uh it's it's in there, if you know what I mean, cuz I Yeah, I'm going to make the motion, but it's uh Yeah, and then it's through December December 1st.

And then it's Where is it though? There it is. See it? Right there? Yeah. Um Okay. So, while Tom and John are sorting that out, I'm I'm sort I'm I'm the newest member of the board, so late to the party, but have certainly been following the EMS situation in the town, and I was at the the meeting in June. Um it's an unfortunate situation, and it's very complicated, like Jenny said. It's extraordinarily complicated. And there are there could there were differences of opinions, there are requirements from the state, there there's just a lot that go into these decisions. The the one question I had, which which Paul helped to answer for me, was the funding for the Penfield ambulance.

So, inside the town budget, there's $50,000 for um augmenting the ambulance service or EMS service in Webster. The um the amount that is required to stand up Penfield volunteer ambulance is a little bit more, $128,000. I don't have the exact number. 956 956 25 25 And um so, those were my questions was where was that money going to come from, and there is uh there's there are funds in the general fund to make up the difference and um as the town was going through this process, Penfield Voluntary Ambulance in good faith did take actions and incur costs to make sure that while this transition was happening in the west side of Webster and preparing for supporting the east side of Webster, made investments in the business to ensure that when this day comes, the what is it the 29th or 30th?

What's What day is I think it's the end of today. The end of today cuz it was the 29th. So, at the end of today tomorrow we can guarantee that anybody, as Tom would say, in the 35 square miles of Webster is going to have the critical care and emergency support that they need. So, um And And the other piece of this is that was important to me because this was unfolding fairly quickly is, well, if there was $50,000 in the budget, how's that going to be budgeted for in the future? And um And And for that, as soon as this resolution is made, it's it's good till the end of this year and then there will be discussions in the budgeting process for this for next year's budget.

So, we'll make sure it's comprehended and and provides good coverage at an affordable cost for the town of Webster. And so, for for for those um reasons, I think it's it's extraordinarily important to support this cuz there's right now there would be no other option um after today. Yeah, to your point, um when we were given the uh notification from uh from Nichols, um we immediately started meeting with Penfield. And Penfield has been um has been ramping up significantly um since we first started working with them you know knowing that this day was coming quickly. I believe to date they've hired about at least 11 E-Care's employees paramedics and EMTs and have been ramping them up getting them on board.

They've spent significant money and equipment. One of the ambulances that we're going to retire they're not retiring so they had to re-equip that. So they've expended quite a bit of money and that's to the benefit of the town of Webster and Glenn thank you and your team for all your cooperation and you know especially it comes down to also people right? There's a lot of young people that were going to be out of a job. And they have been hired not only by Penfield but by other ambulance corporations in Monroe County. Which was I was glad to hear that and and thank you for doing that and I've talked to I don't want to name who it is but I've been speaking on a regular basis regarding the environment and field we bring a lot of people in from a different ambulance company sometimes the transition isn't too smooth.

Um You get a lot you have a lot of different personalities right? And I have not have heard nothing but positive things from this gentleman who I trust and respect about the transition from E-Care's and how welcoming that Penfield has been so I I want to mention that and also thank you for that. And I will say that uh I I really thought that by January of '24, based on um the work that John was doing on the this committee um with Russ Siskin and some knee-walls board members and Right. uh um leadership day-to-day, that we were going to have them come in and present the business plan, the operations changes, whatever, and then the proposed funding that they would need from the town.

And we were getting a glimpse of that as early as probably mid-November, Paul, early December, that it was it was going to be $700,000. Oh, yes, yes. at least. And and I want to say $700,000 for the year of 2024 to just make ends meet. This was before we would have had to figure out what monies to help them with to to update their fleet of transport ambulances. Um their fleet of transport ambulances is is old. Um the gurneys that come out of the back with the patient are manual. And um you know, I'll say a guy my size, Brian, I won't pick on you. You know, if you could easily tip me over. Um the modern ambulances have hydraulic gurneys so that the the volunteer firefighters, EMTs, and the paramedics and EMTs that work for the ambulance company aren't put in that position of potentially having to hold up somebody manually.

