Full Transcript

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Craig. Thank you, Craig.

We have no real announcements. Well, I guess this is kind of a real announcement. Just happy Super Bowl weekend. Everybody have a good time. Enjoy the game. We're going to get right into our discussion items. Matter number one, we have matters surrounding an update on town action regulating online retailers selling of lithium ion batteries. We will ask Bob Kern and Danielle Hurley and Andrew Smith to come on up. Good morning. Good morning. Sir.

So, what we did here is we extended the code to include online retailers so that they could not ship into any of our zip codes. And the fines are, I'll let Danielle. Right. So, it actually didn't need a code amendment. We're using our existing code. So, just a little bit of background. Chapter 213, Article 3, which is the sale and resale of lithium ion batteries that was adopted by the town board December 5th, 2023. And we received the file letter back from the state on January 4th, 2024. That's when the law becomes effective. So, that code was about the selling of non-UL batteries. Since then, as Fire Marshal Smith will attest, there have been some lithium ion battery fires. Not since our code thing. Most of them predate our code change. There have been some in the county. The county fire marshals are keeping stats on them. So, if we do have one, we'll report it to them. Their stats go to the state with all the other stuff, but the county fire marshals are keeping stats on that. So, also, New York City has had, recently, had a lot of these fire issues. So, Councilman Kern came to me and asked what we can do about the issue with online retailers because big places like eBay, Amazon, Walmart, things like that, they're selling these items and how can we regulate that in some way? So, I looked into the New York City local law number 39, local law 39, which is what we modeled our code after. And there, the New York City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection is using local law 39 to prosecute online retailers. So, since our code is almost identical to theirs, we're going to start using our code to prosecute online retailers. So, our plan for that is to send out, which will be forthcoming on the website, a public service announcement similar to what the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection has done. Just letting everybody know, this is the law, it is now on the books, and we're going to be using it against online retailers. Along with that, with the help of the fire marshal and code enforcement and Councilman Kern, we drafted a warning letter that we're going to be sending out to places like eBay, Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, people that are shipping. And we're going to advise of the code and the penalties, and ask that they stop shipping to the certain zip codes that we have listed here in the warning letter, 11901, 11933, 11931, 11947, 11970, and 11792.

So, we're hoping that with the PSA and the warning letters going out that they'll stop shipping, because right now, if you go onto Amazon and you try and ship to New York City, it won't let you. So, we're looking to kind of have that same thing going on here. We are asking the public if they see any online retailers selling these items, that they contact code enforcement or my office so we can send them a warning letter as well. So. Good. Very good. That's no easy task. Getting it. How will enforcement work? That's a big curiosity on an online thing. On our end, this just gives us the teeth if we get some kind of shop or something that's selling them, and we're doing inspections, we identify, oh, you're talking about specifically on the online end? Yeah. Unfortunately, it'd probably come to if there was a fire and we identified one of these items being purchased from an online retailer, and we could figure out the date, and at that point, as long as they were already put on notice, I think we could issue fines to those corporations. Right, and potential Supreme Court actions, because these companies are obviously out of state. Right. Is there a fine to the purchaser? No. It's to the online. And just to be clear, there are certain chemicals, certain devices that cannot be shipped into different states, so this is not something that's uncommon. Sad fact of this is that the federal government has done nothing, and the state government has done nothing. That's the sad fact that we have to do what the federal government should be doing and what the state should be doing, particularly the Bureau of Standards on the federal side and the New York State Safety Commission. New York State Department of Consumer and Worker Protection. Yeah. They've done nothing, so they've been neglecting this. The feds have been neglecting this, so we'll do what the city's doing, and I think a lot of people will start doing it. A lot of towns. Sure. Well, thank you for your work on this, Bob. I know you spent a lot of time doing this, Danielle, Andrew, also. I think it's a great it's good to have this because you put the news on almost every night there's a fire in the city somewhere. You know, they're reporting on another one of these batteries blowing up and whatnot, so it's good and I appreciate the work that's been done. Anybody have any questions? I'll just say one more thing. What we did when we initially got into this, we went out to Amazon, we looked at batteries, and we looked at the reviews, and so many reviews on chargers and batteries were horrendous. Caught on fire, it gets really, really hot, had to unplug it, blah, blah, blah. So, I mean, it's all black and white. But you're saying the state has no restrictions on non-UO batteries in the state of New York? I think you could probably go on Amazon right now and get a non-UO-listed battery. Those are jams. You can definitely go on there and get one shipped to Riverhead. We did a trial and error. We did a training with ATF about two weeks ago, and they got one off of Amazon to do a demonstration for us. And we did a test, and we got one shipped to us. So, are we going to hold Councilman Kern accountable for buying a battery? In honesty, it was a trial under my supervision. Okay. Yeah, it was well supervised. You're in charge of all that. We tried to, I think he had a problem getting a refund from Amazon. Yeah, we canceled it immediately. I'm still trying to get my refund. It's true. All right. Thank you very much. Great job, Bob.

Item number two. We have Drew Dillingham here from Engineering, and he's going to talk about the matters surrounding the new MS4 permit requirements. Good old state of New York has done it to us once again, and given us some unfunded mandates, and a rather thick listing of these mandates, and hopefully you're not going to go through every one of them, but it's incredible. It's incredible what's in there. You can give us a Reader's Digest. I am going to do that. It's still going to be painful. I forgot to bring my pillow down here. There's just no way of making it happy, as you say. Happy and fun. It's not either. Okay, so the EPA was sued.

