Full Transcript
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Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? Get your green. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. environment and help your own economy. So I'll let Joe start. He is our coordinator for the green team on our climate smart committee, internal green team. Thanks Denise. And you're doing a great job by the way, Joe. All right, so this is backyard composting with Brand Builders. Brand Builders is a company that helps provide composters and rain barrels to the communities. So what is compost? It's a natural process of breaking down the organic material into nutrient rich soil like substance called compost. And it uses insects and worms and microorganisms, bacteria, fungus. They all play essential roles in the decomposition. So why should we compost? Why are we interested in this? Because food waste doesn't belong in the compost. It's an alternative to running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running running Lessens the need for irrigation because it keeps your soil moist. I can reduce costs both for the residents community members and also for the town because it lessens the waste stream and it's a great learning tool for kids Some some things that you can compost like yard waste leaves twigs kitchen scraps fruit and vegetables coffee grounds newspapers cardboard egg cartons Things you don't want to compost our meat scraps bones dairy products pet waste disease plants and invasive weeds and Then while you're composting it's important to keep a good ratio the EPA recommends two to one Browns to green That's carbon two carbons to one
Nitrogen thank you So like nitrogen would be grass clippings fruit and vegetables scraps coffee grounds And the carbons are your Browns like cardboard leaves twigs and branches So this is actually part of the climate smart like Denise said some actions that we would take to get this two points for P5 action would be to reduce the solid waste Develop educational material which is part of the advertising for this and distribute the compost bins The climate smart directly says that 25% of typical household Waste is compost of composed of yard to rings and food scraps So like I said before this is a great way to reduce landfill and cut costs for both the town and the community And this is the brand builder website. So this is the town of Hempstead. They participate in this program We could have a very similar website to this with the town of Riverhead seal on it And we can have our own quotes from you Jerry or anybody else that we would like we can add and Any kind of pictures they also have pre-made things you can post on the website And then they sell these kind of products you can choose from a variety of products to sell on the website These are the ones that Hempstead uses and these are what I would propose to use as well You're probably familiar with the kitchen scrap collection the bucket down there The earth machine is actually the composter and that is where you would distribute all your compost in they also have a wing dinger Which is a way to turn the compost inside the barrel That they also have a 55 gallon rain barrel, which you can use to supplement your irrigation And then we're going to be advertising to the community the one on the green one there on the left is an Older version that they have found on their website And one on the right is an example of what something I could create for the town We can put our website there at the bottom We can put our website there at the bottom We can put our website there at the bottom with a QR code and it can go directly to that website with a QR code and it can go directly to that website Just want to stop you for a minute go back a second So what happens is people buy these on their own is that right? Yes, and they can buy them through the website through the website. Is that correct? Yeah, so just talk about that for a second All right. So yeah So what this guy does he? Supplies the website that people community goes on the website and purchases What they want different options the kids and then on a day that we select he'll Deliver them to I was thinking the George Young Community Center because we have a food scrap scrap drop-off location there he'll deliver them there and then The engineering department and building in the grounds any other volunteers that want to come mark Will help distribute them to the community to come pick them up that day. So there's no Purchasing of the materials for the town. It's all just based on what the community wants and what how much how many they purchase And it's really the only fee for the town is the 325 in the first year it's three hundred and twenty five dollars to host the website And create and host the website and then if we decide to do it again next year, it's almost half It's one hundred and fifty dollars for every subsequent year because they've already created it But it costs them money to host the website for X amount of months And I wanted to ask I'm sorry. I'm just gonna I was gonna say just if you guys can address how Productively is the ways the food scrap facility at the temp at the temp facility? So the drop-off location It's utilized but not to the full extent and I'd really like to advertise and get more momentum going on the drop-off But this is also an easier way to supplement the food drop-off I know a lot of people don't want to drive to Young's Avenue or the George Young Community Center to drop off their food scraps so this is an easy way for the residents to get rid of their food scraps, get nutrient rich soil for their garden and it's really just a win-win for everybody. And help the environment. Help the environment, yeah exactly. I spoke to the superintendent yesterday about their food scrap program and trying to re-energize that through our town so yes this is a great idea because we have a large solid waste problem coming with the closing of landfills on Long Island and I think we need this as a proactive approach, at least idea. So whatever else you think. Well there are two things so one just if you went back to one just to clarify people gonna order it on the town website or they go into Hartford's website? So they create a website for Riverhead. It's a brand builder website. This is a sample but this will be they'll create it and put our Riverhead seal on it. Yeah so this is Hempstead's website right now. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. This one's from me from Montgomery State University. This one's from me from Montgomery State University. They'll create it and put our Riverhead seal on it. Yeah, so this is Hempstead's website right now. Oh, sorry. Oh, this one here? Yeah, it was like, what are yours today? This was an example that they had for advertising. But they'll create a new connection for them. Yes, yeah, so they create advertising for you. They recommend that you do social media advertising. So we're looking into that, and we're creating flyers to post on the website and post all around town. And not just for the benefit of helping reduce the waste at the facility, helping your community. It also gives us climate smart points, right, for grants from the government. So I think that we're going to talk about another topic later today about the highway department barn and waiting room. But I think if we can make that a safe facility, maybe you can have a collection site. In Waiting River. And then do something else like at the Senior Center or Jamesport Community Center or something on the east side of town. You mean a distribution center? Or just for like food waste, just maybe a collection site where they're just putting in a larger 55. I think families for the most part are coming over, presumably with small amounts, just to prevent odor and other needs. But if you had something on either side of the town, then it would get delivered to Young's Avenue. If they didn't want to purchase these on their own. Yeah, that's a great idea. I love that. I'd put one in Waiting River as well. You were also going to talk about, I don't want to cut you off, but you were going to start mentioning the rain barrels. Yeah. So. Now Frank, before we start with that, why don't we have Frank talk about his discussion again from the other day. Okay. Well, thank you guys for presenting this. It's perfect timing because it's a follow up to the presentation I made last work session about my rate increase. We need to increase rates because our costs go up. But the most significant rate increase we have is on the tiered rate. We're after 90,000 gallons. We charge you more per thousand gallons for that usage. We're trying to use that to change behavior and culture. We want you to have yards and plantings, but we need you to be thinking about the water you use. And a tool like this, we're going to need many tools to fix a problem as big as this. Remember, 70% of our pumping is used for outdoor irrigation and it's a drinking water system. And that's not unique to Riverhead. That's all of Long Island. And it's really a problem we need to rein in. Something like this. No pun intended. Yeah. Right? And this one is particularly useful because you'll hear me talk about things like staggering your rain timers and your irrigation system. And that doesn't stop us withdrawing the same amount of water from the ground. It's not really true conservation. It just helps me with my peak demand. Where something like this, where we're using rainwater to irrigate, where we would otherwise be using potable water, is true conservation. So every gallon that comes out of the barrel is one less that comes out of the aquifer. It's true conservation. It's exactly the type of stuff we need to be promoting. Joe, could you tell them now what the rain barrel, what that's all about? Yeah. So the rain barrel is great. You modify your downspout slightly and the gutters, it comes down your roof and it goes down your downspout and into this barrel. So everybody knows what you're talking about. It's the beige whitish one on the bottom. Yeah. The bottom right, the tan trash can. And they have like a screen on top that prevents insects from getting in and nesting in it. And there's a spigot at the bottom to fill up a watering can. It's really a simple way to conserve water. And that same website, you can purchase those as well? Yeah. So all these products are going to be available on the website. Questions? Cummins? I think it's great. Yes, sir. Quickly. Yes, sir. I have 45 minutes. You said, right? Yeah. The rain barrel part of this thing. Yeah. So I will just quickly go back to what I was saying earlier about the amount of water that we just let go and channel into Meeting House Creek, for example. So being able to use it as close to the place that it falls is the best. The other thing is if food scraps is .5 pounds per day and we're putting out 5 pounds, right, it's 10 percent. So our food scraps is 10 percent of our solid waste stream. Whatever that number is at the end of the year for tipping fees or transportation, whatever, if we could save 10% of that just through food scraps, we'd see an instant change in our finances. Mark, can I ask you a question? Could you explain to people why it's better to mulch their leaves, have a mulcher, as opposed to collecting them and putting them out on the street? Yeah, well, look at the cost. And I understand about 50% of residents in Riverhead take advantage of the curbside pickup. And that's okay, especially with oak leaves. The oak leaves are very tough. To really mulch them and put them back under the bushes and so on gives insects a place to live over the winter. It gives small animals, and I don't want to start talking about the mice with Lyme disease and all that, but the idea that it gives the culture a place to live over the winter. It also keeps the roots wet and stops them from freeze-drying. Wind and... And snow and everything else freezing the roots of your trees and your plants and your bushes. They'll do much better being mulched. And you got free mulch when you got leaves. So... And so your grass is going to benefit from that, your lawns. Yeah, I wouldn't mulch oak leaves on my grass. I mean, that... I'm not talking about oak leaves. Maple leaves, yes. I've got a red maple in the front and I mulch those on the grass and they love it. So, you know, depending on the type of