The the the hydraulic gurney, it just makes sense. It's 2024. Um and that was something this this board looked at and said, and I go back to the you know, there's a fiduciary responsibility being on this board uh of the taxpayers money. But there's also just the compass of doing the right thing that when you see that our citizens are potentially being transported to a a hospital in a less than desirable aged and accoutermented uh, transport ambulance um, I just don't think that's right. That that's where the the balance of dollars and just doing the right thing, that tips. Um, so we knew that if we were going to continue on with Nequals, that we were going to have to invest and I know Paul, you had done some preliminary work to see if there was grant money and could we lease ambulances in our name and lease them back?

at You know, but but an ambulance is, I don't know Glenn, 200 grand? I mean, not not equipped with a loaded Right. Um, 350,000 fully loaded. So we were trying to figure out, you know, well how do we do that? Cuz we assumed we were going to be sitting with Nequals in January. Um, and that's who we were going to go with. I I can't stress enough, I I was just blown away when they did the uh, the 90-day notice. But, you know, you're turning lemons into lemonades the ambulances that Penfield uh, Volunteer Ambulance has, uh, they have a a real strict uh, policy on how old or how many miles and and they either get rid of them and buy new ones or they refurbish them and they all I think Glenn have the hydraulic uh, Right.

So, not only is that good um, for the patient but I guess uh, I kind of one of those guys it's like I think there's a there's a respectable work condition for an EMT and a paramedic. And I don't think I I can't sleep at night thinking that we're going to be behind our town board is behind putting human beings that do this job, this this thankless job at sometimes for what they get paid in a rig that is potentially dangerous. They they deserve the respect of being in a a more updated rig. Now, along those lines, and this was one that really bothered me since 2022 when Nichols got the whole town.

Is I learned EMS and wow, have I gotten an education on EMS and it is one complicated industry. Uh very complicated. Um It it it it just made sense to me that when you'd go down to a base of operations where the ambulance is pulled into a bay and while they're not on call, they go in and there's a family room and couches and chairs and they can maybe watch TV and there's a kitchen and then maybe they can there's bedrooms and whatever. Because these people are putting in long hours and so when they're not on call, if they're going to be waiting for the next call, um it's kind of nice to be in a base like that.

Um Nichols had their base on Jackson Road. But then they said, "Don't worry about the people in West Webster because West Webster over on DeWitt, that's a long ways from Jackson Road. So if they got to go to a heart attack on DeWitt Road from Jackson, that can take 10 minutes. And seconds matter in this industry, right? So it just made sense to me logistically that you got to triangulate or whatever where your bases of operations are in within 35 square miles to put yourself in the best position to draw a radius around these bases and say that every citizen in Webster, every resident, assuming all things are equal and you're not out on a call and whatever, the ambulance is 4 minutes away.

And that's a big difference than 10 minutes away. Now, Neequalls said, "Hey, we put our ambulances over and they just sit in a parking lot. So, they're staged." Is that a great way to treat employees that you're sitting in your ambulance in a parking lot at 2:00 in the morning waiting for the next call? So, that always bothered me and I think it bothered you, too, John. And one of the things we're we're getting with Penfield Volunteer Ambulance, at least in this short-term contract, is that one, they got their base on Jackson Road that is less than 3 miles south of the Neequalls base. So, it's still accessible quickly to some of the people in southeast um Webster.

But, they've also worked out with the Northeast Joint Fire Department to stage, base, whatever, one ambulance at the What is it? The Phillips Road uh Station 3, which if you take Station 3, and that's over near our Rec Center and whatever, draw a circle around that, you you got some good coverage in East Webster there. But, they also have an ambulance, I hope I'm pointing right, yeah. They also have an ambulance or ambulances over at the West Webster Joint Fire District base on Gravel Road. And I think everybody who knows the geography knows that if you're off of Dewitt, having an ambulance come from Gravel Road's fire department, you got a heck of a lot better chance if you got an emergency situation of that getting there quickly and saving your life on the way to the hospital than if it's coming from Jackson Road.

So, that made me feel pretty good. And it also gave a base where the EMTs and paramedics, when they're not on a call, have a place to go in, rest, grab a bite to eat, have coffee, maybe watch a TV show. I don't know why any of us would have any problems with that while they're not on call cuz some of these What are they working sometimes 12-hour shifts? We limit them to 18. We living in limit it limit them to 18 hours. And most of them are volunteer. 18-hour shifts. And these people are doing God's work. I don't mean to be corny, but we owe it to them to at least try to give them good ambulances and to give them a good place to be while they're not on a call.

And this is where to me this this is great because Penfield has those things. So, we're getting them in this contract. We were ready to do that with NEQALS, but it was going to Don't kid yourself. It was going to cost a lot more than $700,000 in 2024 because Jan, we didn't have an answer Right. beyond that 700 grand to how do we get their fleet of ambulances up to where they need to be with, you know, uh all the things that I've said. And we didn't have any inroads to where they could put an ambulance in West Webster that was respectable respectful to the EMTs and paramedics. We We didn't have an answer to that.

