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DRAFT
After the pledge to the flag, the invocation was given by Town Clerk Gail Hanchar.
At the regular meeting of the Town Board of Charlton, Saratoga County, New York held at
Councilman Alan Grattidge
Motion made by Councilman Schroeder, seconded by Councilman Grattidge that the minutes of the November 10 Town Board Meeting, the November 10 Public Hearing and the November 24 Agenda Meeting be accepted as received:
Councilman Mitchell I asked Gail to check the tape. I was concerned that it wasn't clear that the Historic District Commission intended to try to get grants to pay for the lighting in the hamlet. This is in the Agenda Meeting Minutes on Page 10. Where I am speaking near the bottom of the page it should read:
The Commission would like to be able to proceed with working on preparing grants for this and wanted to know how to proceed with that.
and down a few more lines where I am speaking again it should read:
What we need to do is to be able to have something to start with on applying for grants to pay for this.
That makes it a little clearer that we are not expecting it to come from the general fund. On the next page Mrs. Stauffer started to refer to the same situation and said, "No, we intend to get grants and we are going to work on that. We are not expecting the town
.." and then Doris was interrupted which was not in the minutes. She did not get to complete that. (Bolded areas are corrected additions to the minutes.)
Motion made by Councilman Schroeder, seconded by Councilman Grattidge that the minutes be approved as amended,
Approved:
ABSTRACT OF CLAIMS:
General Fund: Abstract of Claims totaling $27,494.77. Motion made by Councilman Schroeder, seconded by Councilman Grattidge.
Highway Fund: Abstract of Claims totaling $14,799.29. Motion made by
Water Fund: Abstract of Claims totaling $1,935.46. Motion made by Councilman Schroeder, seconded by Councilman Grattidge.
Vouchers for the month were #1167-#1286.
TOWN CLERK'S REPORT:
Gail Hanchar read the Town Clerk's Report. She reported taking in $62.39. Motion made by Councilman Schroeder, seconded by Councilman Grattidge. PASSED UNANIMOUSLY.
PRIVILEGE OF THE FLOOR (Agenda Items):
No comments.
SUPERVISOR'S REPORT AND ANNOUNCEMENTS:
November revenue and expenditures:
Major expenditures:
Major revenue:
The Town Hall will be closed for the Christmas Holiday on December 25-27.
COMPREHENSIVE PLAN:
Steve Caine On December 6, we had an informal gathering for cake and coffee of the members of the Comprehensive Plan Steering Committee at the school house. 17 members attended. We have a sub-committee to select a consultant for the comprehensive planning effort. It was carefully selected to make sure we had a cross representation of the community. A lot of people have been here for a long time and are stake holders in the process. It included Dave Wood, Dot Mitchell, Marv Schorr, myself and Deborah Herrin. We have looked over quite a few of the consultants and have arrived at the conclusion that the company of Community Planning and Environmental Associates is absolutely the best fit for our town. The gal that runs this, Nan Stolzenburg, is an award winning consultant. She is married to a farmer that raises holstein cows. She has worked in a lot of rural communities. Even if the price is the same or she was more expensive, we'd still want to hire her. It just so happens that her price is $15,000.00 less than the other people that were trying to compete for it. This committee feels that as stewards of our communities financial resources and as stewards of trying to do what's best for our community with no self-interest, that this particular consultant is the best for our town. It is important to realize that our committee and the steering committee's responsibility is to work with substance and content of what Charlton wants, what is it all about and what we want to be in the future and the consultant's job is to help us go through the process. We have been asking for several months for a volunteer for a secretary. We had a real good person recommended, Chris Nelson. She is the ZBA secretary and has agreed to do it. Our meeting schedule we tried one date and had conflicts so we are now searching for other days. We will let our committee know when the first meeting will be. We think it will be some time during the first week in January. I can't emphasize enough to our board that we are very fortunate to get the caliber of people that we have got on the Steering Committee. These people are willing to invest a great deal of their time and effort for their fellow townspeople and their families. We now have a responsibility to make sure that the process we are about to go through is run in a professional, efficient manner where the talents and skills of these people are leveraged to the maximum extent and their valuable time is taken up in the most productive way possible.
Maggie Schmidt Sacandaga Road If that is $15,000.00 less than the other ones, how much is it?
Steve Caine Her top price, and she is going to provide a not exceed price which she will not go over not matter what happens, is $21,500.00. The next closest one was $36,000.00.
Supervisor Acunto Steve, thank you for your email late this afternoon. I have a copy here. What I'd like you to do, the notes are very well done and are very informative, is get them on the web site as well. It will keep everyone informed as we told them that we would. We will see that Gail has a hard copy that will be available here at the town hall.
Steve Caine We will put all our minutes on the web site.
