Full Transcript
Thank you. Thank you. There's an echo going on right now. There you go. Okay, much better. Thank you. Our sound guy took care of it. Would you all please rise for the pledge? Marty, would you mind leading us in the pledge? Sure. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Marty. Okay.
We have six items for open session, and then after we complete those, we'll go to executive session, which is closed. Item number one on work session today is matters surrounding an update on the parking district with Denise Merrifield and Marty, Ike, and Georgia, I guess, come on up. Good, how are you? Good. Hi, Ike. How are you doing? How are you? Okay. Good morning. I'm going to put one of these here. I'm going to put it on the screen. But, um... I don't think we have one. Let's see. I'm going to put this here. Let's see. I have... I've got to turn this off. Two there. Three.
Five. Thank you. Five. I've got to show that. Good. And... Good. I like it. I like it in technical. It's very nice. The color. Okay. Sure. Yes. Good start. Go right ahead. Okay. So, I'll just state your names for the... Martin Senliski. Mm-hmm. The chair of the Redhead Parking District. Ike Israel. Parking District. Georgia Malone. One of the owners of the buildings that... That gets the... Uses the corral. So, we're here. The picture that we have here is... Is what... Prompting us to be here. Mm-hmm. Where... The parking district is not a dumpster district. It's not a dumpster committee. We're a parking committee. Right. But this was discussed at our last meeting. And the dumpster corrals are on parking district property. And they are... Obviously, there's some issues. So, we wanted to bring that to the board and discuss what the options are going forward to get this resolved. I just want to give you a very brief history. I spoke with Drew, the director of the Redhead Parking District, and I spoke with him about the... I think it was the first time I've ever spoken to him. I think it was the first time I've ever spoken to him. I think it was the first time I've ever spoken to him. Really, about 19 years ago. Really, about 19 years ago. Really, about 19 years ago. Really, about 19 years ago. Really, about 19 years ago. Really, about 19 years ago. Really, about 19 years ago. Really, about 19 years ago. Really, about 19 years ago. Really, about 19 years ago. Really, about 19 years ago. Really, about 19 years ago. Really, about 19 years ago. Really, about 19 years ago. Really, about 19 years ago. Really, about 19 years ago. Really, about 19 years ago. Really, about 19 years ago. Really, about 19 years ago. Really, about 19 years ago. Really, about 19 years ago. Really, about 19 years ago. Originally it wasn't a corral. That area is used by a number of businesses to place the dumpsters. It was problematic with a lot of illegal dumping. At that point, it was determined to put a corral around it for the businesses to use and have it secured. There was an option at the time to build individual corrals, which we actually think would be a better solution where each user has a specific corral. The current corral is just one big open corral that has three access gates for the carters to access and one side gate that they're supposed to use to bring the trash in for people to access it. I also spoke with Steve from Diggers. Him and Christina, they share one of the gates. But in either case, what happened was at that time there was also a discussion about instead of doing that, doing the individual corrals. Drew had gotten a price at the time that that was going to be around $30,000 to $40,000 to do the corrals. They would have actually gone along the north side of the parking lot as opposed to that side. Where they go, how they're configured, if we're at that part of the discussion, we're in a good place. So, the corrals were originally put there to control it, to have some intent of keeping them maintained better. So, right now, sanitation department, once a week, they go down there and clean up around the dumpsters. But as you can see, there's a problem within the dumpsters that have become problematic. I don't know if they're still cleaning around. What's that? I don't think they're . They're not cleaning around. They've been told not to. Okay. Okay. That's a misuse of taxpayer money as far as I'm concerned. Okay. Okay. So, the dumpsters were or should be the responsibility of the owners. But currently, at the time, I recall I was involved with it other than we were on the parking committee at the time. These were done. We thought there was going to be some type of a use agreement between different businesses and the corrals. In talking to Steve, what, this morning, he says he's never gotten any invoicing from the town. He doesn't have any agreement. It's just that when they were built, he was, him and Sean were each given a key to the one dumpster, the one door, gate that they have. And they use sanitation. Currently there are eight dumpsters in there with five quarters. And what happens is since the dumpster is just one big corral with different gates. If one person leaves the gate open, this is the result of what you get. People are dumping you legally and it's just become a mess. I also understand that in talking to Steve that there were keys given out by certain businesses to individuals that shouldn't have them, so they're being left open and they're becoming problematic. That's exactly where the problem is. This is not a parking district issue, however we're sort of living with it, so we're sort of taking charge of hopefully bringing the issue to yourself and we have a couple of thoughts. By the way, the responsible businesses are 100% on board with these ideas. Ultimately, it would be nice to have individual dumpster corrals and then initiate an actual program where the users are responsible for the dumpster, they have an agreement and something like that. The way it should be run. Obviously, that's going to cost a lot of money. We don't know if that's something that the parking district can undertake as far as an improvement or not. In terms of parking district funds being used to beautify the corrals within the district. We do have a fund balance on the parking committee. That would be something for the town's attorney's office to determine. But something's got to be done. What could be done immediately, even if just the current stall stays and there's no expenditure initially. The initial thought would be to change all the locks immediately. Go get new locks, non-copyable keys that will be legally copyable keys and lock them and put a sign on there to call this number, whatever the number is, to have a discussion about the dumpster. Carters, users, nobody's going to have access initially. Lock them up tomorrow. Lock them. Then you get the users to come down and they're going to use it. They get assigned a key. All the keys would be numbered and they would have to everybody would have to be registered that uses it. Keys would also go to the carters. I talked to Drew. I didn't realize that the town has a sanitation department, which he's part of. They sort of maintain it a little bit now in terms of keeping an eye on things, but obviously they've been told not to do it because of the funding issue. If this is an issue, that since it's in the parking district, we get charged out of our budget, we get charged right now $6,500 for administrative costs. I don't think that the taxpayers would have an issue with paying a little bit more administrative costs that go to the sanitation department, being Drew and his staff to maintain the log. The thought would be to once they're secure, there would be a within the enclosure, there would be a a log that every time a user uses the dumpster corral, they open the gate, but there's something garbage. They sign the date and the time they leave. They lock the gate. Part of that expense would be to get a cell phone designated just for the sanitation department. They lock the gate, they take a photograph of it and they forward the photograph to that phone and sanitation. That way we have a monthly use history of every access and every time that dumpster corral is used. Both by the carters and the users. The carters would have to do the same thing. They come in, they empty the dumpster, they write down, I emptied my dumpsters, they lock the gate, they take a picture, they text the picture to the phone. That would be part of the sanitation department's use. And then that way, there would be an enforcement policy and an enforcement, in effect, in effect, whether or not there's an agreement and some type of a fee to the business users, that's fine. Their department could also manage that. If we make, these are just ideas. I don't know if that's the direction that should go in, but these seem to be logistical ideas. And, you know, at that, at that point, there would be, you know, there would be a log, there would be a monthly usage, a monthly report, and anybody that fails to do that would then basically be booted. Sorry, you're out. You're simply out. The problem, the flaw with that is I go use it, I leave the gate open, and I don't take a picture. So nobody knows who did it. Well, that's the other thing. We definitely would want to get a camera on the, on the... This is going to be an expensive venture to provide a courtesy garbage drop on town property. We've spent $16,000 redoing this about two, two and a half years ago with new fencing and everything else. It was explained to everybody and the permits were sent out to everybody that we knew used that. So everybody got one. Now, whether they signed it and brought it in, I'm going to have to check through the town attorney's office to see what the, what the follow-up was on it. But this was to be locked. Same thing. You use it, you unlock it, you use it, you lock it back up. Same with the quarters. These gates are open 24-7. Hence, you see tires and building debris and everything else. Right. So the users of this are their own worst enemy. And what we said at one point in time was if you can't control this, now you're going to have to go back to old school, put a dumpster on your own property. And that becomes an issue because some of the properties don't have extra property to put a dumpster on. And that's the reason this was done to begin with. But since people can't play by the law, this is what we now look at. Yeah. So I'm not looking to hurt a business downtown, but honestly, they've got to help themselves. They're not helping themselves in the way it's been done. And I know some users are doing a great job there. I know that for a fact. I know Georgia does. And I know Steve