When NEQALS basically given their 90-day notice, um opened up the door to us getting the answer on that. Um and it's right now through Penfield Volunteer Emergency Ambulance. Um so, I know there's a lot of emotion about this. I know that the the the nice lady who was here today is, you know, she's upset and there's a lot of people that are upset and it's an emotional thing. We had to really balance this emotion with just hard facts, logistics, dollars, employee respect, ambulance age and accoutrements. Those are not emotional things. Those are facts. I don't know. I think you need to close the public hearing.

Well, there is no public hearing on this. Or the the open to the floor? You don't have to Well, anybody else want to get up there? Brian, you want to So, we're on to the resolution. We've really done a So, I'll make a motion authorize the town supervisor to sign a contract for West Webster Emergency Medical Services from today through December 2024 uh to outsource EMS to Penfield Ambulance um in the amount of $128,000 $128,956.25. Second. Councilman Cahill. Aye. Councilwoman Wynn. Aye. Councilwoman Wright. Aye. Supervisor Flaherty. Aye. And last but not least tonight, I don't think there has to be a lot of discussion on this except for I will say that um uh having had some discussions with our attorneys, uh especially our outsourced attorney on this um issue, uh Jeff Storch from Harris Beach, um and the Coke Fairlife attorneys, and Dolly, I know we talked about this uh in the last couple days.

We're kind of putting the brakes on this. Um only for probably about a month. Um but we are not going to have a public hearing on April 4th um, for a code change and the one-time sewer tie-in fee. Uh, and therefore we didn't advertise it in yesterday's Webster Herald. Um, the best way to explain it is um, that I think we're going to measure twice, cut once um, with making sure that the verbage that is in the code change um, is fits the town of Webster today and for the foreseeable future and any other large sewer users that come into town. Um, and so there's just some things that need to be tidied up about the language in that and uh, I think the attorneys and and I concurred with them, it's better to just let's take a couple of weeks, work on that language, look at the ifs, and comes, and make sure that we have no unintended consequences.

So, that's my explanation unless the board has any other questions of why we're going to No. pull back. Okay. Anything down there? No. No? Well, I make a motion to rescind the March 21st resolution to set a public hearing for April 4th and to advertise in the March 27th Webster Herald on town code change and one-time sewer tie-in fee. Second. Supervisor Flaherty? Aye. Councilman Cahill? Aye. Councilwoman Win? Aye. Councilwoman Wright? Aye. Well, it was a short agenda on paper, but it we've been an hour and 7 minutes into this you know, kind of glad it went down that way cuz I think some of this stuff, especially the ambulance it's big.

And I think I'm kind of glad Cynthia came in because it it deserved to have on the record and for people to see this tape and whatever a more robust explanation because as I'm finding out and thanks Brian, even though I think we have been uber communicative on this, what I think happens and I'm learning this from um from Bridget Harvey, our new dynamo as director of communications, is that if somebody has not been paying attention to this and all of a sudden they find out over coffee or someplace, "Did you hear we're changing ambulance?" And they're "Oh my god." And then they're they look at something and they just assume that they hadn't seen it that the town board has been not transparent the last 2 years about how things have gone.

That's human nature. So, I don't know if we're ever going to change that, although Bridget's got some ideas of how we can minimize that possibility that in the future um somebody comes into this board room on something that we think we have we couldn't have communicated it more if we The only way we could have is gone door-to-door and said, "We want to talk to you about this thing." And that's obviously not going to happen. That's a little inefficient. Um So, with that being said, um I'm glad it went a little longer. We'll do the round table. It's a board meeting. Paul? Hi Tom. Yeah, I'm very pleased that we now have a short-term solution for our ambulance service.

It's been uh a long process as you said uh 17 months. Uh we've done a very thorough job of analyzing the entire situation. I'm also happy that we now have a town engineer. Also another long process. Uh Mary left the end of July, so I'm glad we finally have a solution. We can move forward. Be a lot easier on some of our department heads. That's it. Well, I'm I'm three three months into this now and um you know, tonight was in a testament to how difficult this position can be. Um as Tom said, we're all trying to do the best we can for the residents of Webster, all of the residents of Webster. And unfortunately, with with 45,000 people, you're just not going to be able to please all of the people all of the time.

So, I would say that's one of the more difficult things about this position, but I can assure you we do our best to keep the interests of everybody in Webster in mind as we're making some very difficult decisions along the way. So, it's a interesting time to be joining the board. And I'm happy to be here. We're happy We're happy to have you. Charlie. Uh I don't have much to add. Um your ace Charlie Genese will be back next week. Um but it's been a pleasure to be here for a couple weeks. Uh learned a lot in my my two outings here with the town board. Well, I'm glad to hear that. Jenny. Well, again, I'm always, you know, stressing after uh Webster library plea- and the Webster museum, please come out support um your town because of you, that's why they exist.