The lawsuit has been lasting, or had lasted seven years, and finally the EPA, came up with a permit that was acceptable to the parties that were placing the lawsuits, environmental entities. The new permit was passed down from the EPA to the DEC, and then the DEC delegates it to us. Each MS4 operator must electronically submit a notice of intent by the 20th of February. There are, again, this is just an overview right now. There are many specific plans needed to be prepared and updated annually. And there's still an annual report. There are interim progress certifications due twice a year. Drew, just for the public listening and watching. What is MS4? Oh, geez. Sorry. That's the first thing I should have done. MS4 stands for Municipal Separate Storm Sewer Separate Storm Sewer Separate Storm Sewer Sewer System. That's what it stands for. So it's basically all your storm pipes and anything that's connected to them. The key to it is the state is only interested in storm sewers that are discharging to a water body. That's all they care about. But still, that puts us up, you know, over several hundred catch basins. I was cleaning one catch basin this morning at the riverfront. I was trying to get it out of the way because it's causing a mess down there. And it took us from, well, they're still working on it. They started at 7.30 in the morning, the highway did, and it was packed all the way up to the grate with sediment. So they backed it out, took three hours, and they're still working on it. And this was last cleaned about how long ago? Oh, boy. How long did it get out of them? I know it depends on weather and everything. If it's downtown, I know Mike tries to get them annually. Right. But it doesn't always work like that. So, yeah, three hours, and there are many catch basins out there just like this. So that gives you some idea of how long that's going to take. The mapping requirements have been expanded. Many deadlines imposed. And several new types of training. The permit itself, it's a little bit more expensive. It's a hundred and first page. I know, that was just page one. It's It's really not much. It's really not much. 162 pages long. The fact sheet alone is 55 pages. Permit's five years. And the previous permits have given great latitude to MS4s. This one is much more prescriptive. Okay, so I'm just going to read the list of new plans and programs required. There are ten of them. Enforcement response plan. Monitoring locations inspection and sampling program. Elicit discharge track down program. Elicit discharge elimination program. Construction oversight program. Post construction storm water practice inspection and maintenance program. Municipal facility program. And municipal facility specific storm water pollution prevention plans. Municipal operations program. And catch basin inspection program. Those are the ten new programs and plans. The training. Eight new types of training. Elicit discharge inspection and sampling. Elicit discharge track down procedures. Elicit discharge elimination procedures. Construction oversight procedures. And Elicit discharge erosion and sediment control. Municipal operations procedures. Municipal facilities procedures. Post construction storm water practice inspection and maintenance. Almost done. So the catch basin cleaning program. This is just one program but it's pretty important because it also spills over to highway. So the catch basin cleaning program. This is just one program but it's pretty important because it also spills over to highway. And I spoke with Mike Zaleski about this and he said to fulfill these requirements of catch basin cleaning we would have to get new equipment because otherwise it would beat the other equipment to death within a few years. And you could get more than one crew out doing some of these at the same time. Correct. This stuff does beat them up. And the vac trucks are very expensive. And he needs a sweeper truck too. Vac trucks are $500,000 and sweepers are $700,000. And with each one you need two people so with benefits it's like $100,000 each. So just those two pieces of equipment and personnel is $1.6 million. Unfunded. Completely unfunded. Um all the catch basins that discharge to a water body within six months well first of all we have to inspect all of them. Take measurements, take depths of sediment and those which are over half full gotta clean those in six months those are less than half full clean them within a year. And then lastly sweeping. Um between April 1st and October 31st all town um roads with again within the watersheds all town roads and all town parking lots that's especially important because there are so many of them. Have to be have to be swept cleaned again annually from April 1st to October 31st and then after that every five years in the spring. Just to give credit to Mike Zaleski he does, I mean every street in the town does get swept once a year. Yup. That's not something new but he does not sweep necessarily all of our parks, you know parking lots with little town parks. And that's going to be time consuming. Yup it is. Last thing um just to give you some idea of our deadlines just by July 3rd which is six months we have 12 deadlines. Um enforcement response plan comprehensive mapping uh we have to do some

um illicit discharge education to the public and also illicit discharge and good house keeping which is ties into um highway and municipal garage. Um have to establish an organizational chart which we have we just have to add on to it. And I would be the main contact for that. I've skipped over a few. This one develop and maintain a prioritized inventory of all construction sites. Note that within 30 days of when a construction site becomes active it must be prioritized. So that's going to be construction sites both of hours as well as uh planning and building. And then number MCM 6 which is good house keeping. Develop and implement procedures for sweeping and or cleaning streets, bridges, parking lots, and rights of way. And then there are a few more. But that gives you an idea of what this is like. And there's every year there's this many um deadlines until 2029. And then after that everything that you've already done has to be done either every 3 years or 5 years depending on when it is. Um In department head I already mentioned this but I'll mention it again. I asked um a consulting firm how much it would cost us for this consulting firm to comply with the permit for the first year for us. Do all our permit requirements. We would obviously have to help but they would do most of the work. For the first year um their estimate said $30,000. Um I've spoken with Dawn and she is looking into grants as we speak. And she said there are available grants for this type of um need. Other than that I would say a person, one person full time would have to work on this project. Now we can do it in house but there'll be little time for anything else for the first you know at least for the first couple years. Um we could hire someone a um storm water manager is I think $65,000 but we name our price because we've never had that um title here before. Um Other than that those solutions uh if anyone has any questions, comments Well I know you and I have both spoken to Assemblywoman Giglio. Yeah. And uh she was, she