Worth does and Sean Cannon. I know they play by the rules. The problem is, and you mentioned it earlier, is business A has a key for it, has a dumpster. But business A makes copies of the key and gives it to all these other people that do it. And all these other people that don't have a dumpster there charges them money. He's basically getting his dumpster for free because all the people he's allowing to use it is covering his costs. And we don't know who those people are. And those are the people that are leaving the gates open and causing this mess to happen. And that's the good argument for the individual stalls because with the individual stalls, one key holder would be the responsible key holder. And if they give keys to sub holders, they are still the one responsible. And if that dumpster corral goes bad, then they're all out. So at least it breaks down the identification of who the problem is by corral. But again, this is an expense that is . . . Right. That's what we have to look at. I mean, I do not favor the town putting another $30,000 or $40,000 into this problem. Right. Because I think we put more than enough into it. And nobody could follow the rules. So it would have to be something that we want to look at legal and see if the parking district could, if you choose to, pay to have it done. We could explore that. But I'm not looking to take direct money out of the town budget to do this. That's why we sort of wanted to come here because the parking district, we're pretty fortunate. Right now, we happen to have a pretty substantial surplus in our budget. I include our budget attached, by the way. Yes. We currently have a surplus of $233,000. And we're not close to spending our entire levy for this year. So that's probably going to be up to $275,000 at the end of this year as far as . . . And the paving was done a couple years back, too. Yeah. Which was good. That was a big expense at the time. Yeah. We did that through a bond. So that's one of the line items. We pay the bond every year. And now we don't have to do all that annual maintenance. Absolutely. So another issue that was discussed is that . . . Right. . . . the town really, especially the downtown at some point, needs to . . . and whether this is done through the sanitation department, which I didn't even know existed until I talked to Drew and he told me, yeah, it's me. If there was an administrative course and a mechanism to send out a notice to all of the property owners within the town. Because, as it turns out, there are a lot of property owners that are using these locations illegally or doing other things with their garbage. Because code requires every commercial property to use a commercial corridor to pick up their garbage. Right. Right. And many do not. Right. And there's . . . that's got to . . . there's got to be a mechanism to find out what's happening with that. So that . . . you know, in other words, there's got to be . . . enforcement's the key. And right now . . . Right. Right. . . . it's just a disaster. And it's not a parking district matter. We happen to . . . Right. . . . that's a . . . . . . unification if we do inherit it. If we can help, fine. Right. But we're not really looking to take it on. Right. Right. So, I think that's a . . . Right. When you were our liaison, you, like, worked with code enforcement, right? And you went around to all of the businesses to . . . Code went around. We got a list of all the businesses that used it. I contacted all of the carters that were there, explained to the carters, except for one carter who wouldn't tell me who their client was. All the other carters cooperated, gave me the information. We sent the information to the . . . Right. . . . the information to all of those businesses, along with a copy of the permit that they had to sign. There was no fee for it, but they had to sign a document stating that they would use it, they were responsible for it, and their use of it would be revoked if we found them in violation of it. So, that was all the . . . Just eight dumpsters. There has to be 30 businesses there. No doubt in the mind. Exactly. It's not, you know . . . we have an office building. There shouldn't be car doors and . . . Yes. . . . tires and pictures. Tires and pictures. And, you know, we're not going to be able to get them out. Right. Right. There's construction material. Absolutely. Yeah. Like . . . How does the carter even get to the dumpster? Yeah. The machine . . . they use overhead trucks, so the truck has like the forks on the front, and then it goes over the top. So, they literally just lift them up, and then, you know, whatever stuff is left behind is . . . They do have to double move them. Like, Manitou handles both Diggers and Casino. They share the one gate that's the one that they maintain, but since the gate, they're not separated, it overflows into their own. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Really, literally, literally, literally, literally, literally, literally, literally what he has to do is empty one, move it out of the way, and then go empty the other one, put it back in, and put the other one back. So there's a little bit of jockeying around. But that's why the single stalls would certainly make sense if there were single I was going to ask . . . and we even looked at Hatchog and they don't even have gates but they have security cameras. You were going to check to see because it was nice and clean over there and you wanted to see how are they working this that it stays like that. They have just security cameras? Yeah. They have signs. I know you were the one that brought that to our attention. So where are you putting your dumpsters? The dumpster, it's here. So we have two. I work for Georgia. She has two office buildings and it's within this corral. This is just a picture in one of the gates. There's two other gates so we're in the back on the right hand side. Is your dumpster locked? Our dumpster is locked and that's one of the other issues is that once somebody that's bringing their stuff here they're committing to leaving their stuff. You don't ever see somebody walk out of the dumpster area with their stuff. One of the things we talked about. One of the things we wanted to do is creating a sanitation district down there. Where just everybody pays in and everybody gets a code to the universal compactor. And you don't pay your bill then you don't get a code to the compactor and so forth. And then it's a simple solution of really one camera is monitoring for illegal dumping, really catching license plates and other things going in and out of there. And everybody downtown pays their share. And the sanitation district, Drew can, based on the size of a business, towards what the cost of the dumpster is. And the cost of what they would pay, what they would expect to throw away on a regular basis. So a restaurant should pay significantly more than somebody that's just doing a small law office or something that's a lot less. We explored that option but the problem with that is five different quarters did services, right? And each one of their customers has a signed contract for five, ten, eight, whatever years. And to put one compactor down there. And that would require everybody to have to break their contracts one way or another. And it was very difficult to get out of that contract. And that was one of the issues why we backed off that a few years back. On the south side of the street, two previous administrations ago removed all of the dumpster enclosures. You don't, if you go back there, it's actually cleaner but you're looking at dumpsters. You know, you walk up to somebody's business and it smells like a dumpster. You've got to go in their back door and you've got to walk past a smelly dumpster to go in a restaurant. It's not the best idea. So you brought up cameras, right? Cameras, one, are there cameras on any of the buildings that can see those dumpsters? That's number one. I don't think so because I think we explored that too. So somebody that owns a building or a couple of buildings put cameras on it, right? We just increased illegal dumping. And if we can, and the problem you get with license plates. Right. Is often you get flare and then you can't read them. So, and I was going to work with the chief to look at putting a polarizing filter over the lens to see if that would help identify the license plates. But I would venture to guess that what they're doing in Patchogue, having security cameras makes a difference because I don't know what our fines are. It's like $1,500. It's up there. You throw a tire in there, you're paying $1,500. Take it out of your pickup truck. You throw it out of your pickup truck and stick it in there because they'll be found. Can I just say something? I don't know about the security cameras only in the sense that if you have people that don't have money, they're not going to pay a fine for whatever they dump over there. Two things. You mentioned about the corral maybe having a roof over it as well. Not just open but having a lid on top. And frankly, it may just be something that the businesses would have to, a burden they share is you have an actual night security guard that stays there and watches. Overnight. Because that way you don't have to worry about glare from the camera on the cars. You actually have somebody somewhat patrolling the area. And after a while, that will go away if they know there's somebody there watching. It's not just at night though. Yeah, but during the day the businesses can watch. They can take a look. But they don't watch. I mean they can't watch. I was in a property. Nobody can see that dumpster. I was working on my property. And I can see this corral from my property. And I was out there working and I saw a pickup truck and I saw guys getting out. And unfortunately, I couldn't get around. I wanted to go around and take a picture of their plate. But by the time I realized that these guys were dumping illegally, there was nothing you could do to get over there. So I think the camera at least. Cameras are the best source. It happens to, even if they don't catch the plate, if people see the signs and they see cameras and they see the fine, it knocks out maybe 85% of it or who knows. Wait, wait, wait. You see the illegal dumping when you see it. What's going on? They just take the stuff down. We have free garbage. They pull up. You're not going to bring your garbage. What do they do? No, I want to hear. What do they do? They pull up the gate. I took this picture. They can throw it over. We found that most of this is coming from right off the top of the town. They just take it and they throw it