Reporting from Monday, June 2, 2008 :

New Town Hall Committee

From the June 2 Regular Meeting of the Town Council (TC)

Councilperson Sammons reported that she and 3 committee members had met with Mr. Richard Sands who would be willing to sell about 6-1/2 acres of his land across from the current Town Hall for $190,000—almost $30,000 per acre.  The TC took no action.

Real Property Tax Assessments

From the June 2 Regular Meeting of the Town Council (TC)

The Assessors’ Report said County Real Property Tax Services had received a grant to study the possibility of future assessments being done on a county-wide rather than individual town basis.  Councilperson Edwards also reported that the County Real Property Tax Services Agency was looking to post each town’s final 2008 tax roll on their own website after July 1, 2008; some town supervisors are proposing not posting personal exemption information and possible exclusion of the owners’ name(s).  The agency is also considering putting together and posting a sales report to allow research about comparable properties.  Audience member Audrey Koran commented on the long waits at Grievance Day this year; she asked that consideration be given to having separate days or appointments for professionals who are representing 10 or 12 parcels which they don’t themselves own.

PB Appointments

From the June 2 Regular Meeting of the Town Council (TC)

The TC unanimously appointed John Roberts PB chair, open following the resignation of Cindy Lu Hilscher.  The TC will interview candidates for the open membership positions (Hilscher’s and Martha Meier’s) before the July 7 TC meeting.

Wilzig Storage Building Litigation

From the June 2 Regular Meeting of the Town Council (TC)

Councilperson Edwards noted that while the Supreme Court had dismissed the Granger Group’s Article 78 petition, she thought the decision should be discussed because it was “quite damaging to the town.” She recommended reviewing it with a view to determining whether FOIL procedures were being followed, whether the ZBA was complying with requirements for holding public hearings and whether the ZEO is following the proper permitting procedures.  Councilperson Skoda said he could sum all of that up: that the “…ZBA got rid of that attorney and got Rob [Fitzsimmons] back in the seat.” Skoda said “…if there was a problem with that procedure, it was because (they) were ill-advised.” Ms. Edwards replied that “…at that meeting, there were people who weren’t listening to that attorney.” Mr. Skoda said they were to first decide whether to hear the appeal; if the appeal wasn’t timely, there was no need for a public hearing.  He said he thought that advice came from the attorney and that, so as far as he was concerned, they were following procedure.

[Note: the minutes of the ZBA meeting show that the lawyer advised the ZBA to decide whether the appeal was too late before addressing the merits of the storage building itself, but at no point did he advise that a public hearing was not required.  Besides, moving beyond the issue of the failure to hold the required public hearing, the judge went on to find that the ZBA was in error when it found the Granger Group’s appeal to the ZBA to be too late; that the decision of the ZBA was “arbitrary and capricious” and “lacking a substantial basis in the record.” The determination of the ZEO that the “final” permit for the entire building was issued on the date the plans for the foundation were approved, which the ZBA upheld, was found by the judge to defy “logic and case law.”]

Ms. Edwards then reported that she understood Mr. Wilzig’s appeal of the ZBA’s earlier decision (finding that a racetrack and associated structures for the storage of motorcycles, etc. was not a customary accessory use to a single family residence) had been dismissed in April.  She asked about enforcement of the ZEO’s July 2006 Order to Remedy.  The ZEO said the track was in before the Order to Remedy was issued and he can’t make them remove it.  He said “It’s not being used as a track right now so it’s not a track.”

Committee on Open Government Advisory (COOG) Opinion

From the June 2 Regular Meeting of the Town Council (TC)

Councilperson Edwards asked about an Advisory Opinion from the NYS Committee on Open Government and a letter from the town attorney relating to a long-pending FOIL request.  She asked why the town attorney was being asked to assist with FOIL requests.  The town clerk reported that the FOIL requesters had been allowed, as a courtesy, to review the files and make copies with a personal copier with the understanding that any copies would be made available so duplicate copies could be made for the town clerk and town attorney.  Since they refused to provide the copies, they were told they could not review the files and the ZEO, according to the town clerk, is now spending “many hours” pulling all of the responsive records.  The ZEO, town clerk and town attorney will meet to review those records.  [Note: the COOG opinion is that the town may not condition the right to copy records on providing the town with copies or an indication of the records copied.] Audience member Ardith Truhan commented that if FOIL requesters weren’t allowed to review the records unless they made the copies available, it wasn’t a courtesy at all but a requirement.  The town clerk said this is how she has handled all FOIL requests; she needs to have a record of what was provided to each person in case “Joe” FOILs something and then “Terry” comes in and wants to FOIL what “Joe” FOILed.  Ms. Edwards asked the town clerk why she does this?  The town clerk said “…I would like to know what was given out in a FOIL…” and “…I would like to know what the copies were and I have to do that.” The town clerk said every FOIL request is reviewed by the town attorney to determine if it’s valid so the clerk has to have those copies on hand.  The clerk also reported that this particular request for ZEO records was large and that ZEO Dennis Callahan (who was hired in 2002) did not know how former ZEO Ed Waldron filed his records and was waiting for him to be able to come in to assist.

