Board of Trustees

Village of Walden Board of Trustees Regular Meeting August 18, 2020 Deputy Mayor Moore called the regular meeting of the Village of Walden Board of Trustees to order at 6:30pm. On roll call the following were: Mayor Susan Taylor Present: Deputy Mayor Faith Moore Trustees Brian Sebring Larry Kraus John Ramos Dan Svarczkopf Lynn E. Thompson Absent: Also Present: John Revella, Village Manager Marisa Kraus, Village Clerk Kelly A. Kelly, Village Treasurer Dave Donovan, Village Attorney Presentation Jody Nicoli made a presentation of a proposal to build a wall and board to bring awareness to drug addiction and to provide a place of comfort and reflection for families of those lost to addiction by Bradley Park. Trustee Ramos: Is it near the trash cans? Jody Nicoli: Yes, in the area. Deputy Mayor Moore: I did have a conversation with Parks and Rec Coordinator regarding this. His comment was that just to make sure that we didn't do anything near the 12 foot area around the outside of the park where they were going to start doing a drive through. "A" would not, but "B" would be. Manager Revella: I'm not sure if they were going to do in front or behind the skate park for the drive through. Trustee Svarczkopf: In "A", the garbage cans smell from 20 feet away. We would have to move that or not put it there. Trustee Thompson: Why is Bradley Park your first choice? Jody Nicoli: I have lived in Walden my entire life. Played softball and have taken my kids there. It's just one of my favorite parks. Mayor Taylor: We just received this information tonight, so everybody look it over and if you have any questions for Mike Bliss as far as his ideas or his thoughts or locations, you can either send them to John or contact Mike directly. Deputy Mayor Moore: Are we restricted with doing something like this on any Village property? 1 Attorney Donovan: *inaudible* you just need to pay attention to things like bike lane, car access. Otherwise, Village properly is in your control. Public Hearing – Local Law 4 of 202 – Donation Boxes Deputy Mayor Moore made a motion to open Public Hearing Local Law 4 of 2020 – Donation Boxes. Seconded by Trustee Ramos. All ayes. Motion carried. Trustee Sebring: Even though the boxes may be empty, people are still leaving cardboard boxes, plastic bags full of whatever in front of them. The one at the Firehouse, I don't remember seeing too much of anything in front of theirs. The only I see with items is the one of Grant St. There was some last week or the week before that didn't stay long. Whether somebody called them or got the idea that they want that box to stay there then they're going to have to drive by and if there's stuff in front of it, put it in their truck *inaudible* Mayor Taylor: Do we know who owns the property on Grant St? Manager Revella: Yes. It was cited. Dean has spoken to the realtor involved in the transaction to see if they can get some movement. Mayor Taylor: Is the owner still collecting rent for those boxes? Manager Revella: I don't know. Building Inspector Stickles: That I don't know. We only have a once a year charge. Mayor Taylor: They've been cited. What has come of the citations? Building Inspector Stickles: It gets cleaned up. Manager Revella: This local law will help, because if it's been 3 strikes, then you can take some action. Becky Pearson: 167 Walnut St. Why can't you just get rid of them? Mayor Taylor: We can't prohibit them. Attorney Donovan: Board has a memo on what this body can do in terms of zoning and what it can't do. My opinion was that clothing bins in of themselves are not sufficiently *inaudible* to be a prohibited. If they are well maintained, they're not a problem. Problem is maintenance, not the boxes themselves. Becky Pearson: I understand that but if the Village said that they don't want boxes at all. Then why can't they do that? That's your law. Trustee Ramos made a motion to close Public Hearing Local Law 4 of 2020 – Donation Boxes. Seconded by Trustee Sebring. All ayes. Motion carried. Village Manager’s Report Manager Revella: Since last meeting, we do have a Provisional Chief of Police, William Herlihy. Had some conferences with Civil Service, paperwork wise regarding the position itself. Went over a few different things with the Clerk, 207c, some follow up, especially with some worker's comp 2 issues the Police Department. Went over the labor management issues with CSEA. There was some time off concerns with the COVID rules. I did have a County call after the tropical storm. COIVD update. There really hasn't been much. The storm response and the issues that 911 had with their outage cause the entire backup there in that Town, which we had to take over. It was with Frontier. The Public Service Commission is looking at Frontier itself to see how they can get redundancies so that it doesn't happen again. This is the second time that's