HISTORIC DISTRICT COMMISSION:
Doris Stauffer As you know, the Historic District is starting to take steps towards a lighting district. We attended the Agenda Meeting. Unfortunately, we do not possess a computer so I was not aware of the fact that this subject would not be a part of our agenda tonight. I still feel as though I would like to discuss that a little further. We are planning on having a public meeting in January of residents of the town and residents of the historic district so that we can talk to them about lighting and show them what we are planning to do and try to get their opinions and ideas.
PLANNING BOARD:
There will be no meeting in December.
WATER:
John Morgan - The drainage system in the sumps in the pump station were covered up by the county putting in the culvert and extending it 20 feet beyond its original limits so it actually flooded the pump station. They agreed to come in and dig it up and replace it, which they did. They got it done Friday night. The fence is down. The county will come in in the spring and re-grade it. After that we will have the fence put back up. We had a brown-out. We lost two transformers and burnt up some of our motor control systems. We had to have that fixed at the same time.
Councilman Lippiello You finished the hook up on Old Stage Road.
John The hook up is completed on Old Stage. They have got to put some pavement down yet. The fire hydrants are all winterized for winter.
Councilman Lippiello We received an application for an extension to the water district that came in today from Lansing Engineering. It is an extension that would run down Crooked Street to Swaggertown to the Heflin/Durst site on the west side of Swaggertown.
Supervisor Acunto We had had an earlier discussion about this in anticipation that this was in the works. We have asked that they establish and escrow account for the coverage of engineering and legal fees. Bill or Jack was going to talk to their attorney and send that message on. Do you know where it stands, Bill?
Attorney Bill Keniry I know that that is the subject of communication between our office and the applicant's attorneys. I don't know that anything has been pinned down as yet. We are waiting for a response.
Supervisor Acunto You remember our directive to legal and engineering that no action will be taken until that account has been established.
Councilman Lippiello People who are in the water district and have hydrants near their homes, please take a few minutes and keep them clear.
HIGHWAY:
Mike Emerich We have been plowing snow. One of the trucks broke down yesterday. We had to replace a hydraulic pump.
LIBRARY:
The meeting for the end of November was postponed until this Wednesday night.
HISTORIAN:
Thanks to our Historical Society there was a door decorating contest. They held their annual dinner on December 1. The tree lighting was held yesterday.
PARK COMMITTEE:
RESOLUTIONS:
Motion made by Councilman Grattidge, seconded by Councilman Schroeder that Resolution #96, A RESOLUTION TO TRANSFER FUNDS, be approved:
Approved:
Motion made by Councilman Lippiello, seconded by Councilman Schroeder that Resolution #97, A RESOLUTION IN THE MATTER OF EXTENSION NO. 4 TO CHARLTON WATER DISTRICT NO. 1 IN THE TOWN OF CHARLTON, COUNTY OF SARATOGA, STATE OF NEW YORK, PURSUANT TO ARTICLE 12 OF THE TOWN LAW OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK, be approved:
Approved:
COUNCILMAN REPORTS:
Councilman Lippiello John has spent a long couple of weeks getting that minimal problem solved at the water pump. We appreciate the amount of time. Nice job to the highway department this past weekend. I wish everybody a safe and happy holiday. If you are doing any partying have a designated driver with you.
Councilman Schroeder Happy Holidays. This is my last official Town Board Meeting. This is the end of my tenure on the Town Board. I want to thank everybody in town for 8 wonderful years. I have never learned so much in a short period of time in my whole life. We have easily the best small town in the world. We are a special community like any other. I particularly want to thank all of the volunteers who come out and volunteer countless hours and amounts of time away from their families in service and support. I appreciate everybody's efforts and support. A wish for this new Board wisdom and peace. God Bless Charlton.
Councilman Grattidge I want to thank Bernie for all of his years of service. It isn't easy sitting up here getting shot at. We appreciate your hard work. A couple of things during the meeting --- I haven't gotten enough information on the consultant. I don't know when we are going to be authorizing that contract but I think I would need some more information on the scope of the work and that type of thing. I know it is in next year's budget. I'd just like to see a little more information for my own personal
..And I think some other people in town would appreciate a little more information on that.
Supervisor Acunto As procedure dictates, the contract cannot be signed unless the Board authorizes me to sign it. It's probably in the mail as I understand. Maybe Dot can give us more information at an Agenda Meeting or Steve when it arrives. We anticipate that it might be here by the end of the month and we can get more information. I think that's well said.
Councilman Grattidge - Another thing on the Historic District lighting project, I know they are very anxious to get going on different segments of it but I think at some point, we have the plan and we have talked about it has been accepted as a blue print as a guideline. I think the lighting is going to have quite a bit related to the possibility of sidewalks. The drainage is going to be changing. What are we going to do with open ditches compared to closed ditches? Even though the group is really anxious to get going on going out for the grants, I think a little bit more preliminary work is going to have to be done before we are ready to start putting some hard numbers on that because if three years down the road we decide that we do want to do sidewalks on alternate sides, that might have an impact on the infrastructure and the lights. I think it still needs to be thought out on that aspect. Maybe some of that could come out in the public hearing in January. Touching base on the water district vote, I felt the applicant had met their obligation for designing a proper system and I personally thought it would be an improvement to the town. That is why I voted the way I did on that. I wish everyone Happy Holidays.