And I'm glad that we you know, uh been able to have opportunities and uh a lot of times I passed put out residents, you know, um priority. Like everyone here, you know, your safety, your health, your everything is our goal. So, and also too, I mean, keep open mind and try to speak, you know, with other people and try to get more information. Just don't listen to one side. And, you know, we always happy to be here to sit down talk. Like uh Mr. Flaherty said, the supervisor, he will glad to sit down talk with anyone if you have questions. Um and again, I'm honored to be here. Thank you. Oh, and a happy Easter, too.

Johnny. So, as far as communications go, as you said, there there will always be problems. We're never going to talk to everyone. But, one of the things that is on the Webster website that you can sign up for is called notifications, right? So, this meeting will get I'll get a notification tomorrow on my phone of this meeting. So, I have accessibility just to watch the meeting, right? And her I think believe Cynthia made a the point that the the minutes um don't really show everything. Well, I spent 4 years in a position and Dolly's minutes are probably the most comprehensive minutes of anyone I've ever seen.

So, you have two options. You can read the minutes online. You can sign up for your um notifications, which is a fantastic tool that goes right to your phone. I just wanted to mention that as far as communication goes. great. Yeah. And now, you can watch the actual taped versions and they're wonderfully produced and I think you're going to like the product. But, like I said earlier, we hope to get some feedback from people that watch this live or watch tapes of this over the next few days of what they thought um as we forge ahead. Dolly? Um just as the town's tax receiver, I just want to um mention reminder that the third um town and county tax installment payment is due Monday, April 1st.

Thank you, Dolly. Well, thank you for coming to tonight's special town board meeting. I have a quick question. Sure. Okay. I meant to ask this about a month ago, but you do the round table. I think I know the answer to the question, but I'll wait. The only person that doesn't and say anything in the round when we go around the table is you. Uh John. And I'm thinking Do you think I'm thinking that you you you expressed your during the meeting, so you feel it's not really um needed at the end of the meeting. That is exactly it because I think I mean, I'm embarrassed in a lot of ways that I have diarrhea of the mouth and I understand that.

It's the you know, it's great when you're the mayor as an Irishman who gabs a lot. Sometimes it it it is not so great at the the board desk, but you know, I and Dolly and I have talked about this before. I would rather err on the side of caution of over explaining things um because when I watch town board meetings like for 7 or 8 months uh the 7 or 8 months before I became town supervisor. Once I knew I had won the election, I was like, I got to go and watch some of these board meetings to just see how they how does it work? Now, I've been on boards and I know how Robert's Rules Work, but as you know, John, and every board handles it differently.

So, I'm like, well, I don't want to recreate the wheel. How does the Webster Town Board work? And the one thing that I picked up from it was sitting at home watching these videos and listening to the audio, there were things that were being done that I'm like, I don't know what just happened. To the layman, I have no idea what just happened. Cuz there's acronyms, because there's this and that. And I don't think it was intentional by the past uh administration because John, you were on the board and so was Patty and you guys certainly are not trying to whatever, but I really thought you know, I when I get on that when I'm leading these board meetings, I want to make sure that if I see something I'm like, this I'm going to take that extra couple of minutes to explain it how the typical citizen cuz my wife and I live in here 27 years, I'm like, we're the typical citizen.

And I'm and I've had people come up to me and told me and said I really liked the way you explained that because prior to your explanation, I was like, I had no idea what the heck you guys were even voting on and what it meant. Now, the problem with that is is that where I think it more often than not has paid dividends, it's it's also like a tree falling in the woods. If we continue to not have people in this boardroom or watch these live or watch the tapes you poor son of a guns that come every week got to listen to my diary of the month. For the person who does clue in for a topic that they see cuz they got the alert, right?

They only get to see me talking once every year and they're like, oh, that was cool. Like, I can understand when you're sitting here and have to do it every week, it's like, oh my god, put me out of my misery. Um so Well, when the question WHEN THE QUESTION ABOUT THE EMS came up, I I knew there was no way you were you were going to keep it the five minutes. I knew it. But to your credit, it was very educational for someone that doesn't really know the background of what has evolved over the last almost 2 years. Right? The best part about that is and unfortunately, this new production would never show it because everything's pointed at the dais is that there was a point in my explanation {quote} answering Cynthia's question where I said I think we could I don't know how we could have communicated this more and it was kind of interesting to me to see her go like this but right up behind her was Brian Goodman is like agreeing with me that yeah you've communicated this thing.

Well that gets that gets back to not pleasing all of the people all of the time. And it also gets to there's different communication styles for different people. So you got to communicate in multiple ways. The more ways you communicate the more people you're going to reach. Well that's what we're trying to do. Good night. Thank you for asking that. I I did my round table. Uh this meeting's adjourned.