happened since 911 center has been built. I attended a meeting at the Town Hall regarding ad hoc development and the corridor of study on the development in the town. They invited reps from each of the Villages. I was the only one that could attend. Did voice an opinion, I think that was echoed by other Villages as well. How we want to make sure that we consistently keep our boarders our boarder so it's a distinct boarder as in our comp plan as well. Going to try to work on that to make sure that their zoning around our borders is consistent. Transportation Council meeting via Zoom. Did get some updates on Route 52 paving. They will be paving from Boniface Dr to the Village boarder on the west side probably by October. Asked why they didn't run through the Village and apparently they ran out of money. We'll see if we can keep pushing that through. I do have a follow up meeting with the rep for traffic to go over the lights and synchronization of the walk signals. Since I can remember the signals at 52 and Walnut has never been synced with the light. Trying to fix that as well as the lights on Main Street, to shift away from Sohn's and Roosa's. Get more room for people to park on that side. Had a wonderful time interviewing candidates for a full time Code Enforcement with the Building Inspector. We're working on filling that soon. Went over the change order from for Ulster Ave. Waiting for the rails to come in to install. The Rec Department has had help from Fox Hill volunteers at Wooster to do cleanup and mulch spread. The concerts have been going well. Fitness classes and summer programing online have been well. Went over Capital Projects with the Engineer. Do have some maps of the proposed Community Center. Building Department has been updating COs, Building Permits, Planning and Zoning matters, Edmunds conversion is happening. Clerk has been doing Civil Service paperwork, payroll, training new part time office assistant. The audit is still delayed. Kelly has been going through making sure all her paperwork is ready for them. Reviewing work for the AUD for the State report. Making sure the rehab loans are all lined up with payments and updated principle balances. Police Department has been training the new part time officers. 1 is coming off training by the end of the month to cover shifts. We still have 2 out on 207c and 1 out on personal leave and 1 on FMLA. They did have range over the weekend. Went well. Public Works has been installing meters, assisting in dig inspections, sewer maintenance at plant and stations. We didn't have a good meeting with Superintendent, myself, Engineers and the Engineer for the plant, get some upgrades down there that are on our Capital plan. Hopefully we can get that funding from the State. They haven't released numbers or dates yet. We've been on the funding list since 2011. We will keep trying to get points so we can get to the funding level. Did have some cleanup from the storm debris. Street sweeping. The chipper went down *inaudible* we have the 3 arm for the sweeper. Supposed to help cut the grass along the curb line. They're getting that out as whether permits. It's going to take a while to get the whole Village caught up. Court is getting ready to open. They have court scheduled in September. They are working on procedures. That's why we have these dividers here. We have the sanitation stations and they have thermometers to read forehead temperatures. That will need to check people at the front door itself. Library is still on curbside service and appointments only. They're still doing programming. Deputy Mayor Moore: Did we ever get any reimbursement or information from the tornadoes? Manager Revella: No. Mayor Taylor: The election is still going to be held in September? Manager Revella: Yes. The last meeting that Marisa had said that it was still on and there was no update on what's going to happen with the petitions for March election. 3 Mayor Taylor: I've noticed that there are a lot of grass clippings ending up in the streets, which is going to impact catch basins. Can we put something in the newsletter? Get the word out there that you can't be doing that, but I noticed most of the time it's a service. It's not a resident. If we see a company that's doing it, can we mention it to the Building Inspector and maybe he can send a letter to them and let them know that they can't put the clippings in the streets. Building Inspector Stickles: I have stopped and talked to some of these services and told them that they have to blow it out or clean it and that they can't do it in the streets. Approval of August 4, 2020 Minutes Trustee Ramos made a motion to approve the August 4, 2020 Minutes. Seconded by Trustee Thompson. 