Supervisor Acunto Your comments about the lighting district sound much the same as a conversation I had with a resident today. The idea is that we have to move very cautiously and look at all of the ramifications of a lighting district. I mentioned at the Agenda Meeting, my concerns deal with how are we going to handle the drainage situation particularly with open ditches on the north side of the road. We certainly need to get the opinion and advice of the County Highway Superintendents, what their feelings are. We are going to have to do a lot of homework before we jump into the concept of going for grant money. We have to be able to do our homework internally and save ourselves a lot of expense and answer a lot of these questions and go to the right people to get our answers.
Councilman Mitchell On that same subject, we should meet with the Historic District Commission so we can clarify some of the things that we need to do as to how to proceed.
Supervisor Acunto I think we might need a joint meeting with engineering and legal, too, to save us from having to meet again because I think all of those questions are important and I really think we need to bring in the county early. (changed the tape) are going in the wrong direction and we need to be thinking and considering other issues in regards to this town.
Councilman Mitchell I'd like to thank Debbie and Steve for all the work they have done on getting the Commission started for the Comprehensive Plan. We had a very good meeting Saturday and I thank all the volunteers. We have lots of volunteers who really make things happen around here. I really appreciate that. I'd especially would like Bernie for his years of service and wish everyone Happy Holidays.
PRIVILEGE OF THE FLOOR:
Doris Stauffer I would like to thank Bernie for the years that he has given us. He did serve as liaison to the Historic District Commission and we appreciated that ever so much. We have had a lot of fun. Secondly, I agree with Alan that, yes, we do have to do the engineering thing. I knew that. It has taken us over 30 years to get to this point. I have the patience of a saint. If it had gotten on the agenda tonight I wanted to talk about our Historic District and what it means to us.
Bob Killeen, Jr. I want to thank Bernie Schroeder for his 8 years on the Town Board. Thank you for your service to the town. The town greatly appreciates it. I wish everyone a happy and safe holiday season.
Laura Linder As Town Historian I wish to thank Bernie. He was my liaison for several years. I sincerely appreciate it. I hope we will continue to work on historical things together. I attended the Researching New York Conference at SUNY this month. It was a very interesting conference.
Torben Aabo Sweetman Road I think the safety with the lights is very, very important. It needs to be looked at as soon as possible. I enjoyed the comment about the sidewalks. I think the two go together very closely. If we put the lights in the wrong place then we will have a lot of problems changing that. I want to thank the supervisor for the web page encouragement and all of the minutes that are going on the web page. I am looking forward to seeing the Planning Board minutes, the Zoning Board of Appeals minutes and the ECC minutes getting on there. I urge you to make sure that those minutes also get on the web page. At the July meeting it was stated that the Zoning Board of Appeals approved the Schmidt case that at that point had gone to court. At that point it was dismissed because the Zoning Board of Appeals did whatever they had to get the case moving so that means the lawsuit was dropped. However, the Town had already spent
Supervisor Acunto I think there needs to be a clarification of procedural policy with some of our appointed officials. I think that is where we may have gone astray. We should have had better communication with the people and the department's involved. It got past us and it was basically too late. That's my opinion. I think the Board has to set down and discuss this and hopefully come up with some changes in procedures.
John Morgan The inspection for the water tower this summer went through the cracks and it never happened. It is going to be inspected this Friday. There is some extensive work that has to be done on that water tower and as soon as we get the report then next year we will have to make a decision as to what we are going to do with that.
Supervisor Acunto We have the money in the budget.
John Morgan That is correct. I don't know what the figures are going to be.
Christy Schrader I didn't go to the meeting on Saturday for the Comprehensive Planning. I was out of town. I got the information today and want to voice a little bit of concern. It seems like an awful lot of work has been done before hand, which can be very nice, but if we are a committee that is supposed to be doing that, my flags are up because I wonder what else will happen and occur. They have chosen a planner. They have got the Mission Statement done. They have hired a secretary. Why do we have a committee? What are we doing here? My flags are up a little bit. I would be concerned and want you to really look at this planner well because none of us saw any of them. All we got was the one they chose. It wasn't a whole committee decision.
Supervisor Acunto I would like to thank Bernie for his years of service on this Town Board. There was a lot of time spent, a lot of suppers missed and late and a lot of impromptu meetings. I thank you and wish you the best of luck. As a reminder, the Agenda Meeting will be
After everyone had the opportunity to speak who wished, the meeting was adjourned at
Respectfully submitted, |
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