away. They just throw it over. They just throw it right here. Because it's not locked. Right. You know what? This is very administrative heavy. I mean, I'm not saying that this is a bad thing. I'm just saying that this is a bad thing. I'm just saying that this is a bad thing. I mean, I don't ... Why can't we just come up with a really simple system? One of which is that the keys that are distributed to these people ... The owners such as myself. They cannot distribute it to anybody else. I mean, I ... Really. So people want to share the expense. Well, then that party, that business has to be a business that should be sharing this. should have you know they should you have their name number everything so that yeah I don't understand how this thing could be left open I immediately it's always been a hassle I would drive in and I see this gate left open that's crazy and why wouldn't we and thank you talk about putting something which you want to pay you you know at the top of this because you can put something because they're just throwing stuff over people just they're not really not throwing stuff over because those gates are open all the time no no those fences are ten foot high you're gonna be throwing tires and 12 foot two by sixes over the fence because that's gonna alert everybody that you're doing something illegal one of the genders the gates are open you back your truck up the empty stuff out they said the gate problem is the gate problem let's just deal with that immediately and let's then take it from there because all of this administrative stuff taking photos and signing off on a monthly basis maybe ! we have to do that maybe we don't but the biggest problem right now as far as I can see is that these gates are left open and they should not be left open you know and so you're gonna say okay which one of the owners of the buildings or businesses here are like leaving it open I you know which one of their so then it's their companies that are leaving it open you know within them you know that that's the then they can break their contracts you're a lawyer I'm a lawyer take a minute break that's the you know but I don't understand why we can't make sure the owners are making or ensuring that these gates are always closed that's crazy okay I don't know why that's happening but we have to stop that yes we do everything else is a mess you're right start with the key yeah maybe we can get in the cameras and the cameras and we can probably get a sign we get a sign that says illegal dumping fine and we'll put the number on the line and we'll put the number on what it costs so you've got key camera and a sign so they're aware of what the fine is by the way they are throwing it over but they don't have to but from what the gentleman who owns the gun store Joe don't know his last name I'm bad at names he said that he was watching them just broke the house right behind here which is what I don't know what it is it's not a halfway house but it's a house he said that all he does is watch them throw bags of garbage you know what they don't have to do anymore but he said they are they they definitely has seen them many many times at one point we checked and they actually had a contract to have the garbage removed so just to I mean I think let's get the locks let's get the cameras and let's take it from there okay and Denise if they don't have money to pay the fine they can sit their tails over in the county jail right I really don't care this is disgusting and it's not to be tolerated we put somebody over there for 15 days they'll think twice about it it's going on the top of their head well I tell you something else so then it's the carding it's the company's it's the carding company's you're fisting or it's the owners that are not so they're not so that's the basis for firing them any breach of contract I could look at a contract you can look at a contract and easily say okay they're in breach and the moment you send them lawyers that are saying hey jerks okay you know the moment you leave these stores open is the basis for a breach of this agreement and and and and if they're the ones doing it then you talk to the owners of those companies and say hey we're going to fine you okay Is that possible? We can do that because they're littering. Aren't they littering on town property? You know, what are the rules? Most garbage trucks have cameras on the back already because we get, I'll give you an example. When they do pickups in the town, for example, right, somebody said, well, they didn't come. Well, they're time-stamped, and they'll send a picture to sanitation. Now, we were there at 7.30, and there was nothing there, and here's the picture. Somebody will put it out at 7.45 and say the garbage truck never came. Follow what I'm saying? So there's a camera on the back of the truck already. You can ask me to take a picture. So you're going to explore the legality of, like, I know you're saying three, five-year contracts, but I don't foresee any of these ideas working. I just think it's just going to keep going, and it's a dumping site. But if you created a universal sanitation district for everybody down there, and then you just put out a notice, and you say, effective January 1st, 2025, we're going to operate it, so notify your partners now. I think there's got to be a legal stance where we, at a certain point, have to interject ourselves and take over the responsibility. Why don't we just truck them to come up with a procedure first for making sure these doors stay closed? Like, why not? I mean, I could sit with any of the work, because this is crazy. Because the Gs will continue to be shared. Well, no, no, but maybe they can't be duplicated. So how does the town, who is, what's the phone number? Because what should happen is there should be a notice, and whether it's tomorrow or the next day, new locks, nobody gets a key, quarters, nobody's going to have access to it, with a sign saying, call this number. Just going to let you know, we did do this once already, and changed the locks down there, and put a new lock on it, and told people they had to come get the keys. The people that were using it cut the chain on the lock, and the lock was no longer there. The lock completely disappeared. So now we're replacing yet another lock. And do you think it's... That's why the cameras, the cameras today are the most important. You need the cameras one way or the other, whether you, you know, no matter what you have there. And a phone number we would give out would be Ken's home number. Yeah. This way they can contact you. Maybe you need one of those things like Walmart has for a little while, you know, on the white post. I don't know how the size down there. And stick, you know, I don't know what they cost to rent, just stick it up there. Well, then I think we should do two things. We have to make sure we come up with some procedure that works for making sure these doors are locked. I mean, and, and having cameras. I think that... Give it a go, you know, give it a go. But all this other stuff is like an administrative mess and crazy. And that's what we don't want. I don't know if we, if we spend the money and put the fences in between the three and turn it into three corrals and then we'll try to work it out amongst each other and see if that would be the most cost effective. You'll know who the culprit is too. So you'll have a better idea of who's the partner that did something else with their key. Right. And then, you know, and then have one, and then it would be a matter of having whoever's involved with these agreements with the town to take the different locations and have one initial entity that has the key and then all the keys got to be numbered and they got to be registered to who has them. And, you know, if then everybody that's in that corral knows, hey, you're all going to lose it if this corral is abused. Right. Then at that point, they all have, you know, they all have skin in the game. They're going to lose their dumpster. That's right. And they're going to lose, they're privileged permanently. And for one, I know Steve Worth is totally on board with that. I know he is. He does the right thing, Dad. We'll monitor it. There's Ron George and there's Sean. But there are others and the fact... There's others that are not. I have been told that there are a couple of owners who have let keys out to other people. They are... I have to say, they purposely leave them open. There's actually needles and drug use in there. And some of the buildings, including some of the, some of the buildings on, on, you know, the west, west of the parking lot that have apartments. Yes. People are basically taking their garbages and throwing it at them. Do you know who the owners are that are giving out keys? No, I don't. That's what, doing this new system, this new system will let you find out because the key is not going to be copied. The new keys will be able to be copied. That's it. Denise, set up a meeting with Drew and with the parking district. We have a meeting next Thursday. Perfect. Perfect. And Denise, you and I, you and I, you and I, you and I, you and I can look at one of those stupid contracts for seven years. I mean, you know, talk about issues with totally abusive contracts. I mean, I can't even, you know, when I think about what they make these poor owners jump through such hoops. Oh, it's for seven years, nine years. That's ridiculous. And not only that, those contracts are assignable. So if they sell their business, then they can sell to whomever they want. That's another thing I have problems with. But we don't have that issue, mind you. But I'm bothered by the fact that everyone else does. And if you, if you wanted to, you're a lawyer, I'm a lawyer, you know, we can look at the language because something's happening here and I'm sure it's the carding companies creating a problem here as well. Do you know what I think they're doing? The carding companies are illegally dumping? Yes. No, I don't know if they're illegally dumping, but I don't think, yeah, I don't think they're doing their jobs. Well, the carters, they only pick up the container. You could leave anything, the container could be empty with one tire next to it. They're not picking up the tire. And frankly, I don't think they lock it. It's a problem. I think they do it every time because I think some of them get frustrated and they come in and they pull out of there. Yeah, I don't think they're There's got to be more. Accountability. Not only our expense, but exactly. Chief of Police would suggest there's a key fob system on there where it's a solid locking gate and basically whoever has a