6 ayes. 1 abstention. Motion carried. Public Comment Becky Pearson: Where is the Election going to be? Manager Revella: Here. 3rd floor. Becky Pearson: The light post *inaudible* is going to go back up? The road there coming around the corner from 52, in that spot. There's cars going out, that's our streets. It's a mess when you come around the corner. Making a right from west side to east side. Manager Revella: A car ran it over some years ago. We can get a new one. Becky Pearson: Hopefully there'll be a nice discussion about the zoning amendment. Ulster Ave blue stone, how much was saved? I think more of it was given away than saved. Too bad we couldn't have saved more. John, in your meeting with the Town, it was nice to hear you having limitations on borders. Jody, what was it about? Mayor Taylor: She's interested in constructing something to recognize an issue of addiction and having a place where family members, friends can place a remembrance on a fence. Locks. Becky Pearson: The Officer in Charge, is he full time? Day shift? Manager Revella: The Provisional Chief of Police is full time. Salary position, 40 hours a week, whenever I need him here. Action Items Local Law 3 of 2020 – Zoning Code Amendment Mayor Taylor: The list of amenities that was proposed with the density was okay with the Planning Board? Manager Revella: Yes. Deputy Mayor Moore made a motion for Negative Declaration for Local Law 3 of 2020 - Zoning Amendment. Seconded by Trustee Ramos. All ayes. Motion carried. Mayor Taylor: You have a document from the Planning Board that they're satisfied with what we're trying to do by changing this zone to allow the senior housing. Deputy Mayor Moore: Just for clarification purposes, this local law will reduce the age from 60 to 4 55. Will be adding the amenities to the ancillary facilities 11-16. Trustee Ramos: I have come to the conclusion that it's a solid plan, but there were a couple other items that we were looking at and I remember being on that committee when we initiated this. We might have overlooked a couple important items that we should consider as far as amenities. First one is having some external power source. If this is going to be a senior dwelling, there are many seniors with instruments that need power, O2 machines, etc. I was thinking of an exterior generator. In the event that we have power loss. Secondly, there should be a canopy on 52 for a bus stop in the event that people are going to use mass transit. Need to know if they're going to be using natural gas or electric. Electric is really costly to seniors and for gas is less. With the generator, there are fire suppression systems that need to be activated. If there is a fire, there is a critical need for the generator to operate. Trustee Svarczkopf: Are you asking for that to be added to the local law of the project? Trustee Ramos: The amenities, 1-16. I'm under the best guess that we should add a couple more things. Mayor Taylor: Not project specific. We're changing zoning for any project that meets the specification. Trustee Ramos: Okay. Just a thought for when we get to that point where we're looking at project specific items. Trustee Sebring: The 24 hour security, you're going to have a maintenance man with an extreme number of users. He should be able to act as a security guard also. I would like that written into the deed that with that number of units that if it's sold the maintenance man and the security guard stays with the property. Mayor Taylor: That's project specific. When you're talking about changing the zoning for a local law, it's not about this particular project. Trustee Sebring: But that is one of the amenities, the 24 hour security. Mayor Taylor: I think the maintenance was the amenity. I think it was suggested they have 24 hour security. Manager Revella: That's in 1-10. Trustee Svarczkopf: That's already in there. Mayor Taylor: But I think it was classified as maintenance. Trustee Sebring: As far as the generator, I think with times the way they are turning to up to be with power outages and storms, I think it is essential for a place to have a standby generator because of your seniors. Building Inspector Stickles: It's a state code requirement. With the new code, I don't know it as well as the other one, but it may just require a standby generator for a facility such as this. Mayor Taylor: I'm thinking that it is. The building that I was in, because they had the elevator, they had to put a generator outside. 