leaf, but mulching, just mulch and put it back, mulch and put it back. And then after a while, you're going to see tops. Tops will take over. It takes 500 years to develop on its own. Right? An eighth of an inch of topsoil is 500 years. So when you strip that off or don't resupply it, right, you just, you're working against yourself, really. So how many rounds of topsoil have you created then? Oh, probably 50 by now. Yeah. Methuselah. Mulching your leaves into the yard is a similar process of composting. Absolutely. Good stuff. Thank you, Joe. Yeah. Thank you, everybody. Great job, everybody. Thanks. Thanks for bringing this. Just one question. I know last year we met and spoke about, just tell us what's the current update with the school district in terms of collecting the food scraps. So are they now delivering them to Young's Avenue or are we still? They're not. I spoke to the superintendent about yesterday. And so he and I are going to reenergize that program. Oh, that's good. Oh, good. So I will be on next week's work session. Excellent. Thank you. Oh, good. It was kind of like they were from Riley Avenue. They're driving right by Young's Avenue to take it. You know, to the high school, which would seem kind of silly. It's like, why don't they just drop it off at Young's Avenue? And that saves the school district a lot of money in dumpsters. So it's definitely a big cost savings. And they're the ones with the $219 million budget. 50% of the solid waste coming out of schools is food. Yeah. And that's national. That's not just here. They should be delivering it to Young's Avenue. Or have their own garden or compost. Right? Yeah, we had to sit down. And so, yeah, just having a chance. It was too. Are you going to deliver it? We're going to discuss it next week at work session with them. So that's what I. Yeah, I'm delivering it. They got the big bucks. That's great. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for coming in. What a nice presentation. Good to see you again, Frank. Thank you. Same here. Thank you, Chuck. Nice robot. Our next item is our, as we, excuse them, we'll do matters surrounding the site plan and special permit application for Tier 2 battery energy storage system. Located at 1281 Pulaski Street, Riverhead with Mr. Charners. Obviously, it's 1281. We're. Yes. Okay. Have a whole team. We're. I was. It. No. I was thinking 20, the Scott Avenue. So I had that in my head. So we were asked about the specific address yesterday. And. Sure. You guys can come up. Yeah. Definitely. That will be an overview. So there it is. File on. All I'm setting up, if everyone could just introduce themselves. I'm Joe Fusillo. I'm the engineer with the Associates. I'm Keith Archer representing the applicant. I'm zoning. Go ahead. I'm Patrick. I'm Director of Engineering, Energy Safety Response Group. I see Alex. I see you here. Okay. Alex Raleigh, Director of Development for the Nixamp. He's the applicant. So this is another application for a Tier 2 battery energy storage system. It is before this board for special permit approval. It will be before the planning board for site plan approval. It's at 1281 Pulaski Street. In Riverhead. So if everyone is familiar where Town Hall West is on Pulaski Street, that's right here. That's the parking lot. So it's right on the corner of Pulaski and JT Boulevard. This is a 5 megawatt or 20 megawatt hour battery energy storage system. So in terms of scale, this is like an average to smaller size one. Not very big. It's in the light industrial zoning use district. Like I said, 1281 Pulaski. Moving through my report, which the board should have. You guys have had it for a couple weeks now. I know it's pretty in depth. In terms of secret, the first thing I talked about in the report is secret. I know in the report it speaks to coordinated review. So we've been reviewing this application, if you can believe it or not, since last year. We actually referred it out for referral comments in July, June and July of last year. Something like this, it's unlisted. Coordinated review. It's unlisted. It's unlisted. Coordinated review is optional. Being that we've had, we've gotten most referral comments back, I don't know that we've really lost much by saying we're not going to coordinate. The likely scenario is this board would become lead agency and make the determination anyway. The planning commission, 95% of the time to 100% of the time never takes lead agency. The DEC is never going to take it. The water district is never going to take it. So I don't think there's a harm to say not to coordinate on this. In terms of the other applications, so 221 Scott, which is the same size, we did not coordinate. And then the Hampton Ginny, which is a little smaller, we didn't coordinate on that either. So I'm comfortable with not coordinating and this board can make its own secret determination. In that case, the involved agencies that need to take an action, they would make their own secret determination. It's just instead of one, there'd be for each involved agency, which is fine. We did get everything. You're saying if we don't coordinate, then- They make their own. Okay. So you make your secret determination and if theirs rises to needing a secret determination, then the involved agency would make their own. Plans and report, as you know, these applications require quite a lot. So we have a survey, we have a site plan, single line, electrical diagram, an emergency response plan, a fire marshal plan. Can I ask about that, the emergency response plan or, because it says it was dated May 9th, 2024, will that be updated for? Okay. The emergency response plan is sort of a living document. Yeah. It's a living document as we do training and all that. It gets updated to reflect those. Okay. Yeah. I figured that sort of makes sure that that wouldn't be the last time. These are Tesla mega packs. So we have the data sheet for that. We have a decommissioning plan, the full environment assessment form, and an expanding environmental assessment, expanded environmental assessment form. Has the fire department weighed in on this? The fire district has not yet. I'm waiting for comments from them. But the fire marshal's office