key fob, you know who has it, you know who's going in and out and there's more accountability. But I think that's like, I don't know about key fob because it's so much easier. I like that idea because that's actually fairly economical. Then you can see who's using it and who's coming and going how often and in and out and who's the major user. I think it's easy to abuse that than having a lock, a physical lock. You can't. You can't. You can't do it with a key fob. You can't hand it out. It's your name attached to it. So what we'll do is we'll send it to you. It goes right to a computer that George used it at 3 o'clock. My buildings are baseline. If we can have Drew at the parking meeting since, I mean since the parking is involved since it's in our lots, we'll sort of, we can sort of use that as the corner. We can use that as a coordination point for it. I love the fobs. We'll look at some of these other ideas between now and then. Right. And then realistically, hopefully that with the press being here and everything, there'll be something that will be put out in the local papers so that people read it and they realize that, hey, this time around it's really getting serious because it's got to be taken care of. I locked this gate after I took this picture. I went down there and I... It was open when you got there. Well, what happened was my wife said to me, she goes, what's going on with the dumpsters? I go, what are you talking about? She says, have you been seeing that? We were in the car. I said, no. I pulled in and I looked at it and I said, I can't believe it. So I took a picture and then I actually closed the gate and locked it with a gate that was just a master lock so it was somebody's personal lock set and I locked it and left but I think that idea of having something with a fob system and really changing this and put out a notice that on a certain date these are going to be changed and that's it and the camera's got to go up that's at least a start and I think what Ken is saying about eventually something's got to happen downtown's on a whole rebirth and all things are great I think it's probably the opportunity to look at that. Even with construction supervisor we're two years out from the town square we can put out a notice now I don't know how long the length of these contracts are what they're binding up whether it's six months or a year but it's got to come to an end and if you do the compacting system and everybody has their own code and if they don't pay their code is wiped from the system it's another tracking mechanism you leave it white out in the open they're clean you know and clearly visible this is the problem because everybody gets in there and they just start dumping stuff and nobody sees who's calling right back and it should be sanitation district is the only way I really feel in the long term you're ever going to solve this problem and everybody down there pays it it's based on square footage and there's a smaller one behind bars and we never ever have an issue there because it's out in the open well it is out in the open but it's always locked it's never left swinging wide open and we never have an issue there so you know what I would recommend more to get the corrals that have a lid on top so that people can't throw it over and the other thing is corrals that the fob works on that there's no ability to break it open cut it open just have it on the actual mechanism is set up so that there's no lock the reason you can't lid it is because when the arms come down for the trucks to pick up the dumpsters you'd have to be so high with a with a with a cap on it yeah but how high that's we talked about how high they talk to your carter talk to your carter talk about that how high would that go up the carter would have to be 20 feet high I agree they would wheel it out first you're right if they that's the way they can do it right now is they can just lift over but like this one has wheels on initially as a stop gap what could happen is if the the riverhead fence came down and it doesn't have to be heavy duty expensive if they just did a lighter duty and extended up four feet with just like a an 8x8 mesh or something that's that you're not going to see that's transparent but at least it raises up you gotta be you know you gotta really haul it if you're gonna throw it over you could do that I saw it down there yeah it is I mean but you know this is certainly I saw it alright so we set it up for next week at your meeting with crew to come down and we hammer out these issues and let's give it a shot when is it next week I guess Thursday or regular Thursday 25th I would recommend if you're considering a FOB have Ken test her at the meeting and I just sent you you and you because I don't have your email a system that our planning department just sent to me and I just forwarded the email what they're doing for locking systems give me that I'll give you my email I'll get it back to you haha Marty will send do you have do you have George George okay send it to me thank you so much thank you guys then I'll have to send it to our attention and hopefully we can clear this once and for all alright we're going to go a little bit out of order here because the chief has an urgent matter he has to attend to so I'm going to skip number two right now and go to item number three which is the police matters surrounding the monthly report and this will be relatively quick the people that are here for the paddle pub will get you right up here after that good morning and thanks for your morning how is everybody good rainy day good morning everybody thank you You should have the March monthly report. Things look okay. Going down, well basically half and half, half's down, half's up. Calls received down, domestics are down, motor vehicle accidents are down, motor vehicle gear strikes are down. Reported gear strikes. Reported, yes. Summons is literally down. So the next group is all up and I think that's just because it's all together. Arrangement, charges, arrests, criminal incidents are up. Not by much, criminal incidents are up basically because of new extra, more, petaloshnes and harassment seem to have gone up pretty much in the month of March. Now, okay. Criminals are down, revenues are down, and obviously arrests are, just reflect the rest of the bugs, so they're up. Chief, on the harassment city, is there a particular area where there's a lot of harassment? I don't have that information in front of me, but I can look into it and find out. No, most of our crime does not happen downtown. Okay. Okay. The only other thing to report really, unless there's any questions. Is records management and CAD. It's coming. Hopefully next month. So they say May 6th, 7th, or 8th we'll be doing the switch over. Everyone's being trained. So we'll have hexagon for our computer aided dispatch and niche for our records management system. And that's in line with the county. So the county is the hub and we'll all be spokes off the hub. Most of us will be spokes off the hub. I think I used Hampton to do that. I think I used Hampton. Did not join. East Hampton Village did not join. Hopefully down the road they will. It's a big undertaking. The report might be a little messed up for May because we'll be reporting two different ways. The way we've been reporting, which is uniform crime reporting versus NIBRS, which is National Incident Based Reporting System. When everybody's on CAD, will you have access to? Yes, we'll be able to. See, that's great. That's great. How long have we waited? We're waiting for the next week. Okay. So we're waiting for the next week. Okay. So we're waiting for the next week. Okay. So we're waiting for the next week. Okay. So we're waiting for the next week. Yes. Because obviously the river separates us from Southampton PD jurisdiction, but the criminals are back and forth. The same players are back and forth all the time. All about sharing information. Yes. All about sharing information. It's a long time coming. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. like to have with the police department as lead agency to help them and I was asking if you could speak with Dawn Thomas about that. I've already spoken to Dawn so hopefully that's underway. Oh good. We're all for it. The more training the better. Yes they would be able to train and provide that grant money. That would be fantastic. Good. All good? Yep. Thank you Chief. Okay we're gonna go back to item number two. I appreciate your patience. Matters surrounding possible implementation of a paddle pub in downtown Riverhead. I am fully excited to hear about this. Yes. Hi Amanda. Hi how are you? Joanne. Nice to meet you. Hi Amanda. Hi. So nice to meet you. I'm Tim Amanda. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you too. Hi Tim. Hi. Take a seat. Thank you so much for your time today. Thank you for coming. Of course. Have you met Ray? Ray you want to come up? No. This is Shafiye. Hi Ray. I'm Amanda. Nice to meet you. Ray is the director of Park and Rec. Park and Rec. Not the TV show. It was nice. Thank you. I actually haven't watched that. Me either. But I heard about it. No it wasn't too bad even though we really stayed inside. We had a couple Sundays. It was nice. Okay we will let Bob. You want to start it off? So yeah Amanda called me and you told me you bought the operation that was peddling. The brew cruise. The brew cruise. Yeah. And I was like I'm gonna go to the bar. I'm gonna go to the bar. I'm gonna go to the bar. I'm gonna go to the bar. I'm gonna go to the bar. I'm gonna go to the bar. I'm gonna go to the bar. I'm gonna go to the bar. I'm gonna go to the bar. I'm gonna go to the bar. I'm gonna go to the bar. I'm gonna go to the bar. I'm gonna go to the bar. I'm gonna go to the bar. I'm gonna go
The guests go on board. They bring their food and drinks. We have a Coast Guard captain with a host. And they settle themselves around a central bar area, if you will, with coolers, ice, put their things there. They settle on bicycle seats, similar to the trolley bikes. And they pedal, and it moves a big paddle wheel in the back of the boat, propels the boat. We also have an auxiliary motor as well for when they're tired, they don't want to pedal anymore. And we turn into a dance party. Tired or they run out of beer. And so, and I know what you're looking, and you're going to dock at Treasure Cove? Yes, we are looking to dock there. Okay, and so what you need... Where? Treasure Cove? Yeah, by... Behind Jerry and the Mermaid. So, and you're looking to onboard and... Deboard. Deboard. Passengers at the river. Passengers at the riverhead. At the riverhead. Dock. Okay.