is aware of what was taking place with this. She's gonna talk to her co-workers and see if there's something that might be able to be done because honestly there are towns that aren't gonna be able to afford to do this. No. We can't afford. We can't afford to do it. So uh you know and there's also talk of a possible class action suit statewide. Oh you heard that? If that happens then maybe we will. And uh Jody's looking into that also. So uh you know again unfunded mandates they kill you. They absolutely kill you. And I get it. I mean it's good stuff that's being done. I understand that and it's all about our water. It's overkill. Yeah. Well it makes me laugh because you go past construction sites and you see that little black fencing that they put up that's supposed to stop any runoff. What's it stopping? I mean in reality is that it's not stopping anything. It's really not. You know or bales of hay. I mean water's still gonna go right through there if it's got contaminants in it. It's If it's installed right which it never is it works fairly well. You see it blowing flapping in the wind and everything. No one ever maintains it. Yeah. And that's why we have to start doing construction site inspections. That's what this thing wants. Right. Understood. Mr. Dillingham I just wanted to ask the consultant firm is one we've already used in the past. It is. And they were also willing to work with us on. They were. So that's good. And the other thing I just want to express to the public is that all of the runoff water from washing the vehicles has to be captured as well. Correct? That's one thing that I didn't mention. That's a huge expense too. That's huge. We are talking I belong to the Connick Estuary Protection Committee and we were actually talking about maybe sharing the water with the public. One of those vehicle washing facilities only because it's required now in this permit to collect all your water. Your wash water. No one does. Or hardly anyone does. But if they do an audit that's what they're going to be looking for. So again we're talking about it on a committee scale and hopefully we can get together and find a solution that will benefit everybody. The deadline is as given. Is there any way to request extensions in time frames so that we get into next year's budget? Because simply right now the money's not in our budget. It's not available. How do you comply? You just do the best you can. If you get, first of all, auditing there's so much paperwork involved in these that an audit would bring up auditing because you asked how we would do it. Well the audit would find whether or not we're doing it. But if we're making a good faith effort and it's obviously that we can't perform certain tasks because we're short on funds the worst that you're going to get is a compliance schedule from the DEC and the compliance schedule says you haven't done this, this, and then this or you haven't done this correctly. By such and such date, we want this done. But it just, you know we as a board sit to do everything we can to be fiscally responsible and watch every dollar that's going in and out and how we're expending things. And then the state of New York, the governor just hands us down basically a one, one and a half million dollar bill and says good luck with this. And so when we sit here and you try to explain to our taxpayers why next year's budget will potentially be a million and a half dollars more than this. There's nothing we can do about it because we're required to comply. It's like the supervisor said it's another unfunded mandate but these are the consequences and I understand the principles and we're not here to debate that we've got to do everything in our power to be environmentally clean and sound and do everything we can but even building a washing station we're blessed to have our own sewage treatment plan but there's an enormous cost if we're going to build our own washing station where the water can then go into the sewage plant. So that's an advantage that we have perhaps of the towns but still you're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars to build a washing plant so that all of our highway vehicles, our patrol cars, policing department, everything. It's a lot of money. It's a lot more than one and a half million dollars. It's a lot more than one and a half million dollars. $150,000 for one of these facilities. That was years ago. Yeah. But having to be able to capture the water and descend it into the sewage plant, it's another enormous cost. So as much as we sit here and try to do everything we can then how do you explain to the public that here we go, we're already on our way to piercing the tax gap next year and we don't want to do any of that but where are you going to cut? As you mentioned earlier when you're trying to do everything you can in house to be fiscally responsible and we all appreciate that but you only have so much staff that's within the budget and what you're really doing is taking somebody away from working in the parks or the building and grounds to work on something else and it just means that it suffers someplace else. So I think unfortunately in a process like this you're going to have to increase your staff. The consulting work can be done by others but still somebody's got to go out there, somebody's got to sweep the parking lot, somebody's got to vacuum and we've got to buy the equipment. Right. And that's where the budget figure came in before. Do you have a question? So if you've got a consultant you would not need this stormwater manager or you need both? No we wouldn't. We would not because between us and the consultant they would comply with all the requirements of the permit for the first year. And Dawn, you know, she knows her stuff and if she says she's pretty confident she can get that, that's the first step, right? To identifying mapping out the drains, etc. So that's a good faith effort on its own. Right. We're well advanced on the maps fortunately. Just because the GIS people that we've had in the past were always good and kept up to date on the permits. So it would be the additional vehicles and a full time person to help basically with all the paperwork compliance. Okay so well you mean if we didn't go with a consultant? Right. Right. That's correct. It would be a full time person and that full time person just for the paperwork. And then we'd need a sweeper, a back truck, and probably four more workers. And I think that comes up to 1.6 million. And don't wash the cars until next January when we do the papers. Right. Like I said, hardly any municipalities have their own truck wash facility. So it's just going on the ground right now for the most part. So who sued the EPA? The DEC or the state? No, it was an environmental activist group who sued them. And this isn't the first time they got sued again in 2010 when they had to beef up the permit as well. And this time it's just out of control. I think they gave they gave the group that was suing them pretty much everything they wanted. And I'm very surprised that there's not a class action suitor going on already. When did this entire mandate come out like to be sent to your attention to say? This has been a work in progress for years. This has been a work in progress but for years, for