has. Generally, they look at them together. We're probably going to get similar comments or the same comments. So obviously, before taking action, we'd need to make sure that we're doing it. Okay. So, I'm going to ask you to make a statement. Okay. So, on page three is where we start going line by line through our code section, which is how we do this normally for battery now. So we touch every single thing that's required, rather than telling you all the good stuff that they already gave us. I do have some highlights on some issues that I think we can address. So the first one is on page six. We do have avoidance areas for battery entry storage systems. One of those avoidance areas has to deal with wetlands. So, we're going to try to make sure that we're not just talking about the wetlands. But we're going to try to make sure that we're talking about the fire department. So, on page six, we do have the fire department's ! Yeah. Yeah. So if you look at this property, right this line on the map, if you can follow my finger on the screen, is the wetlands jurisdictional area. So that's 150 feet from the wetland. All the battery infrastructure is not within jurisdiction. How it's proposed now, the gravel access road, is within jurisdiction. This application did go to CAC for an approval, which they got. My recommendation, which I think would just be a little bit better and probably better for the environment, is if we relocated this access driveway here onto Pulaski Street, there is a weight limit on JT Boulevard. So if we're going to come in off Pulaski, there's no traffic that are really associated with these uses. It's really when it's being constructed. So there will be a crane that's going to place the battery cabinets. And then there will be someone that comes to the site once a month to make sure it's functioning properly. I think it's just a little bit easier. And it gets everything. I don't want them to slide the scale down. See, I'm surprised that the CAC has the legal authority to push you another 200 feet away. And I'm surprised with just trying to be a steward of the wetlands and protection and preservation that that was not implemented, that you really should be an additional 200 feet away from that. And I know that has a direct impact on your project, but I just don't want any of the wetlands. And so. That's definitely a concern of mine. So I would go back and have a secondary conversation with the CAC. That's easy to do. So I don't want to go too far down the road. I think that was before me being a liaison on the committee. But it just was kind of a surprise because they are true stewards of the wetlands and protection. And I just maybe didn't realize they had the ability to do that. I can't speak for them. But they do have that authority to grant that. And I'm just surprised on such a project as best that they didn't implement that. It's in there. It's towards the end. So the good thing is all the actual battery infrastructure is not within jurisdiction, which is what we want. The road, obviously, we want to get that out as well. And to the extent that we can shift everything up, I know there's going to have to be conversations with PSEG about their point of interconnection. And the team can discuss that. I know they'll have to relocate a riser. But usually that's an achievable goal. So I think they're further away from wetlands. We can get that better. There is like a big berm of material on this property already. If you're not familiar, there's like a big map that's back here. But moving forward, let me just get through the rest. And then I can go through actually referral comments, which the CAC comments are within.
Still on page six. We need more information on the mega packs, which is just standard to update. Fencing. Requirements. They did indicate a 10-foot fence that's too tall. It has to be seven feet. So that will need to be revised. I think that's mostly it. Until we get to decommissioning, we just need the cost by a professional engineer. So an engineer will do an estimate about the cost of decommissioning. So that's to return the site to how it is now, which is 100% natural. That is easy to do. We just need that prior to approval. Contingency plans for doing that, too. That's all within. And then moving on. To comments. We did get comments from the town engineer about the access road, about a cross-section needed. Planning commission did recommend approval of both the site plan and the special permit back in July of last year with comments, but not with conditions. We're still waiting on comments from the town's consulting engineer. That will be related to decommissioning. Fire marshal's office, we do have our standard hazardous materials language, as well as some other comments that are needed on the plans. And then DEC. So it's been referred to DEC. What I'm asking is that we either find out if this needs a permit, because if it's in their jurisdiction or not, or they get an NJ prior to us moving forward with secret. And then moving down is on the last page, page 16, are actually the CAC comments. That's their approval from last year. You are the new manager? Yes, now I am. You weren't there in August? No. Okay. It's an easy thing to achieve. I think. Once we get a revised plan, I mean, this is a gravel road, obviously. There's some engineering, but to the extent that you can get a revised plan to show it off of Pulaski and maybe retreat a little bit on the rest of the infrastructure if we have to and get that back to CAC for comments prior to taking action with you guys, I think that's good. So a couple more cleanup things before we get this going. It's going to go to the planning board for discussion next week as well, because they have to take an action regarding the site plan. But marching in that direction, I believe. Matt, I'm concerned about the location of this, because there is a neighborhood directly behind this. Correct, yeah. So there is a house. The wetlands kind of come right through the back of the building here. Yeah, there's a house in the corner of JT Boulevard. But there is a house down here. Right, right, right there. So they meet all the separation requirements for a residential.