So the guests would come and use the municipal parking lots, meet the boat at the dock, and then come on the boat. We'd go for an excursion, lasts about four to five miles, about a 90 to 100 minute duration. So we keep it short and sweet, so they get to see the surroundings, having a good time with their friends and family on board. And then they get to experience the rest of riverhead for the rest of their day. And the nice thing about this being on the water, as opposed to the bike one on land, is you won't hold up boat traffic. Because boat traffic can go right around you. Correct. We do get occasional complaints of people saying, I'm behind this thing, and it's going so slow, and it's tying up. And we've dealt with that over the years, and it's not that big of an issue. But this way, you wouldn't have that problem at all. Why are you eliminating the other bikes? Then by doing it, is that what you're saying? Switching the power? No, I plan on doing the bikes as well. I know there were three in operation. We're looking to just do one for this season. We're trying to outfit the bikes, make them a little fresher. It's been an ongoing concern with the fire department, is the bike getting out of the way as they come out of that substation. So, yeah. It's problematic. I understand that. I used to have a circle bike, a seven-seater bike, as opposed to the 14-passenger that you're used to. So we worked with the town. We go through and pull over for the fire zones temporarily to let traffic pass or any parking spaces that are available. And all the staff is trained on how to pay attention to who's behind them and not stop traffic. So I'm very conscientious about that. What would your dates of operation be? What particular months would you be operating? Typically May 1st through October 1st.
And this is bring your own beer, alcohol? Is that what's happening? Are you selling it on there? We do not sell anything. So usually people pack like a picnic, if you will. So they'll pack sandwiches, pizza, burgers, things like that, chips, fruit. And then for beverages, we don't allow any hard liquor on board. We keep it to like cans of beer, canned wine, things like that, nothing glass. They can't break. And we limit it to four per person. And most of the local business is downtown. Tell them to go get their beer and food there. Yes, absolutely. That was going to be my question. Do you work with local businesses? For example, like the Italian restaurant. They tell your customers if you go here, you're either going to get a discount or we recommend blah, blah, blah. They have packages set up together. So they're basically provisioning the boat. Yes. So they would set it up with the local business and then they would just bring it to the boat beforehand. So yes, we do work with a distillery over in Patchogue and then the brewery. And then we have the Huntington as well. I know we just opened up Oceanside. So we are looking into partnering with the Barrier Brewery over there as well. So you would have those types of beverages on board? And people could bring other alternative liquor if they want? We do not provide any alcohol or food. You said you were partnering with? We restrict the experience and then they can bring whatever they like on board. Just because you said you're partnering with certain breweries or distilleries. Oh, just like relationship-wise. Oh, before you get, I see. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. No, no, four per person, but there's more than enough. Usually we did two hours in the past, where it cut me down to about 90 minute, 100 minute tours. Do you have any partnerships with any of the breweries here in Riverhead? I actually haven't met them yet, so I'm very excited to build those relationships. I like it. I wish you nothing but the best of luck. It's just another amenity for people to come to downtown Riverhead for and spend more money on our local businesses. This is wonderful. Thank you. And what we'll do is we'll get in touch with our legal department with the agreement. I'm definitely for this. I think it's great. Send me your information too. We can promote it on our end. Get people down there. Great. That's great. Thank you. Thank you very much. Nice meeting you. Very nice meeting you. Yes, you too.
Okay, up next we have Justice Court Matters surrounding the Monthly Report. Howard and Saru.
Good morning. Good morning. How are you, Victoria? I'm pretty cold. All right. So... Good morning. Good morning. I did mine for, as we know, March 1st, March 31st. Mm-hmm. I know the Board is aware, but I just want to make the disclaimer that this is for town code cases only, nothing through PD. So we did have the parking calendar in the month of March. We had a pretty robust one on March 4th. March 11th, we only had a couple of cases on. But we did have 13 convictions, and we collected $1,110 in fines on March 4th. We collected $1,110 in fines on those. Town code, we had seven convictions for the neighborhood preservation, as we know, that's litter on property, noise, certificates of occupancy, things like that. We got five convictions on fire marshal, 2,400 on that. Quality of life, your open alcohol, public urination, littering, 2,665. And as you can see, that total is a strange number. The reason why it ends in 65 is because I had the conversation with the court. Councilman Rothwell, you brought to my attention the surcharges under Chapter 117. I had a conversation with the court. I reminded them of those mandatory surcharges. They were very receptive to it, and they have been issuing them accordingly. So we're back on track with those. So it's the $65 surcharges on the quality of life, the $100 on a few of the other ones. So I'm happy to report that. So the grand total with those surcharges was $10,000. Okay. So that's $10,675. And as we know, it's only for the people that come in, actually do the right thing, come to court, pay the fines. What else do we have? So yeah, that's really all I have, unless anyone has any other questions. I'm happy to answer them. How many cases do we have open right now currently with regard to the neighborhood preservation? Preservation? I mean, I don't know for sure right now. I'll run the numbers. But I would say probably about maybe 100, 120. Those have different adjourned dates. Some of them get adjourned out two weeks. Some of them get adjourned out however long it takes for people to get rental permits. So it's kind of a huge span of time. But I can definitely find that out. I'll give you an exact number for you. Create additional work, and then at some point, like maybe twice a year or something like that, can we get balances towards what we're actually collecting in the appropriate categories? Yes. So that we can make it available for expenditures, like for a vacation to town project, things like that. So I would want to let them know if it's the parks, then find money for the parks. And that's 117-4D. That has to go through town financial administration to get those fines together. So it'll work together with, I guess, accounting to figure out how we're getting those in the correct areas. It's nice to see, especially when you get to the end of the year, like so how did we get it? What did we raise D&D's mandatory surcharges? Sounds good to me. I will get right on that. Thank you. Thanks for calling. I appreciate it. Little feedback we have? Yeah.