the last three years, nothing happened and we were going by the old permit. When this came out, it was we knew it was coming out but we had no idea when. The DEC wasn't telling us anything. So the permit became effective January 3rd. We got it January 2nd. So that's what I'm trying to do. So it's not as though it's been sitting on a desk for six months and could have been part of the budget this year. No, absolutely not. They gave you 24 hours notice. We had no idea when this was going to happen. Plus they limit the time when this is to be done like from, I don't know what you said, April to October or March to October? Yes, those are the annual, well actually that's one of the interim reports timeline. There's two interim reports. One's due in October, one's due in April. In addition to that, the annual report, which is separate from the certification reports, is due also April 1st. What was due February 20th of this? February 20th is called the Notice of Intent and it's a very short document that Tim is supposed to sign that says the town promises to comply with all the requirements of this new permit. What happens if we sign that and then there is a class action lawsuit? Have we already formally committed to following the grounds of what they're firing? If there's a class action lawsuit it's going to trump anything that we've been doing. It's meant to relieve some of the pressure not to increase it. So, Drew, one of the suggestions from the Community Development Agency, as Dawn searches everything she can through grants, is are you able to reach out to the other five eastern towns and kind of coordinate and maybe through an inter-municipal agreement purchase one back that the five eastern towns could share or sweepers and so forth that could be shared? We have been discussing that. Okay. It would be a lot more cost effective perhaps. We just started discussing that a couple of meetings ago so it hasn't gone very far yet but it's definitely... Sorry, Drew. But it's definitely on the table and everyone is going to need a new vac truck and a sweeper for this. I mean, it might work out well with different towns because the timing is only to do the town parks and to do other things that can be shared amongst the other five eastern towns. Yeah. The governor should buy us a vac truck personally and send it to us. That would be nice. Okay. Well, thank you, bearer of good news. I appreciate it. Happy fun projects. Right? I kid with you, Drew, but I understand and I think we all get the importance of having to do this. It's just a matter of how we're going to fund it. I used to actually like small motor. But he just made it unbearable. Yeah. That's a shame. Is that it? That's it. Okay. Thank you, sir. Okay. Next up, we have an overview of the comprehensive plan update progress to date timeline. And we're going to ask Dawn Thomas and our wonderful planning people and who else? Oh, Noel Levine is going to join us on wine, correct? Yes. Okay. From BFJ. Good morning. How are you? Good morning. Do not touch the microphone. Yes. I've learned that lesson before. They give you a shot. Okay. We're getting Noah up online. Can you hear us, Noah? I can hear you. Can you hear me? Absolutely. Terrific. Dawn, do you want to start? Do you want me to start? I'll just intro you kind of, but we're, you know, the completion of the plan is on time and on budget so far. So I guess I can just kick it to Noah for some details on what we've been discussing and where we are. There's going to be some additional chapters in the draft plan posted not too long from now. And for people to comment on as well as the, sorry, as well as the steering committee. So if you want to take it from there. Sure. Is it okay if I just I have a couple slides. It just might be helpful to just show them just to walk through where we are. Just bear with me one second.

It's a very short presentation. I just wanted to just give you a quick overview and thank you for meeting with us. This is, I think, a good step just to keep you posted. It's obviously very important for you to stay abreast of progress as you will be hopefully adopting the plan. You know, once we get it out there, once we have something to show you, which should be fairly soon. Just a quick update. Many of you were at our last public meeting in December. You know, I think it was a very good meeting for us to really check in on some of the key ideas. We had about 70 attendees in the meeting. We presented the draft goals and recommendations to the community. We then had an open house session where people were invited to go around and read the recommendations and talk to the consultants as well as town staff, ask questions. And then we had a public hearing for the steering committee and that is a requirement for the preparation of a comprehensive plan. If there is an established steering committee, they need to hold their own public hearing. So we did fulfill that in the last public meeting. With regard to the chapters, we have made a lot of progress. These are the chapters in the plan. The ones that are highlighted in green have already been posted to the project website. The other chapters we are reviewing with town staff. We've had weekly meetings with town staff to go over little details just to make sure we have things as correct as can be at this point. Understanding that it is an interim document and we know a lot of the I's will be on the document. And so they're not final documents by any stretch, but we want to make sure they're in a good place before they're posted online. We are anticipating posting the remainder of the chapters by next week. So the idea of having all the chapters posted by February 15th. We could then have a 30-day comment parade for the steering committee and members of the public to look at those chapters and give us comments. It's important to note that the chapters are developed in Word. And so they're kind of in an unformatted fashion. We really want to focus on the content in these documents rather than the formatting with regard to photos and graphics and acknowledgements and all of the other things that we will put in the plan that will come once we have confirmation of the content. So this slide just provides a general timeline. So February and on the left side shows the comprehensive plan update and the right side it shows the seeker process which will be happening concurrently. So as I mentioned before in February we'll be posting the draft chapters online. We're also working on the draft GEIS. The big portion of that will be the build out analysis where we're looking at proposed changes and how they might affect the future build out of the town. And in March we'll have that 30-day review period and we'll concurrently be working on the DGIS. Once that period is over we'll revise the document format it in a nicer way and present that to the town board for review. And we'll also in March be presenting the DGIS chapters to town staff first to make sure they're in a good place before they're finalized and given to the town board. So in April we're hoping that everything will be able to be submitted to the town board. That includes the draft plan and the DGIS chapters. At that point we'll go through the seeker and the adoption process which will include public