It's close, and that's the state. The fire marshal and our, the state fire code and our requirements, it's 10 feet from a structure, unfortunately. And for residential, ours are a little bit bigger. But they do meet the requirement for distance. I'm not very happy about that. Yeah, I'm not thrilled about that. And I'm definitely not thrilled about the road and the wetlands. I can, this is. I'll let, at least with the. ESRG speak to it in terms of separation distance from residences. But it's a valid concern. But I think maybe a little. Educational piece for everybody will help in terms of like the likelihood of something happening here. And then what it looks like if something does. I'd like to see this go back to CFC again. Yeah, it's got to. So as far as the separation distances, like you mentioned, fire code separation distances are 10 feet. Right. And it's a typical separation distance that we'd have from any power generating piece of equipment to lot lines to buildings, things like that. The nearest residential building itself, not the lot line, the building is about 300. I want to say. Over 300 feet away from the nearest mega pack. Tesla, especially this technology has gone through a tremendous amount of destructive fire testing because the main concern is a fire, right? What happens? What's the impact in the in the area? What happens if there's a fire? The beauty of these, especially this technology and this manufacturer is one, they're in alignment. They're in compliance with the new requirements that we have with the 2025 New York State code. So they have to meet the most stringent standards for fire testing. Destructive testing, safety standards. All of those bells and whistles are incorporated primarily in the technology itself. Prepackage. We have some accessory stuff that we'll put on site like notification for the fire department. But a lot of that safety is already incorporated into the mega pack. You've heard my my boss, Paul, come here up and talk about energy storage system safety and things like that. These systems, the way that they're installed in a majority of other parts of the country, as well as in more urban environments, they're 10 feet. They're 20 feet from residential buildings. They're a lot closer. When we see distances like this, I mean, it's not just take our word for it. Tesla has done a tremendous amount of destructive testing. They'll actually give you the information that they obtained from actually putting these things on fire. Right. And the off gassing, which is the primary concern. So outside of the boundaries of the facility at that fence line, we're not expecting to see any sort of negligible, you know, any sort of hazardous concentration of any sort of gases or anything like that during a fire. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Unlikely event there's a fire involved with the closure. It's going to be limited to that enclosure. a fire involved with the enclosure, it's going to be limited to that enclosure. And, you know, these enclosures are, you can see in the site plan, they're back-to-back, and they have some aisle spacing. Tesla has done that large-scale fire testing to show that in an unlikely event, that there's a much larger fire event, that fire is going to be isolated to that block. So we're limiting, we're reducing our fire load, we're reducing the impact. On top of that, we have a tremendous amount of data, which Tesla includes in their package, in their engineering package, so you don't have to, you know, you don't have to take my word for it. We have all of that information in there. I understand, but I sit here in this seat as a voice for the residents, and I do not think that this project belongs on this property so close to the neighboring residents of the town. So I'm speaking for them today. Absolutely, and I appreciate that, and we really appreciate hearing those concerns. Just our, with our experience, that's what we're hearing. We're here to hopefully give you some additional confidence in the technology and the system. When we see these separation distances, I see it very favorable. I'm a little bit more biased because... I just would prefer to see it somewhere else. Absolutely. I mean, I understand that this is where technology is right now. However, it does not belong right outside of a neighborhood. I have a question with regard to, I understand the safety containment of the fires, but what about fumes? What kind of fumes get emitted from a fire like this? Yeah, so with... In neighborhoods. Yeah. With any... Structure fire, there's nothing exotic that comes out of the smoke of this. Not... So that being said, smoke from any fire... I don't think that's an accurate statement. We have... But there's... I can actually... I can provide you some publicly available documentation from not just fires like this, but larger fires that have happened, like... This is another fire. Right, like our New York State fires that have happened in Warwick and East Hampton. There's been a tremendous amount of air monitoring that's been done during those fires. Those are also larger systems or a really worst case, the worst case scenario event is like Moss Landing in California, where we have a large dedicated... A dedicated use building, not individual enclosures like this. Even during those large fires, there's been a tremendous amount of air monitoring and sampling. They haven't found anything outside of the... Who did the air monitor? They're all third party, independent, and they publicly share those. So... They were on site. I just took that, right? So I have an understanding, because I'm taking your word at it, but... Yeah. So were these air monitoring systems already in place prior to the fire, or these were air monitoring systems that arrived during the... Yeah. ...the fire, or a day or two after the fire and tested it? Yeah. ...the air quality. Yeah. So there's different levels. Right when the