Okay. Anybody have any further questions? No. Thank you. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Thank you. Next up we have code enforcement and matters surrounding the monthly report. Senior investigator. Yes. Title right. Rich Downs. Good morning, everybody. Good morning. How are we doing? Good. How are you, Rich? Good. Good. Everybody have their pamphlet? I don't have a pamphlet. I don't have a pamphlet. I didn't have one. You didn't get one? I didn't get one either. It was online. Well, I feel special. It was online. You'll have to share. Oh, I'll run through it also. All right. I changed the format a little bit to be more in line with what everybody else was doing before I was doing a month to the meeting date. So it got a little confusing. So now we'll just. Yeah. Speak up a little bit louder. You don't have to move that. Just. Speak a little louder. Oh, good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We have 28 cases that we carried over from January that are still under investigation. We issued 56 summonses for the month of March. Ticketable infractions include no COs, seven, land clearing, one, violation of stop work order, one, unlawful structures, one, dangerous or hazardous conditions, one, no building permits. We had 10 commercial litter. We had three litter on private properties. We had three summonses. Rental permit violations, we had six. Unregistered vehicles, we had seven. Signs, prohibited signs, we had six. Violations of site plan, those were commercial properties that violated their site plan, three. Zoning violations, two. Clothing drop-off bins, we had one. Property maintenance violations, two. Streets and sidewalks, one. The commercial litter, was part of that up on Route 58 with the businesses up there? Some of them, yes. Those would be litter in the parking lots. Yes. Some of the supermarkets. Perfect. Perfect. Okay. We prioritize life safety complaints over the general... We prioritize life safety complaints over the general litter complaints. Rentals. We continue to perform our annual inspections. We have inspected 90 residential type properties. Those are the houses, the two family house type structures. Excuse me, is that just the month of March alone? 90. 90 in March? Well... Inspections? We did 300 apartments, too, also, in addition. So that was 390. That was in its entirety. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. We've collected approximately $20,575 in rental fees for the month of March, and our total revenue from January to March is $53,550 in rental fees. How are we doing towards keeping our pace that everybody's getting inspected on time? We're doing pretty good, except we lost one rental housing inspector. We've got to fill that position, so that was George who went over to the south end. You're packing these things in place right now? Yes. The test was just given on Saturday, so we got a call for the list as soon as that came. And how about a staff member in the office? We're interviewing Friday. Excellent. Yeah, so we'll have a full-time administrative person hopefully. That will really help you. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. Good. Perfect. Yeah, and certainly I'd like to be involved in a discussion about the dumpsters and the grouse. I'd like to be involved with that if possible. Sure, absolutely. Will you put him in charge of the dumpster grouse? I don't want to be in charge of it. Be careful what you wish for. I have some ideas. I have some ideas. He's worked with us in the past with some stuff. I see the problem, and I have some ideas. That's all. Yeah. I think people having a general thought or idea that someone is, or is actually physically there watching might deter a lot of this stuff. Yeah. And the cameras. I have ideas about those. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Excellent job. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You guys are very busy. We appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. You guys are very, very busy. Thank you for all that you do. Yes, we are. There's no moss growing on our code. It's job security. Absolutely. That's one way to look at it. Thanks, Rich. Yeah. Good job. All right. Next up, we have matters surrounding a possible driving school at EPCAL. I think we have a couple of questions. Bob Kern and the folks with the driving school, come on up. How are you? Dan DiManti. Very nice to meet you. Hi. Denise. So this was the packet that these folks sent over just as we got out of the way. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Dan DiManti. Very nice to meet you. Dan DiManti. Very nice to meet you. This is a packet that these folks sent over just a short time ago, so I think it's different than the one you already have, but they can walk us through that. I'm not quite sure. Thank you very much for doing it. I didn't do it. The lady upstairs did. I'll continue. I'm always stacking the upstairs people, so it kind of works that way. So it seems. Is it going to be on the screen at all? It's going to go there. Justin, do you have the presentation? Yeah. There's actually... I sent it to you this morning. There's two of them, so maybe that... He has the old one, and he doesn't have the new one. Okay. So I'm going to go ahead and send it to you. Okay. So I'm going to go ahead and send it to you.
So you have the old one, and you have this one. Yeah, the old one will be great. Okay. If we can start with that, and this is just a simple item for the conversation, what we have for the show. So just to get the board a little up, I met with Dan in the past year. Yes, sir. And at that point, we were with Kat, and we didn't know what was going on, blah, blah, blah. So they're just looking to, and if you look in the presentation, lease a portion of the 10,000 square foot runway or the taxiway to do their driving academy, which is something that we can do it's not going to disrupt the property at all they're not leaving anything on the runway except you know when you're utilizing it that's correct yeah they're aware that it's a an active runway even though it hasn't been used and who knows how long but it is an active runway for an emergency landing somebody need that so with that I'll let you you know explain what your Academy does oh you know what you want to do it that way
well first off thank you for the opportunity to sit and speak with today just a little personal reference we are a from New York three brothers and three sisters we all graduated from half all hills East High School my family gravitated out here 30 or 35 years ago my sister Denise owns and operates the Andrews family farm you probably have been to at some point we've better or worse the user services as well thank you sir my dad Joseph my mama Rosemary spent many many good years out in this community my brother Anthony who's on the phone is my business partner this is a family business it's myself my brother Anthony my sister Donna who lives out here with lots of kids and six grandchildren and in my sister darling and so Anthony is a 20 year veteran for the New York City Police Department decorated veteran the New York City Police Department no he's okay yeah yeah technical okay take off so and his his wife Lisa is a 25 veteran your veteran of the Suffolk County Department of Justice and the New York City Police Department just as well so this business has been in business since 1975 we're approaching our 50 year anniversary I'm not that old so obviously I didn't start the business but we have as a family owned and operated this business for seven years and have been in the driving school business for 15 or so we operate across the United States this program we have a multitude of divisions this particular program operates every single month in ten different locations throughout the United States locally it's a national Coliseum we've run between two and five events per month so basically this talks a little bit about the company and where we operate and I don't know you guys are scrolling through or I'm directing or how that's gonna go yeah okay there you go so maybe go on yeah what you're gonna want to do is speak about that okay what you do is here he comes you can see how practice that yeah it's okay is it possible to get it up with some other monitors that Dan can see that oh yeah oh you can see it yeah so if you just speak come closer to the mic and speak so basically we operate one of the largest and most proficient driving academies in the United States and it can be anybody from a young person with a permit all the way up through a period of 75 85 90 years old and what's important about that specifically to the teen driver community is the the largest killer of people 16 to 21 are is in an automobile and unfortunately the training in our systems in our high school for a series of reasons doesn't get these young people to a place where you can be safe secure comfortable and competent so we do that I would suggest better than anybody in the United States it's a it's a one-day program we're talking about statistics some some of that comes up here I don't know as a father my sons have done this it's super super important when you put a young person in a 4,000 pound vehicle with really without the confidence to be able to operate it's dangerous it's expensive lawsuits in addition to we have 400,000 alumni since 1975 we have a corporate agreement with the Chubb insurance they thought so important we're about to roll out a program across the United States in the second quarter so it's it's just really we do a lot of fun neat stuff in our business but this is probably the most important position in what we do and again this is nothing new and in fact operate today just in Nassau Nassau Coliseum so maybe we can go to the next slide now we go back here so if we get a little bit technical so Joe Menido is our chief revenue officer he's worked with myself my brother my family for over 14 years so maybe you can take him through some of the technical aspects of how this program absolutely this is not like your traditional red light still green light type driving school we're teaching them accident avoidance skills car control skills learning really how to manage the car the weight the transfer so we started off there's an instructor in the right seat with them we're working in the classroom to start talking about you know some of that road theory we're talking about contact patch management of the tire we're talking about how to move weight around the car when needed but really the primary part of the class is being in the car and experience in these situations it's amazing when you get into a car with a kid that's got their driver's license you say full apply that break and they use a 10-12 percent of it and then