5 Trustee Sebring: The generator that I'm talking about is the essentials. Get the building through hard times. Not to power everything. Mayor Taylor: The boiler ran, the elevator ran and there was some lighting in the building. I know there was a backup generator for that building that automatically flipped on if there was a disruption in power. Manager Revella: The generator brings electric to the pump for whatever is on; the furnace. Trustee Sebring: I'd like to have the generator added. Mayor Taylor: As Dean said, it may be in the code because you have an elevator, you have to have a backup generator. Trustee Thompson: Then that wouldn't be anything that would have to be on the list of amenities. That's a requirement. The only thing that came up for discussion would be the canopy for the busses if we want to make that a zoning change for future projects. Attorney Donovan: I'm a little confused. We're talking this local law adds 6 amenities, density bonus. Manager Revella: I don't know if you want to give more bonus density or more amenities, yet. Attorney Donovan: Sounded like John and Brian were talking about requirements for a project of this sort. Not a bonus density for an amendment. *inaudible*. Mayor Taylor: The senior buildings where I worked, they did have the Town of Montgomery that would pick the seniors up. There was no canopy out there. It's not really mass transit, it's the Town of Montgomery and would have to make an appointment. Trustee Sebring: The landscape buffer for the adjacent properties. That shouldn't even be an amenity. That should be part of the Planning Board process to cover the residents that live near them. Mayor Taylor: In a way it is because it beautifies the property and they're not looking at the project and the project isn't looking at them. It's also noise considerations. Trustee Sebring: But now we're talking about any project. That's why I'm saying the landscape should be there no matter what. Mayor Taylor: If that's in your list of 1 to 16, then it's in the local law. Trustee Svarczkopf: It's not a necessity. Don't need to plant trees. They're planting trees to make the property more beautiful. Trustee Sebring: I mean on the boarder to create a buffer. Deputy Mayor Moore made a motion to adopt Local Law 3 of 2020 - Zoning Amendment. Seconded by Trustee Ramos. Roll Call: 6 Trustee Svarczkopf: Yes Trustee Kraus: Yes Deputy Mayor Moore: Yes Trustee Ramos: Yes Trustee Thompson: Yes Trustee Sebring: Yes Mayor Taylor: Yes Motion carried Local Law 4 of 2020 – Donation Boxes Tabled to September 1, 2020 Discussion – Joint Meeting Manager Revella: I would have it on the agenda with the public available to listen to what the Town has to say and make any comments back to them. I think it's important they hear some of the things we heard today. And to discuss the Route 52 annexation petition. Mayor Taylor: When are they looking to set this meeting up? Manager Revella: Not the 1st of September, that's too soon. Elections are on the 15th. Did we decide on having a meeting the week after? Trustee Svarczkopf: What's the rule? Do the new people take over October? Manager Revella: October 1st. Well, the first Monday of the month. Mayor Taylor: Is that going to be a regular meeting? Manager Revella: We will ask the board to move the regular meeting to that day first. Attorney Donovan: There is a publication notice for 20 days. Montgomery is on board with this, right? Manager Revella: They're ready to meet. Waiting for us to make a decision. The Joint Meeting is at 6pm and the Board Meeting is 6:30pm if the Board is so inclined. Mayor Taylor: The Clerk will make sure social distancing is in place. Trustee Svarczkopf: Just for clarification, we had talk about creating a slightly bigger zone. The last time we spoke, I kind of got the impression that nobody was on board with that. My stipulation to the annexation was talking about creating that zone first. We talked about it. It seemed like nobody was on board. If nobody else is on board with that, then I'm okay with going forward with the meeting. But if we still wanted to discuss that, then I'd want to wait on the joint meeting. If my impression was correct. All annexations come in at the largest residential zone. We had spoken about creating a new zone that was slightly larger, essentially for those annexations, so as they come in, they're bigger properties. Faith had mentioned not doing that, she showed us that map of the cluster housing. It seems to me that night that people were not on board with creating a new zone. I just want to verify that. Deputy Mayor Moore: We had talked about this and we had asked Village Manager to give us the price of what it would cost us with the Engineers and for all of us to talk about it and think about it. Then I was tasked with doing some work, which I did send out to the Board and I'm willing to share 7 some of that publicly now. That included taking a look at 5 possible properties around the outskirts of our Village that potentially at some point in time could come before us. I'm talking make believe because none of this is happening. Just to really take a look at as 1 of our residents has so mentioned numerous times, about what we want our Village to look like, what we want on the outskirts of our Village to look like. Took a look at what those 5 properties are. Gave a list of what they're currently zoned in now in the Town and coming and according to our comp plan