fire event happens, it was monitoring conducted by the fire department. They're with their handheld gas meters. Okay. So carbon monoxide... It's not going to give you an accurate of high levels. I mean... Understood, yeah. But I mean... It's not because it's going up. Right. And then it's moving. Yeah. And then based on the type of molecules that has it settling in somewhere. Right. Right. You're talking to a 23-year fireman. I wear gas meters all the time, but it's just... That's not... You know, we had a very serious fire here. Yeah. On Young's Avenue, as we all know. And the public had genuine concerns about what was in the air and what was moving towards homes. Absolutely, yeah. We reached out to the DEC. We reached out to Suffolk County. And there was no administering body that had the ability to immediately respond to the site to test air quality. And therefore, it was not done because it wasn't able. It wasn't a system that was pre-existing in place. Right. So I'm just trying to clarify. So that's a... Following up on Councilwoman Mosky's concerns of being so close to residential homes, what kind of air quality can we be absolutely certain of that if there is a single unit? I'm comfortable with the fire aspect of things, meaning that it's separated. We've come a long way. Right, yeah. But the air quality is concerning being so close to residential homes where it's seniors. Right. And you already have people with pre-existing conditions. Yeah. And if their windows are open on a July afternoon and this thing goes up and they're out and they return and their house has... That's a concern of mine. Absolutely. So with the testing that was done, we can give you... Tesla has a list of the components of the off-gassing, what was given off during that fire. A significant compound of that is what you expect from any structure fire is carbon monoxide. Right. Whether that is plastics, that's what we're finding in these. Right. There's plastic components of it. There's metals. There's the battery cells are all part of that, you know, built into the module. With the testing that we've done, with the testing that's done from the industry, with the private testing that's been done during events, it's the same sort of, you know, this is not any more different than what you'd expect from a structure fire. That being said, the off-gassing from a structure fire is... It's not great, right? Any sort of fire is going to have a toxic component to it. I understand that. I understand that principle and I've heard that oftentimes at this table. I've come here and a structure fire for someone's home is where they live and that's understandable if it's in there and they're in a residence. We're putting this next to someone's home. We're choosing, as Joanne said, and so that is a greater concern of us. Oh, absolutely. Of something that could be moved that, and not inside a neighborhood, not, you know, and that specific community is one that is typically more affordable in our community. And so I think that these questions are... I understand where the logic. I understand where the logic is going, but it does, at the end of the day, I don't think it's landing. And so I think that we need to come up with something better or at least perceive this project as something that, you know, on these Tesla systems and as Tesla set one on fire and monitored the thing from start to finish. Yes, from incipient event all the way throughout that entire burn event. And they have that. That data is part of their package that they provide with the hazard mitigation analysis. All that information is there. We can provide it. You have that? You have it? Yeah. You have the hazard mitigation plan. And you'll have it in the Tesla data sheet. You'll get more. So I, you know, not to speak lightly on this because these are all valid concerns. I will say the New York State Code, as it's been updated, is probably the most robust in the country. Even probably more robust than California. Moss Landing, which is like the new one people talk about the most, it's different. It was a dedicated use building. So that's stacks of batteries inside a building. That was obviously destroyed. The EPA is currently monitoring that. And they've been doing ongoing reports. And I don't think there's been anything to note that there's been damage to soils or ongoing air quality issues as a result of that. These, knowing the issues we've had through the state, the controls that we've put, the state has put in place, have made these as safe as they could possibly be. Obviously, there's always a worst case scenario. But there's a worst case scenario with anything. So to summarize, your first name, sorry. Nick. Nick. What's Nick saying is, yes, if something happens here, it could catch on fire. And there will be smoke. But the smoke. And emissions that come out of that are not dissimilar to what would come out of a structure fire. They're bad. They're both bad. The only difference with a structure fire, you can put that out. These, you don't. You just let them keep burning. Well, but unlike a structure fire, these have controls to prevent them from catching on fire for a long period of time or from spreading. So they have systems in place that are going to prevent it from going into a thermal runaway. I'm not saying you shouldn't be concerned. These are all great questions. But they have come a long way. And we always prepare for the worst. In that emergency. Unlike the fire department's above me, the fire department's above me. Unlike the fire department's above me. Unlike the fire department's above me. Unlike the fire department's above me. nearest residential occupancies, handheld gas detection by the fire department has always been very effective to get an insight to what the impact is at that location. Similar that we would do for any structured fire. The fire department can go there with their handheld gas meters with carbon monoxide