hearings, the FGIS, the findings and the adoption of hopefully both documents. And so it'll just kind of follow along the regular prescripted timeline that's required as part of the seeker process. So I'm just going to stop the presentation there and just open it up for comment. I'm happy to discuss the timeline, the content in the plan, anything else that you'd like to discuss. I'll just commend you for being on time. We greatly appreciate it. We're sticking to the schedule and the progress is great. So it was concerning going back six months ago, but you guys are doing a great job and keeping us on schedule. So thank you. Of course. I will say the weekly meetings with BFJ have been really productive when they're getting the chapters out, we're reviewing them, so that's been really helpful. And just keeping us on track and making sure everything's progressing properly. Yeah, the timeline's been adhered to and we're very glad about that. Plus the quality of work. Fantastic. Well the planners, along with Don, you guys have been working. I've stopped in to some of your meetings and you don't expect me to come in and you're hard at work and you're really doing a very, very great job along with Noah. You're doing a good job. Yeah, I'm really down into the weeds at this point. It's good. We're fine tuning everything so it'll be a good document. Yeah, as you get into, you know, as Matt said, the weeds, there's a lot of little details to get into and we're doing our best to provide the town with some guidance. A lot of those recommendations will need to be further refined once the plan is done, but the plan is really it provides the town with guidance. It doesn't necessarily solve every single problem, but it does help to point out the areas that really need to be more attention and I think we've done a lot to advance some of those ideas. The document's got to last for 10 years minimum and I think if you read it, you'll see that it really is good guidance. Good guidance for the next 10 years. It's really very well done. Agreed. Workabies, do you have any questions or comments? No, I mean, I just agree with Dawn to the point, like Noah said, the comp plan's not the silver bullet to, you know, here's the definitive document that's going to solve every ill or woe of the town, but it gives us guidance to allow us to evolve our codes and respond to stuff as it comes up and kind of keep it as a living document. It's more of a blueprint. Yep, exactly. You guys make it look so easy. I see. But I watch you while you work. We have good consultants that make it easy for us. That is true. There's nothing like good consultants. I've never had any dreams or nightmares about comp plans since we've started. Other stuff, yes. Not yet. Very good. Board, any further comments or questions? No, just very pleased. Great job. Thank you, folks, very much. Noah, thank you very much. Thanks, Noah. See you soon.

Okay, next up we have the BIDMA, Matters Surrounding 2024 Events Schedule. We have Christy Verity from the BID. Hi, Christy, how are you? Good morning, everyone. Hi, Christy. Good morning. All right, so we were here a few months ago talking about some of the changes to BID events and happenings, and I'm just here to submit our final list of dates. I'll run through them quick. We have Reflections, Art in the Park, co-hosted with East End Tourism Alliance. Then we have Two Alive on 25 this year, one in July, one in August, with two re-engaged. We have Cardboard Boat Race, co-hosted with the Chamber of Commerce. And then Oktoberfest with Reflections in October. Halloween Fest, and then Holiday Parade in the Santa House. So the only other changes that I have to suggest are Halloween Fest for one, I've been working with PD. Historically, well, I think the Coffin Race portion of it began on the riverfront years ago, and then due to flooding on the riverfront, it's now a bit more of a ! So, I think the first thing that I want to say is that it was moved up to Griffin Avenue, and while it's great on Griffin Avenue, we have the courthouse steps sort of as bleachers. It presents a lot of challenges. We're running all across town throughout the day, and even people that are at the Coffin Races, they run a little bit over, they're missing out on the Trick or Treat portion and whatnot. This year, 2023, was the first year that PD closed Main Street for Trick or Treating, and it worked out wonderfully. So the bid suggesting that we move the Coffin Races onto Main Street probably start in front of Star Confectionary and head east, because PD wants to leave Pecanic Avenue and Roanoke open, and they have a TCO to cross people over at that intersection. That may be a change that we're making. PD's in favor of it. It would be easier for them with the street closure and whatnot. I think it would just be nice to keep everyone in one place. We just have to be mindful, because they've been doing a lot of construction on Main Street, and the road is pretty choppy right now. They are going to be repaving it. I don't know when that's going to take place. Maybe if we can get a date on that, we'll check and see. But I love it having it right there, because it makes all the sense in the world. That way, one can float right into the next, and nobody's missing out on anything. That's a great point. As far as all the events that we're throwing downtown, I think everything right now is very contingent on the landscape. It's changing and evolving, and we don't really have a timeline on those things. Even speaking about the holiday events, we don't know what the shape of Town Square will become. We're going to have a lot of events that are going to be major, that parking lot in the back. We're evolving as we move along. With Halloween Fest, we've moved the showmobile a couple of times. I eliminated it last year. All of these things are just contingent on the state of the town at the time of the event. I like the fact that the Alive on 25, you've stepped down to two dates. I think you're going to have two really hugely attended programs when you do it that way. That's what we're hoping for. The four watered it down a little bit and spread it out, and we're hoping that each of these will be like the fireworks show one, where it's really packed out. As you mentioned last time, Strain on Resource and the town holding four, there's a lot of other events happening downtown. I know Townscape's bringing back the music in the park. They have the Blues Festival. I spoke with the I don't want to say the wrong organization, but they want to do Shakespeare in the Park again. They want to do it downtown. I think that there's a lot of other events that are happening. By cutting back on these, we can support those events and get things off the ground. I have one pending discussion with the anti-bias task force. A Food Unites, bringing culture and diversity events to downtown. While we're pulling back on Alive on 25 a little bit, we'll be able to expand in other directions and activate with other organizations. Same thing with the Holiday Parade and the Santa House and Bonfire. We're in discussion with some other groups to see if we can collaborate a little more on that. The only change to that, the big change, is the bonfire portion. We've had some meetings with the fire department