that we adopted, we would bring them in at the lowest density, which would be R3. Which would require a minimum of 12,000 square foot property. My point with that is that is a minimum and I understand and listened very closely to what Trustee Svarczkopf had said. I understand his point was that he would like to see some housing that had larger unit, possibly, 2 acre lot as opposed to the 12,000 square foot lot. Which is what brought up my conversation regarding cluster developments versus a conventional development. However, being R3 with a minimum square footage only being 12,000, there is no maximum. So, if any conversation we have regarding annexation and we decide to bring in property in on an R3, it would then allow and be permitted and special exemption uses of an R3. Which of that, there is a single family residential housing and there is a senior housing allowed under R3. Once we annex a property in, we're only annexing the property, there is no project attached to it. So, we annex in R3 and that builder would have to then come to us to petition whatever project it is that they want that fits into that designated area. And if we choose, that's a single family residence and then we choose that they want to leave the property specific and say that this project has to actually wait for lots, they still can do so. It just says it's a minimum of 12,000 square feet. I personally did not feel that it is worth us spending the money and the time to look at bringing in a new zone that would require a minimum square footage since we already have a minimum with no maximum. Trustee Svarczkopf: I still very much disagree that if a developer comes in, they're going to build with the most density that they can. So, the whole point of that was to talk about making sure that we prevent that if we want that to be prevented. But again, I'm one voice, so I wanted to check with everyone to see before we schedule a joint meeting. Discussion – Ulster Ave, Blue Stone Manager Revella: We do have a large amount of blue stone that is down at DPW now. I'm not sure what the Board would like to do with it. You could repurpose some of it for different projects in the parks. We could offer for sale to bid. I think we can offer to bid for residents of Village of Walden first. And if there's still more, we could open it up at large. Mayor Taylor: How much do you have? Manager Revella: I haven't counted the number of pieces, there are several piles. Mayor Taylor: When you say residents, because it came from Ulster Ave, could preference be given to residents on Ulster Ave or you can't be that specific? Manager Revella: The Village, I know you can. I don't about street. Attorney Donovan: I will look into it. Mayor Taylor: The residents on Ulster Ave, it came from in front of their residences. Manager Revella: The residents on Ulster Ave had an opportunity to get some while they were there. The Board said they can have first dibs and they did. I think if we do offer it to bid, we would do it at large. 8 Mayor Taylor: Is the Board inclined to open it up to people in the Village or do you want to save the stones to do possible projects? Have you talked to Mike? Manager Revella: We talked about maybe some for the Community Center for patios or something. We have some use for it. Mayor Taylor: Would we know how many pieces would be required to do something in a Community Center? How are they going to be stored? Are they going to be safe? Manager Revella: I think that if we kept a certain number, just the possibilities for the future, we can it stored somewhere down there safely. And as we use it, we still have extra later, we can open the bid again. Trustee Svarczkopf: We have multiple projects like the Community Center, the boat launch. I feel like we could easily find space to put that to decrease the amount of money we have to put out in those projects and make it a little bit nicer than concrete. Trustee Sebring: It is labor intensive to put in. Manager Revella: That was the idea. Save some for our projects. And if there was still more, offer it up. Mayor Taylor: My inclination would be to store it, see what projects we have in the Village where we could possibly use it and then once we use what we need, if there's anything left over, then we need to offer it up to bid for people in the Village. I would hate to get rid of it and then we want to use it for another project. My concern is, is it going to be safe? Trustee Svarczkopf: They're rocks. They were sidewalks for 50 years. I guess, where it's stored is important. But we have space. Manager Revella: The problem is just moving it again. So, once it's moved, it's staying there. Mayor Taylor: Is there any possible way of putting something around it to protect it? So, the people know it's there. Manager Revella: We can work on it. I'll get a count so the Board knows how many pieces are there. Payment of Audited Bills Deputy Mayor Moore made a motion to pay Audited Bills. Seconded by Trustee Ramos. All ayes. Motion carried. Correspondence Trustee Svarczkopf: Email from Becky and Mr. Jacobowitz. Trustee Kraus: Email from Becky. Deputy Mayor Moore: The same as Trustee Svarczkopf, email from Becky Pearson and the Overlook at Kidd Farm *inaudible*. Trustee Ramos: Both Kidd Farm and Becky's email. 