the ABS kicks in and they go oh my god I broke something so it's given them an opportunity to experience the car at limit or these different safety devices including like traction control and understanding how to really use that to get the car stopped so we're working on vision you know you a lot of people look at what they're about to hit so though they're cars sliding and they're looking at the guardrail and they put the car in the guardrail you should be looking where you are the car's gonna follow your eyes like in any sport. We're working on braking, how to get the maximum braking force applied. We'll do the skid pad, so we've got a couple different ways of doing that. We'll either wet asphalt, or we'll use these high density plastic skid rings that go on the back wheel. So teaching them when the car does start to slide, how to get point of rate back in the right direction, or if they go too far, how to get the car stopped completely in the same lane without jumping into the other lane. We're working on open road driving techniques, so that emergency braking situation where unfortunately they look down at their cell phone or they're changing the radio station, look up and there's a tractor trailer in front of them, how to get the car stopped, how to get the car stopped and turned at the same time so they don't end up underneath it. Hydroplaning, we do a lot of wet water, wet grounded exercises, so when the car does hydroplane, what do they do there? And then we'll get into maintenance, talking about looking at your tires, that's the most important part of the car. Everything you're doing is managing a contact patch times four that's this big, so tires are super important. Obviously distractions, we'll do some things where we'll distract them on purpose and show them how bad they get, knocking into cones. And then an autocross kind of combines everything together, where you're going out there and you've got a little more speed in the car, it's that situation where you're coming off the highway and it's a tighter radius than you expected on the exit, how do you get the car slowed down and moved in the right direction and you can save the patch? I have to say that being a police officer for 32 years, we had to go through EVOC training, and all of what you just touched on, increases your ability to safely drive tremendously. Especially when a police, if you're going on a high speed pursuit, you need to have better control of the car and going through this regularly, every three years or so we would go through, was awesome. And the skid pan, just to learn to control the car, how to do it properly when it's wet, it's incredible. I highly recommend anybody go through this. Is there a, and upon completion would there be a discount that you could submit to your insurance company? Yeah, there is. And so each insurance company operates somewhat differently, but Chubb Insurance is a good example of that. We've done business with a multitude of other firms. We try to consolidate. We talk to 11 different states right now. We're working with the DMV from New York State, Owen McShane's group. We're working with Helen Hoffman, who is the head of the PTA for New York State. 400,000 people that are part of our database. So we're trying to get a consistent position where you just kind of show up. But with your certificate, you have the capacity to either get a discount, address a point in your license. It's a very technical program, well advanced. It's really an EVOC program, right? So if you look at, so Anthony did this in New York State, city for a lot of years. One of our senior members is Dan Donza. Dan ran EVOC in New York City for 14 years, the premier program in the United States. So our instructors are the finest ones in the country. And so I know I'm second to the choir, and this is why I love it. And it's a self-fulfilling prophecy because this is my business, but this is more important than us, quite frankly. I had a couple questions. Yes. So the insurance companies will accept us? Some do, some do. Okay. Also, whose cars would they be driving? That's a great question. So what we are a complete turnkey situation. They drive our cars. As a business, we operate in 10 different locations in the United States. We have 175 cars, 11 tractor trailers, about 100 employees. And so what happens when people show up, that's all they do. It's our cars. It's our instructors. The facility, of course, we rent. It's our insurance. They just need to be there, collected materials. So it's really show up, look, learn, listen, and succeed. And I had one other question because in the brochure, it talks about you teach competitive driving as well. Racing? We do. We do. So the Skip Barber Racing School is the most prolific driver, training program in the world. 60% of all IndyCar drivers are graduates. 65% of all NASCAR drivers are graduates. And why that's important, because that's a skill set that we then turned into the safety. And they've run, they've operated simultaneously for, it'll be 50 years in 2025. So if you were to Google us or if you talk to people in the space, Formula One, NASCAR, IndyCar, I'll be at the Long Reach Grand Prix this weekend. We work with the Andretti's. We work with the Meyers-Schweinck Racing Team. And then we teach young drivers. Last week we did a program with Jimmy Johnson if you're in the NASCAR space. And then I'll be heading to the Miami Grand Prix where we are the official driving school for that program as well. So it's a lot of fun. It's exciting. It's still difficult and hard to operate any small family business. But we love doing it. So I'm looking for the guarantee. I lost the race to our IT director at work. But I understand if I go through your school and graduate, I'm a certain . Is that correct? What do you think, John? We can make that happen. I can. And of course, you can't say the word guarantee because he's a cop. He gets nervous. He doesn't guarantee anything. How did you guys make out? I know that I put you guys in touch with the grant program opportunities. So that we're doing up there too. John was working with you guys. Yes. And then you guys have met with them to discuss your plans to decide a goal. Yeah. So we know John for as many years as I've been around. And so. I sat down with him very early this year. And so that's another good point. The question is, how are these things going to be compensated and paid for? And so are there opportunities within a city, state, on a national, on a NHTSA basis? Is there subsidies that are available? Look, the reality is this is not inexpensive to do these programs on either a half or a full day. Start at about $500 and they go up from there. But given the insurance opportunity and safety benefits that you can do. Really, if you can provide a space for a space for a space for a space for a space for a space for a space for space. Really, if you can provide space for space for space. Really, if you can provide space for space for space. Really, if you can provide space for space for space. Really, if you can provide space for space for space. Really, if you can provide space for space space space space space space space space space space space space space space space space space space space space space space space space space space space of charitable events. We've got one program where we'll bring out upwards. These programs can be as little as 10 or as many as 60 people depending upon the amount of cars and the location. Typically all we need is four to six acres of flat asphalt, no operations program. We don't get on tracks, right? We create our own environment and it can be near a track, it can be Nassau Coliseum, it can be the Meadowlands, it could be Levi's Stadium in San Francisco. So we are self-contained even down to water and safe environments and classroom activities. But that's another good point. So I think the first portion is there's a portion of the population that can afford to do this and they should be engaged with this and then we should find a way to help support the people that can't but can benefit from it. We understand that we've got a program that runs with 30 people. We commit from a charitable piece of five of those seats for every program. So that's five to eight thousand commitment from us because we understand the value. I'm still trying to run a business just like everybody else but we understand there's a higher calling here. The sports complex study is taking place up there. That's what they were looking to talk to you about. You know looking at their matching ramp where we're investing $35,000 in the stadium in New York to rent. We're doing that $70,000 study up there. Oh, for the complex. Yeah. And I believe that they have spoken to someone within your organization. Just to kind of participate because I think you know it's a way to utilize all of the assets that are currently in place up there. Mainly in New York in particular. One way in itself without any serious major development. That's going to cause traffic issues. I think you fit the parameters very well in terms of like you know we're not looking for Amazon trucks going in and out. You know. Yeah. And I think it's great and I was more impressed that you guys are working year round. You know I mean sometimes we just think of these summer months. Right. Trying to keep an operation going all year round. Yeah. This business operates every week at various parts of the country. And that's a good point. We did meet with the consulting firm. Joe met with them. I had a conversation with them about two and a half, three weeks ago. Yeah. And so there's a progression here. This is where we want to start, where we want to do. There's a higher calling at the end of the day when they're talking about potential something bigger, more programs potentially, the concept of a race, all that. We own our own race series. We're going to need stuff. I think this is where we need to start and where we could start. But it could be a shared entity though. Absolutely. The track and place you're running it Monday through Friday and then on Saturday is race day. Exactly. And if that thousand percent we could do that. We actually own our own series. If you guys or gals are close to racing at all called SRX. We own a nationally and internationally viewed program. So there is a place that we could bring visibility to the entire community and not, we're friends with Formula One, IndyCar, with NASCAR, but we control that series. That could happen as well. Again, I think there's a progression that we're going to talk about here. But what's important about the consulting group when we talk to them, so they're bat and ball people and they get it and they're very talented. They don't understand what we do and they're