and see if there's any elevated. And in the very unlikely event that they need to shelter in place, which we haven't seen really a good justified reason to do it. But in our training, that's what the guidance that we give to the fire department. They can go to that area. They can make an assessment of the air. The incident commander can make the determination based on good information that he has available, he or she has available. And if you recall at the last town board meeting at the public hearing, or it might have been two meetings ago, last time I was there for the other applications, if you remember, Paul Rogers spoke that I think there was an event where a local jurisdiction did an evacuation. And after the fact, there was regret because it was somewhat of a mass panic where they didn't need to actually evacuate. These are new. There have been issues. I applaud your caution. And we will get you all the data that you need to make an informed decision. Thanks. Any other questions? I'm good. Thank you.
Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you. I appreciate your time today. Thank you, Justin, for making that work back there as they make their way out. And our next one will be the matter surrounding changes to the building fee schedule and site plan fees and procedures with Thomas Charters, Muller, Hoden, and Ms. Jeanette. Come on down. So we have some attachments for the board. These are online. You guys have all seen this before. Everyone gets one of these? That's your set. She's handing out separate sets. This is discussion item three. These are all related to discussion item four.
You're stuck with me.
Let's take that metal. It's interfering with these. The metal mugs are interfering with the mics, apparently. Feedback. Can we have a little couple napkins? No problem. Building first and then planning second. Discussion three. Do you want us to sit quietly for the next hour and a half and read this? Okay. I'm going to get going soon. I feel like I could probably do it with my eyes closed. This came in today. I'm just going to give that to you. I read it, but I can't. For those watching at home. I know. It says I'm on there, but I didn't get it. I will look at it. I thought it was making sure. She's bringing the paper towels right now. So. Did you rob a cowboy? Those are paper towels that are like useless. I need to use paper towels. We need the whole. Bounty when you need. It's just like a sweeper. We need the whole roll. We'll get it. We'll get that. We'll get that problem. Once you get it wet, it's better. I did. Days of COVID. When that happened, we put a wall around for that door. For those of you watching at home, that's free entertainment. And then back to our regular scheduled scheduled program. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we are here to discuss. Some of our updating of our building permit fees. So Matt, I don't know who wants to take the lead here. You're going to take it away. This is right. So if you recall last year, 2021, we, we adjusted the fees, building permit fees, and we made some substantial changes to the structure of the fee schedule. Just the crib notes on that where we changed from cost of construction as the basis for fee calculation to square footage. So we took a price per square foot, and then we reduced the renewal fee substantially. And we changed the timeframes for large commercial project permits from one year to two year. We agreed at that time, we're going to look, continue to look across the year to see how these changes were working and whether they were good changes or bad changes. And so we spent a lot of time. And I think the thing that we did that maybe hadn't really been looked at in the past was. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So what is the building department need to be better? And what do we wanna do to address some of the things that we could do to make it better? And in that analysis, we came up with a bunch of different, and also in practice and application of the current fees, there were some changes we wanted to make. And so this is our update to the last year's amendment. And just the crib notes or the cliff notes are, we've removed the banding. So in the structure that we adopted last year, the tiles were closed. was a banding of the fees and depending how big your building was the fees were on a sliding scale from lower to higher we felt that that didn't work well so we amended that in this draft for you to review to a sole number for review and you know the building department who calculates those fees felt that was a better an easier way to do it and also better for the public to understand and calculate and figure out what their fees would be themselves we also did that long-term analysis of what the department needs and so some of the things that we don't have now that we feel are important are electronic permitting most of the towns in Suffolk and in many places all over the country are going to electronic permitting the reason we felt that was important was twofold one was we have paper documents and the storage of paper documents is you know fraught with issues one is that we don't have a lot of money to spend on the building department is that their paper documents so in the past many of you will remember we've had floods we've had fires we've had mold and we've had to move and then the other complication with paper documents is foil when the building department who is probably the largest responding department within the town to produce foil responses to foil requests requires that a staff member to go down to the basement pull the file other people have access to and that's another thing you just maintaining the integrity of our documents is important electronic documenting would do that currently they go down they pull the file they get everything out of it they take it back upstairs they scan it they then email it out to the applicant