9 Trustee Thompson: The email from Becky Pearson and Jacobowitz. Also received a letter from Larry and Jean Winum. That was due to the Planning Board Chairman and was read into the Planning Board Minutes, regarding the Amthor property. John Revella also got that letter. Received a follow up questionnaire from the Hudson River Watershed Alliance about a watershed report. Because of the Tin Brook, they asked us to complete that. I did it together with John and sent it back. Trustee Sebring: Received the same memorandums from Becky and Mr. Jacobowitz. Mayor Taylor: I received the same. Also, notifications from Jean Winum that they're removing the bikes from the streets and putting them away for the season. I thanked her for her group for working so hard to make the Village look beautiful. She said that it's their pleasure to do what they can to make our streets look nice. Trustee Thompson: I received correspondence from a Village of Montgomery resident asking me if our Village is the participating in the 203 committee, I looked it up and it's about the police reform. Apparently, Valley Central has Parents for Social Justice Committee and someone from that committee would like a member that lives in the Village of Walden. Several people from the Village of Walden would like to participate on the committee at the Village of Walden. Mayor Taylor: I'm sure if we form a committee, we'll be asking if anyone is interested. Let them know that when the time comes to form that kind of committee, we'll probably be looking for people that are interested in serving. Trustee Thompson: I told her to contact the Village Manager directly. Miscellaneous Comments from the Board of Trustees Deputy Mayor Moore: It's good to be back in person. Trustee Thompson: I would just like to tell everybody to take a look at Building Department building. It was power washed and it looks a thousand times better. Thank you for taking care of that. I was just wondering if you have any update for us on what's going on with the street lights. Manager Revella: The NYSEG conversion was supposed to be started in September. It did get delayed from management so probably October. Mayor Taylor: Lots of people around us had a lot of power issues during the last storm. I have to say that I think the Village of Walden fares so well, because our DPW does such a great job going through our streets, trimming branches, trees, really keeping up *inaudible* Our power company comes and does it periodically. But our DPW really works hard to look for potential issues and they take care of them. I want to say that that's probably one of the reasons why we fare so well in storms. Good job to them. Executive Session - Personal history of a particular employee, Collective bargaining with PBA and CSEA Deputy Mayor Moore made a motion to enter to discuss personal history of a particular employee, collective bargaining with PBA and CSEA. Seconded by Trustee Ramos. All ayes. Motion carried. Reconvene Deputy Mayor Moore made a motion to reconvene the regular meeting of the Board of Trustees. Seconded by Trustee Ramos. All ayes. Motion carried. 10  Village of Walden Board of Trustees Regular Meeting August 18, 2020 Motions & Resolutions Public Hearing – Local Law 4 of 202 – Donation Boxes Deputy Mayor Moore made a motion to open Public Hearing Local Law 4 of 2020 – Donation Boxes. Seconded by Trustee Ramos. All ayes. Motion carried. Trustee Ramos made a motion to close Public Hearing Local Law 4 of 2020 – Donation Boxes. Seconded by Trustee Sebring. All ayes. Motion carried. Approval of August 4, 2020 Minutes Trustee Ramos made a motion to approve the August 4, 2020 Minutes. Seconded by Trustee Thompson. 6 ayes. 1 abstention. Motion carried. Local Law 3 of 2020 – Zoning Code Amendment Deputy Mayor Moore made a motion to adopt Local Law 3 of 2020 - Zoning Amendment. Seconded by Trustee Ramos. All ayes. Motion carried Payment of Audited Bills Deputy Mayor Moore made a motion to pay Audited Bills. Seconded by Trustee Ramos. All ayes. Motion carried. Executive Session - Personal history of a particular employee, Collective bargaining with PBA and CSEA Deputy Mayor Moore made a motion to enter to discuss personal history of a particular employee, collective bargaining with PBA and CSEA. Seconded by Trustee Ramos. All ayes. Motion carried. Reconvene Deputy Mayor Moore made a motion to reconvene the regular meeting of the Board of Trustees. Seconded by Trustee Ramos. All ayes. Motion carried. 11