and the fire marshal. The bid has discussed this. We voted on changing the bonfire from one large wood fire to multiple fire pits that we could put throughout Town Square. Instead of the landscape changes, we do a tree laying on the East End Arts campus. We can do them there. Also, potentially use them with other events and do things recreational downtown. My vision with it is fire pits spread out throughout Town Square. Businesses like North Fork Chocolate or Mugs on Main can sell things like s'mores kits and coffee and things like that. Be a little more interactive and have another activity. That's our general update for our events. Any questions? I think it's really appreciative that you have come here today to give our town supervisors six months notice to start building this cardboard boat. How do I answer to that? Well, first of all, they don't need cardboard strong enough for this body to get in and stay afloat. So, I'm going to have to try to sneak some fiberglass reinforcement in there or something. That's a problem. Residents, start bringing your cardboard to Town Hall. And I will say that the past few years we've had an excellent representative of the town's supervisor's office. And I think in fairness, because if I go out there and I win, I'm competing against a woman. And it doesn't look good should I win that race. So, I think with our deputy supervisor and the supervisor from the town of South Hampton being a female, it will be a perfect... Oh, absolutely. That's right. I don't know how to swim. Oh, I had shoulder replacement surgery. I can't paddle. That's right. I forgot about that. It has been suggested that we have a council member race. All of our council members participate. Rest assured, I will never run for a council person because I do not want to participate in the boat race. I was not a rower in high school. It is a really fun day though, I have to say. It's well attended and everybody does a great job. Mark M.K. has been emceeing for the past couple of years. It's a really fun day. And the weather has always been pretty good. And that one, we have a lot of moving parts with that event. We have the showmobile come in there. They brought the bleachers the past couple of years. B&G is with us all day. PD is down there. Power Squadron. There are so many entities there. It's so well run. Well oiled machine at this point. It's such a nice community event. The excitement of the kids getting in the boats and going. The kids are all wound up. They love it. They do a great job, I have to say. And the boats. I love seeing the boats. It's incredible what people can create in their garage. And bring down and race with. And the turnout this past year was phenomenal. I do have a concern that the rain date though is posted for August 17th. And we just approved the Polish Town Fair. For that same date. I did see that. I think the Polish Fair begins a little later in the day. We wrap up by 1 o'clock. So we start. It starts at 10. It doesn't start at 10? I'm just worried about the manpower with the police. They have hour dates. And they have the Polish Fest dates too. I'll probably give some feedback if there's any sort of overlap. Or if they're concerned in any way. But I did see the update for Polish Fest. So I'll reach out to Katie and just make sure. These dates are also for the cardboard boat race. Keep in mind the tide also. Yes. Yes. And we're doing the. We moved to Live on 25 from the first weekend of August. Because we didn't want to coincide with the tides and the boat race. And do too much at once. So that's kind of why things are scattered a little bit on the schedule. [transcription gap] Kristy. I think it's great. I think it's really smart that you're working. With the other organizations. Because I'm really glad to hear that Townscape. Is gonna bring the music back to the park. You know. It's . I mean. We couldn't do it. Without the help of. The town. And everyone. You're always looking for volunteers. Absolutely. very important and then you know we can also suggest other entities and events and organizations that people can volunteer with so it doesn't necessarily have to be an event but people could certainly email me hello at downtownriverhead.org and then on downtownriverhead.org we also have contact form that comes directly to me so excellent I just want to say the trick-or-treating event was amazing and the competition that was had for the downtown polls with the bar that was amazing yes and also the parade and I think I saw a couple people from town council in that parade. How many bags of candy did Bob fill up? That's what I want to know about that parade. This past year we had a grant from EDA that we purchased the candy with and I purchased a little over $6,000 worth of candy and handed out to downtown businesses so we're looking for sponsors for that we don't have that grant this year but yeah it grows every year Halloween Fest and it's wonderful you never know what's gonna happen all of a sudden the town is alive and yeah Yeah. Phenomenal weather we had this year. Yeah. It was 80 degrees. It was. Too hot for house. Yeah. And when speaking to people they were coming from all over it wasn't just local residents it's drawing people so I think that every year is just going to keep getting better and better if that's even possible because last year was great. It was nice and it was nice to see PD they did work with the street closure a little bit we did things a little different usually you know as the parade goes through the street opens right behind it but they left it closed until everything was clear and my favorite part of the event is that the street is open. Yeah. And you know we come we look around in front of town square in the theater there you have PD on the streets you have you know Bob Curran myself and Mark M.K. and the community and everyone's interacting and happy and you know no incidents nothing so we're very fortunate and you know appreciate all of the community participating. And the cleanup crew does such a great job. Cleanup. Great too. Yeah. Yeah. It definitely reminds me of when I was a kid here because back in the day every parade that we had the streets were lined with people. And over time and over the years that's kind of gone away but it's so nice to see the crowd for that Halloween parade. It's just awesome. Yes. I don't know where I mean I'm on the street all day and see the trick or treaters and everyone I don't know where everyone comes from because you know we turn the corner and we have no idea what's down there and it blew my mind the amount of people on the street this year. It's a lot of fun. Yes. All right. Thank you everyone. Keep up the good work. Thank you Christy. Thank you. She's the game or the bid? The bid. She's the bid. From the bid? Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Okay, we are now moving on to item number five and this is regarding recreation. Matters surrounding possible sponsorship program for ball fields and the brochure. And Ray Coyne, if you wouldn't mind coming up. Good morning. Are we limping a little bit or not? Good morning. How are you? Good. [transcription gap] Still playing some sports. So much pickleball. Yeah. This is Liz Keller. Liz Keller puts the shine on the Recreation Department. She does. She's always smiling. We appreciate everything you do. You work very hard and a lot of these programs are successful because of your input. So Liz, we appreciate all you do for us. Great job. So I gave Liz another task. Basically what we're doing in Recreation, we have a bunch of initiatives for 2024. So we separate it into teams. So there's a lot of fun. One of the teams is sponsorship and revenue building. Liz is in charge of that team, so I wanted to bring her in to discuss what she came up with sponsorship-wise. So go ahead, Liz. Start us off. Well, I don't know if you had access to this prior. We do. Yes. Do you have this? Everybody has one? I'll take a copy. You have it. Oh, never mind. I have it. I have it. I see. Thank you. Thank you. So after meeting with Eric a few times to try and figure out... I have to speak up. Sorry. I'm going to speak into the microphone. You've got to come to it. Lean into the mic. So this is bizarre being on television. You're not on TV. Don't worry about it. That's great. So after meeting with Eric a few times just to discuss the different possibilities legally that we can to find some money for some of our different... different programs, we realized that we can sell ad space in our brochure and we can also sell banners on our ball fields like we have in the past. But upon reviewing the banner prices and the ad prices for the brochures, we realized that they hadn't been increased in a really long time. So since everything's gone up, we're just kind of asking for you to... You can never speak louder. We can't hear you. Yeah, we're not... We're going to put you a little closer, okay? You're not on TV. No, I'm just not. Super loud. That's okay. Okay. But what you're saying is super important. So we're looking for you to review the current prices versus the proposed prices because we'd like to maybe match some other departments along the island and other research that we've done that do participate in sponsorship programs like selling banners and ad spaces in their brochures so that we can be comparable to them. So that's... Basically, what we're presenting to you today is this is a way for us to generate revenue by selling sponsorship space. Yeah. One of the things we do is we do a lot of research. So we look at recreation departments all over the country. This is one of them. I don't even know where this is. Somewhere in the Midwest. And so we look up all the way they do things and sponsorships. So the prices are derived from these different research departments. So we're just not plugging numbers out of the thin air. So... It's... It's difficult to find an exact match though. Just... So you're searching demographically, you know, what size towns are comparable to ours, financial situations of the towns so that we're not pricing out potential ad buyers. We want this to be, you know, affordable advertisement for the businesses in our community because, you know, we're all very community oriented. So this is what we came up with. There's multiple different levels of price increase and we just wanted to present it. To see if this is something that we can work towards selling in 2024. And this is a start for us. We want to expand it out eventually to all different areas. But we felt with Liz's research and speaking with the town attorney that this is our best bet to start. So it would be selling ad space in our brochure, which we do. But now we're going to increase it because those are introductory prices many, many years ago. And then we want to put banners on our outfields. We have four big outfields. Veterans Park. We have at least two at Stotsky Park. We're not going to infringe on Little League's matters. And then we have the multi-purpose fields with a fence. So we feel we can, we have a lot of real estate to put ads and we feel they're cost effective for businesses to advertise. And I'm sure businesses will jump at it. How many brochures get sent out every year? 19,000. 19,000. I would just look at the prices. I still think even with your increase, you're being over generous. I think if I could take an ad out of that brochure and get into 19,000 homes throughout town, this is still bargain basement pricing. And I think it's excellent that you're considering raising it. It's a good source of revenue. But I mean, to think that I can get it, you know, for $500, I can be an inside cover of 19,000 homes. That's a, that's a, that's a, that's a steal. There is good coverage. And a brochure is something people keep too, because if you have kids or a family, you know, you're constantly looking through it to see what's coming up. So it's not like, you know, I mean, you're getting a good bang for your buck there, if you will, for the advertising. And we're going to press it, you know, in the past, we kind of let people come to us. We're going to go to, to the businesses and we'll see where it goes. Supply and demand. If we get a lot of demand, we can easily, easily increase the prices, but we want to get people on board. You have an idea what revenue you generated last year from the ads? Not a lot. Based on ads, I believe it was under $2,500. Yeah. Double the, double the cost. What's the cost of the publication? Mine. Oh. Oh, it varies. Right now it's $4,000 to $5,000 for the brochure. We send out three, so. So it's $4,000 to $5,000 a piece. Depending on the season. Depending on the season and the size of the brochure. Do you also have an online version of it? Yes. And so you now have the ability when you sell a banner to offer for a little bit more online, right? Yeah. Yeah. The other question I have, you have the cost of the banners. Is that included? So in other words, if I take out an ad for $500, I'm getting, I'm not an ad, a banner, I, you're paying for it? We would be paying for the banner, yes. Ah, see, that, I think you, you know. We can, we can put it in where the, the customer has to pay for the banner. I just priced it so that it would count for it, so that the profit would be after purchasing the banner, so that it was more accessible, easier for the ad purchaser. Because you're really getting it in front of a lot of eyes, and I like the fact you're bringing it to veterans, right? Yeah, we haven't done the banners before. Yeah. And so you can do a twofer if you're doing it over here, right? You know. Yeah. I would look at, look at that as well. There's all different possibilities. People sell packages where you're doing a marketing package where they would buy ad space in the brochure and a three by six banner, and you would bundle it, basically. Exactly. So these are all just preliminary research prices, just to get it out there that we wanted to raise the prices. And like I said, I know you're saying they're low, but we didn't want to price down any local businesses. We wanted everybody to have opportunities for this. And since they were so low. Yeah. We wanted to make sure that they were low to do such a large percent increase. We were just being mindful of people noticing the jump, especially our existing ad buyers. Okay. May I make a suggestion? Of course. So I've been involved with fundraising with journal advertising, and there's a big difference between the price of a black and white as opposed to color. There are businesses out there that are willing to pay a