going to lean on us to have the motorsport community a party to what they could do. So I'd like to see us quote unquote partner with them. They can operate and run. They don't have to. I know they start as consultants. But and we would facilitate this portion of it. That's all I'm doing. Thank you for taking part in that. Oh, it's perfect. No, it doesn't. And they said, hey, listen, we just don't know much about this space. And I said, well, please lean on us because people hire us as experts across the country in order to do that. So why wouldn't we do this on a local community basis? We're trying to take you to track in New Jersey. Just like bring it over and drop it down over. It'll fit. I've never done that. I know. Maybe if you try to turn. We've got, you know, fortunately for us, if you know, in the track space today, we operate at the iconic venues across the country. That's Laguna Seca, Sonoma, Kona, Formula One track, Road Atlanta and Virginia International Raceway, the forty five thousand square foot facility where we house our assets when they're not moving, which hopefully is not too often. We like to monetize those. So we're you know, we're very committed to this business or should be committed. I'm not sure. My wife, my wife, I say be committed because I'm not home very much as the same as Joe's wife. But yeah, this is this is what we do. And we play at a high level. And to be able to do this in our community, I couldn't be happier. Probably have the opportunity. Simple as that. Great opportunity, especially for you. For kids. Just a quick question in regards to the ten thousand foot runway, which we do have to maintain as an emergency runway. If you're up there or there are permanent structures or structures of the day that couldn't be moved in a fairly fast amount of time, if they had to be, if we had to have an emergency landing primarily cone. So, OK, that's what I figured. That's why you're not bringing Jersey barriers or concrete barriers or anything. One. And I'd like to have the ability. I'm not sure if you're going to put some simple permanence in the sense of a classroom. We we end up almost in Sahara Desert. But the more opportunity and the more demand structure. But we are we call ourselves friendly traveling circus because we do operate. We move around and do it. Where do you keep the cones when you're not in a trailer with a mobile trailer or something that's going to be on site? That would be outside. Yeah. OK. Yeah. So we we are considered track like. Right. So we come in, we own, we operate what we're doing. Typically, we leave that facility in the same, if not better position than we were. Very particular, very meticulous about how we operate. Very considerate of the of the area of the community. And that's why the finest tracks in the world will give us access across the across the board. It's a very. So I would invite you to either come in. So I would invite you to either come to our corporate facility. Either something as simple as we did with Helen Hopkin. Come out to Nassau Coliseum, get in the car, do what we see, what we do for a day. I got you right because you've been there. But if you haven't done this before, it's not just for teams. You know what we do is we put people in emergency situation when it's not an emergency and I can get in a soapbox and I won't. It is that important. Question is, how do we bring people to the table? How we help them to afford it when they can't. And when they can, they should participate to the benefit of not just themselves and their families. But our community. What's amazing is you go through like the Evoque course and by time you finish it, it's a one day course. But by time you finish it, you feel much more comfortable. But what really is impressive is the instructors because they do this obviously for a living. And their control of a motor vehicle is absolutely incredible. I mean, you can't you can't imagine how much time it took to get that way. But just the way they can control the vehicle and make it do and make it respond and go through these, you know, you're going down the skid pan and then the light changes on you. You got right or left and all that good stuff. I mean, these guys, they're it's incredible how they can control a vehicle. So even a one day course can give you so much better control of a motor vehicle, especially the young drivers. I totally agree with that. I have five kids and there you go. I taught each one of them to drive. And I used to have a motor vehicle. I have brown hair. But, you know, it's most important that they get a lot of time underneath them before they take their road test and then have to learn to do it properly. So the finest, you know, the one thing I say about today's training and everyone's trying, but I don't know people that have been injured and killed parallel parking, which is the hardest part of this. You know, that's not what it's about. Right. That and the Long Island Expressway couldn't be any two farther parts away. Right. So that's super, super important. And so we have the finest instructors in the United States. Last year we interviewed 55 instructors in Highway 3. You have to not just be a skilled driver, but a skilled communicator. You have to be sympathetic. You have to be empathetic. So still, you know, it's intimidating. I was at the, so a big part of ours is a Michelin tire company. I went to their proving ground in South Carolina. And we were doing the skid pad. And I've been doing this a long time. Still intimidating. You may spin out. You may hit a cone. You may look dopey. Right. Right. So all those, that's important. The other thing that's great about kids is it isn't, you know, ABC driving school. They come out to the Skip Barber driving academy or racing school. And now they go back to high school and they're not like whoever. They're cool. They buy our hats. They wear our shirts. It's just a thing because kids don't want, I don't want to go to driving school. Well, you have to. I send my kids to driving school. I own a driving business. It's that important. And the reactions are amazing. What's that? I was sent to one. My father spent one day in the car with me and said, you going to driving school? That was last week. You know, it's funny. I, I, I. I lived that life. I did the same thing. So when, when, when we were kids, my dad was a drag racer. He was the weekend manager, construction worker by trade, the weekend manager for New York National Speedway in center bridge of New York. That's what I grew up with. Yeah. And so we did a day in, in the car and I went to a driving school. He, he, a wonderful man no longer with us. Patience wasn't exactly a virtue for him, but he, he did understand the value of safety. He was the Dick Sillis fire chief for 25 years. And so he understood the value. Anthony is a volunteer fireman. Both of my older brothers are volunteer firemen. I couldn't get up at three o'clock in the morning, go to a fire, but they did and did a good job doing it. So yeah, no, we look, hopefully there's a passion in my voice. I love doing this. We enjoy it. We do good by doing well or vice versa. And we, we see an amazing natural fit here. So this is not, it's not new to us. We conceived this opportunity for the last, I don't know, five years. Moderator Moderator Moderator Moderator
nothing major at this point. All the stuff we have right now is to transport our own equipment, but we'll bring guys into the business and have them work with the CDL guys and get them through the school to train. I mean, I just think an ongoing assistance that's needed is just like our highway department is constantly looking to hire new employees, but one of the requirements in order to apply for the highway department is a CDL license. Sometimes that's difficult to have something that's local right by, which we can team up with and say, here, go get the CDL sign up. If you're bringing a rig anyway with, I presume, cars and cones and everything inside it. No, that's exactly right. Incorporated in that, use the same rig, that's normal. A big part of ours is Mack Truck. I don't know if we have any pictures of them bouncing around, but they were building a technical center in Virginia, in Alton, Virginia, to do those types of things, so that's important. You know, there's so many options. So we were just talking about teen drivers. We have a professional driver's service where we are teaching anybody that has a drive for a living, and that's Uber, Lyft, Domino's, Amazon, Last Mile. If you've been in an Uber lately, and I travel all over the country, it's not a good thing. The skill set is not, I understand the democratization of the taxi, and it works, and I use it, but county, states, localities, they're not well trained. In fact, they're not trained at all. And yet, this is what they do for a living. It's like being a police officer, not going to the range. How could you do that? How could you possibly do that? So again, there's a higher, higher calling here, depending upon, and we have this conversation in 11 different states. And it's hard to get people, this is an easy way for us to enact. It's an opportunity, it's good for us, it's good for you. We're gonna pay you to rent that space. People are gonna come out, and they're gonna have lunch, and do whatever they need to do, according to that. Look, this is a racing community. We've been at, Anthony used to race at Riverhead Raceway, if you go back far. So in the high end, he was in the NASCAR series. We raced for 30 years, including Riverhead. He used to run late models out there. So we get it, we love it, we understand it. I think we just have to be able to tell the right story to the right people, and we have the right story. And this is why this opportunity is so great. And thank you, Bob, and the rest of the team for allowing us to do this. We really want to do this. Good. We'd really like to have you there. So I'll get in touch with you, and we'll get with legal, and the area, and the lease. Yes. Okay. All right. It doesn't get much better now. Very nice meeting you gentlemen. Thank you for coming. Thank you. Nice meeting you. Thanks for coming. Thank you, sir. We appreciate that. Thank you.
Okay, that closes all our issues that we had for open session today. We're now gonna move on to executive session to discuss underpinnings. So we have a motion to approve the !
The matter surrounding a change in employee status with Howard. I'd like to make a motion to close our work session agenda and go into executive session. Looks like Howard's got a lot of work ahead of him. So moved. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Okay. Thank you everybody for tuning in, and we will see you next week. I'm glad you got everything you took out.
Thank you.