Zoning Commission (ZC)

From the June 2 Regular Meeting of the Town Council (TC)

Supervisor Young, responding to changes proposed by Councilperson Edwards to the ZC section of the draft May 5 Town Board meeting minutes said “You also remember I told you at that time that Tony and Richard would be the ones from the Board that would be on the committee.” Supervisor Young also reminded Ms. Edwards that “I said the structure will be 2 members from the Town Board, 2 members from the Planning Board, 2 members from the Zoning Board and…3 citizens so we have an odd number.” Ms. Edwards felt that the TC as a whole should vote on this and expressed concern about having 2 TC members serving as voting members of a ZC whose recommendations they will ultimately have to vote on.  Supervisor Young said she’d inquired of other towns and this was their suggestion.  Councilperson Skoda reported that a ZBA member had contacted a representative of the Pace Land Use Training Institute.  From the audience, ZBA member Robert Rochler identified himself as the person who had made the call and said the Pace representative recommended there be 2 people from each board.  According to Mr. Rochler, Pace didn’t necessarily recommend a TC member be on the ZC but did recommend that a member familiar with the zoning laws (Mr. Rochler said he had immediately thought of Councilperson Skoda) serve as chair and the Pace representative recommended that he be appointed.  Mr. Rochler also reported the Pace representative said that the more people on the ZC from the ZBA, not from the PB, the better since it’s the zoning code that’s being re-done.  Mr. Rochler said Pace also recommended the addition of members of the public.  Another ZBA member in the audience, Moisha Blechman, said that Ancram expected members of its Comprehensive Plan Committee to participate with zoning revisions.  Mr. Rochler said that he “completely disagree[d] with that; that she [the Pace representative] recommended 2 people from Comp Plan but no more than that because they’re going to be biased towards the Comprehensive Plan.” [Note: New York State Town Law Section 272-a (11) provides that all town land use regulations must be in accordance with a comprehensive plan adopted pursuant to the provisions of that section.] After further discussion about the need to hire a land use planning or law firm to assist the ZC, the need to put out a request for proposals, discussion of how zoning revisions had been done in the past (by the full TC, PB and ZBA), etc., the TC felt that further thought should be given before deciding on the ZC’s structure and seeking letters of interest, and tabled the issue.

Park and Ride Revisited

From the June 2 Regular Meeting of the Town Council (TC)

Matthew Griesemer, lawyer for the property owner, was a guest speaker along with David Markowitz, DOT’s representative.  It turns out that the 10-year state contract the town had rejected out of hand at its last meeting was actually “malleable.” New offers include: (1) town input into the design of the lot; (2) maintenance of the lot by the property owners; (3) owner-provided liability insurance for the town; (4) payment of an administrative fee covering hours town personnel spend on paperwork; (5) an option for the town to stop participating after 5 years without being obligated to reimburse the state for any part of the construction cost as long as the town is willing to have the lot remain in place.  If, at any point between 5 and 10 years, the town is unwilling to have the lot remain, it would be liable for a portion of the lot’s construction cost.  Other issues raised include linking town participation to DOT’s reducing the speed limit on Route 82 (already rejected once and not likely to be approved, according to Mr. Markowitz) and the ability of the town to increase the assessed value of the parcel to reflect the value of improvements (something the state prefers towns agree not to do).  Asked why the state couldn’t lease the site itself from its owner, leaving Taghkanic out of it, Mr. Markowitz said that legally it could but his region never had and they “strongly prefer” not to. Regarding the state’s buying the property and building the lot itself, without town input, he said “we do that all over the place” but “we won’t do that here because there’s not a compelling state interest to take that property and have a Park and Ride there.”

After assurances that the town would have input into the design and operation of the lot through its Planning Board approval process, with the deal not going through if the town’s requirements aren’t met, the TC agreed to review a revised contract to be provided by DOT.

Comprehensive Plan Public Hearing

From the June 2 Regular Meeting of the Town Council (TC)

TC conducted its first official public hearing on the draft plan.  The hearing was continued until July 11, 2008.  In addition to the draft plan posted on the town website, a copy showing changes from the last prior draft will be added.