lot of money for the center page, where it would be a full page. But there are also businesses that are willing to pay a lot of money for the center page color, which you can get a lot of money for. And the people that, the businesses that don't want to spend that amount of money can go down to the business size in black and white, or more expensive to a different one with the color. And you can also, which is very cost effective, is add that you would have an online version of it. them on your online version for an extra amount of money yeah no that's great ideas and definitely looking to do that for the resolution our goal is to get this this big packet where we have packages for everything including events you know we want eventually business to sponsor events and so we want we want to spend as little money as we can out of our budget so we can afford other things but that's right that is an excellent tool and I just think that if right now you only bring it in 2,500 and that's costing you four thousand to print it I think that if you get I mean I think you should really focus on trying to make this self-sustaining yeah budget but I mean I just look in for a quarter page for $100 I mean that that's a really low number I mean for local business I mean I'll make a commitment right now come to me I will buy in it you know to me but it's so no you can't I have it already but I I you know I mean I just think I think I would you want to just push them in a little bit more make it so exciting yeah we could do that that's just my thought I mean it's just very low price people because we are raising it you know over 25% from where it was so the current people the current business that are advertising spot that's I [transcription gap] I [transcription gap] I I I'm I'm I'm ! I'm all for Jack in the Box. The supervisor makes a great point like like we go to events and and and some are charity some are just you know but but it's it's a brochure or an event that's handed out one night it's read it's put aside the supervisors point of that this sits in your home for six eight months where people continue looking at it it's that you're there so that it has a much greater value. You can also have a parents page where for 20 bucks they can say congratulations. You can also have a parent page where you can say congratulations little Johnny have a great year. Yeah yeah there are a lot of possibilities I agree yeah definitely. I like that. When does it come out? Three times so we have one for the winter one for the spring summer and one for the fall. So for the general public what's the deadline now for the for the next one to come out when we got our beds in. Actually Liz is stepping up for the brochure this year. My deadline is end of February so that's where we're trying to. Two weeks. Yeah it's a small it's a short window right now. Can I make two suggestions while you're here Christy. You think that I mean the chamber would probably put this out to their businesses because it helps them right. To give their businesses more exposure with the bid put that out as well. So the bid would put it out as well. Another question that I have is do you track the online hits that you get. Yes the the system tracks it. OK. So do you have the ability for people. To opt in to not get the printed version just to stay online. I'll tell you where I'm going with this. Currently we mail them out to. Doesn't matter right. So what the reason why I'm asking that is because probably a lot of young people are going online and seeing what's happening. So if you have people opt in. To you know we don't we want to save paper. We'll take the online that's where I'm going with this. We did try that twice. How long ago. How many years ago. Many many years ago. We did try that one. You know a while ago and it was horrible. Then we tried it again I think last year and it was OK. It's still we still have a rivet still tilted on the. OK. That's where we're leaning toward trending that way. OK. I can't remember to get it to them. They're going to put it out. Yeah we're going to meet with with with the Christie and go over the events and everything. Was I just have one question. Is it just for local businesses to advertise or is it open to other business throughout Suffolk. County. We'll take anybody's money. I don't see any reason why it can't be open. I just want to make sure that was part of it. I just tend to focus. Any way to help out that a 0 6 fund would. Yes. Be much appreciated. That's one of the things that initiatives to get getting. Our goal would be to entirely offset the cost of the brochure with that. Absolutely. And Tenga may send it to all their stores and give them the opportunity to. Yeah we feel if we get it out there and that was we haven't pushed it. I think a lot of people will come on board. This is taking over. She's going to have. We have the same five ad purchasers basically but since we're trying to generate a little bit more revenue. This would be. You're going to get it done. I can tell. I hope so. I'll take a quick look at it one more time compare it. Maybe we can jump it up maybe 10 15 percent before we end in the resolution. So when am I going to a big war. I'm more from 600 now. I got a 625 650. Yeah. Local. Has it. Yeah. Yeah. So. We split it between Eastern fuel and local. Yeah. Eastern fuel has been on it for a long time. Long time. Yeah. Yeah. What do they want to pay for that? Exactly. Right now. Everyone makes like an open bid. Yes. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. We don't really have this like huge social media reach as you know other businesses and places do to do it via social media. And I don't know that it would. But I think the biggest benefit is that's what we were focusing on. These two things is because these would be. I love the largest reach. Your Instagram is great. I don't know who's doing your graphics but they do a phenomenal job. Becky. Jackie does a really great job. She's very good at it. Unfortunately she's unfortunately for her. She's on maternity. But I'm recycling a lot of her. Great. Well thank you for that. Thank you. Thank you. A lot of work. So thank you. I think this is team does a great job. She's a good leader of the team. Absolutely. Good job. Thank you. Thank you. Next time I'll put you on TV. Liz. All right. That completes all of our discussion items for open session. We're now going to enter into executive session and we will be discussing matters surrounding a change in status of two employees with Ray coin matters surrounding contractual agreement between the town of Riverhead and sports facilities companies. And that will be doing Thomas. And Joe Mariana from our CDA. We have matters surrounding contractual agreement between the town of Riverhead and Island exterior fabricators that will be Howard and Hurley. And we have matters surrounding agreement between the town of Riverhead and the riverbed central school district and that will be myself and chief Higginbottom. So can I have a motion to close the work session and enter into executive session. So moved. Second. All in favor. Aye. Okay. Open session is closed. And we will be heading to the next session. We will be heading upstairs for executive session. Thank you all for coming out. What's that?

Thank you.