Common Council

SPECIAL COMMON COUNCIL MEETING JULY 10, 2014 7 P.M. Special Meeting The Special meeting of the Common Council of the City of Middletown was held in the Council Chamber of the Municipal Building on Thursday, July 10, 2014 at 7 p.m. Present Council Members Grady L. Faulkner, Jr., Carl Chisem, Sebastian Giuliano, Deborah Kleckowski, and David Bauer, and Common Council Clerk Marie O. Norwood. Absent Mayor Daniel T. Drew and Council Members Thomas J. Serra, Mary A. Bartolotta, Hope Kasper, Robert P. Santangelo, Gerald E. Daley, James B. Streeto, and Sandra Russo Driska; Corporation Counsel Daniel B. Ryan. Also Present Three members of the public. Meeting Called to Order The Acting Chair, Councilman Grady L. Faulkner, Jr. calls the meeting to order at 7:07 p.m. and leads the public in the Pledge of Allegiance. He welcomes everyone to the meeting Call of Meeting Read The Call of the meeting is read and accepted. The Acting Chair declares this call a legal call and the meeting a legal meeting. Public Comment Opens The Chair opens public comment at 7:10 p.m., asking if there are any members of the public wishing to address the Council, they have five minutes to speak. William Prevatte thanks Mayor Drew and Councilman Giuliano on a passionate and personal issue which is domestic violence. It is ongoing; his family was victim of domestic violence by his father. One in 9 dies from domestic violence. He would like police officers trained to deal with domestic violence. He urges them to make next month domestic violence prevention month on behalf of domestic violence victims everywhere. No one should have to go through this. His mother nearly died from domestic battery. He thanks Officer Mike Ingles for his quick response to a call for help when his grandmother came to get them. He is speaking for his mother for the abuse that she has gone through. The Acting Chair asks for other members of the public wishing to speak. Lawrence Buck owns lot 0002 on Stantack Road and addresses the Council about one of the problems they have had and they have not had a way to address it; that is, you buy properties for open space and then you don’t take care of the roads along the property. They don’t have to be tarred or plowed, but they have to be taken care of. You can’t drive a vehicle down the road anymore; there is a river across the road with no culvert. This has been a city highway since 1700 and yet there are certain groups that don’t want to see it built on. On the other hand you are endangering yourselves because you are not taking care of the road by keeping it safely passable. You can only lock off a highway that has been closed and it can’t be closed because you bought property on that road. You don’t have to abide by P and Z rules once you close the road. We really need to see this problem resolved without it being dragged out. It doesn’t take a lot of work for someone who knows dirt roads to make it passable. It is so bad, the Police Department went to us to chase kids who were setting fires up there because they did not have the vehicles to go up there. Eleanor Kelsey states she has two items and addresses the road on Higby Mt. from Massatom Road up to the top and down the other side and she has a problem because her family has waited to make the road passable since 1939. The City dug wells along the road for the horses and people. It has been approved even though agencies in the city say it has not been approved. It has crushed rock. She would like the Council to review the status and if it is a road, post it as such. She would like to see the trail continue and her family has let them use it but we need closure here. If it is open, post it and if it is closed, post it that it has been discontinued. I have been paying taxes on this with Massatom as a City Street. All the properties along the road have a deeded restriction that the road doesn’t belong to them. She had it surveyed and he posted the road south boundary with no trespassing and in two months, the rope and signs were gone. My surveyor did it twice and after giving you notice and using a GPS receiver the yellow rope was enough. If you post the signs and the road is closed at the beginning, she needs clarity. That is Public Works responsibility. The Council has the authority to do that and to no avail. The other thing she talks about, the public doesn’t know how dangerous it is to walk that area; a bobcat ripped a hole through her garage door. They have had bears in the area. They don’t have an idea that we can have a moose here. She was attacked by two bucks, once in her back yard and once on her family’s property. The Acting Chair states your time is up; is there something in this last issue you would like us to review. July 10, 2014 Special Common Council Meeting Page 2 He asks if there are other speakers in the room to speak. He allows MS Kelsey to come back. She is bringing up the attacks is because the deer have exploded in population to the point where she has a baby faun being born 2 feet from her garage. My gardens have been destroyed. We have been using liquid defense and that is not right. The Council has approved land buys so that the Higby valley can stay agriculture. My family opted not to get the highest value of the land and keep it farming, but if we can’t have a garden, they are destroying hay fields. She requests the Council to allocate people to study the problem; she has asked DEP to look at the problem. When you see someone say we need to protect the deer, but know the population has exploded. Unless we cull out the deer, the city has to give permits on the mountain piece. It needs to be managed and the population is way out of whack. People don’t understand deer can be dangerous. The park property was mentioned and they said that Tynan Park and the Reservoir property is a big contiguous piece, something has to be done for the people going in the Mountain. When you have hundreds of people walking through we are scaring the deer out of the woods and taking them from their habitat. Public Comment Closes The Chair, seeing no further speakers, closes public comment at 7:29 p.m. Meeting Adjourned Councilman Bauer moves to adjourn and his motion is seconded by Councilman Giuliano. The vote is called and it is unanimous to approve with nine aye votes. The Acting Chair declares the meeting adjourned at 7:29 p.m. ATTEST: MARIE O NORWOOD Common Council Clerk