they put the file back that we did an analysis as a part of this that that effort in the building department takes approximately 30% of staff administrative staff time which is time that they're not able to do what they're supposed to primarily do which is to do with the building department which is produce permits and responses to the public for building issues so those were the things that we wanted to do and then we teamed up with IT to do an analysis of the cost of digitizing the documents that we currently have and that was kind of a surprising number of the digitizing of the building department documents that we currently have on file that are needed in perpetuity effectively because every single house has a history and we need to be able to maintain that and easily access it and we're going to do a complete analysis of the cost of digitizing the documents that we've already done is one point four million dollars and so that together with the idea that we could create a database for the public to access the documents on their own like many towns are already doing Southville being one of them many towns throughout the country so you know really moving the department into the next realm electronically was kind of the goal and when we reviewed the fees and then the last thing and this is probably even more important than any of that is staffing so because of our pace code or the latest and this has happened in other departments as well. I know water is particularly vulnerable. Other communities who pay more are able to take employees from us, which you can't blame them for. It's a higher pay, and so we want to maintain the integrity of the department, keep the people that are here, create the team that we need to do the work, and to not worry about a lot of turnover, because a lot of turnover within the department is very disruptive and difficult to manage. So those are the things that we looked at in conjunction with fees, which I wasn't sure that had been done in the past, but we did it. And when I tell you we did an in-depth review, I think everyone at the table here would say we've really done an in-depth review. This is something that's been in office that has been a conversation every week amongst the council members. Everyone has talked about the fact that it has left a gaping hole in the management. The things that were made last year, you know, we sat down together and have addressed this, talked to each one of them individually. I'm so glad we're making this change. We're also changing the length of the permit. The two-year permit will not be, right, it will be for residential. Why would we give a two-year permit for commercial? I mean, why would we do that? We're not doing that. We're not doing that. No, no. No, no. Okay. For residential. But I will explain the logic just briefly behind having done that, because the permit is for work that the town building department does in connection with the work that's planned to be done. And oftentimes, you know, so that's a start and a finish. And we have a certain amount of inspections that are done, a certain amount of paperwork that we need to complete, and, you know, just generally the work on that project. And when a project we know comes in and it's a two-year project, that work. It's stretched. It's stretched. It's not different. And that was the logic behind it. But when we went back and looked at it, it was evident that really those projects generate a little bit more work than a typical any commercial project and any residential project. And so, you know, but this is the work that we told the board we would do after last year. And so here we are. And so what we've proposed in this new residential and commercial fee schedule is a flat fee of 75 cents a square foot for residential buildings. We've increased. We're recommending an increase. We've increased the renewal fee to 50 percent to cover the cost of the new things that we need. And also we've added a flat fee surcharge for document maintenance because we've never charged and applied any of the funding to that. What am I forgetting? I think that's it. So we do have a grace period for renewal that's in there. So you have essentially when you're due for a renewal, you have 30 days to pay. And beyond that 30 days, it actually goes up. So from 50 percent, it would go up to 60 percent. Residential, you have a one-year renewal. Yes. After that renewal is done, you pay the current fee at the current rate, whatever that might be. So it could go up. It's a new permit. It's a new permit. So you get a one-year renewal and a new permit. Sorry. For commercial, it's a one-year permit with two one-year renewals at 50 percent. Obviously with the increase too based on the, you know, late payment for that renewal. And then once those are done, you're paying the new fee at the new rate. And again, the world we live in, it's been ever-changing. This will be a continually living organism that we'll look at. And this is 100 percent a document that we're working on every time. It's a lot. You know, Councilman Kern has said since I got here about making sure that the taxpayers. Go ahead. I'm sorry. We spoke about the surcharge for coming into the . So where? Just explain that to me. You're seeing it just so. At the very top in red. Valid for what? It's in red. Document retention in . Sorry. No color. But it's in. It says note. And so that's. For building permits are subject to $25 records retention . So here's what I'm just. Get a large project like Heatherwood. And it ultimately benefits a large project like that because it makes it easier for them to enter. And correct me if I'm wrong. To enter into, to get inspections, update reviews, and just continuously add towards what's missing. And it's a very better. Electronic is way more interactive and simpler for the developer. And we got to agree on that. I just don't think $25 is a significant amount of money. I think we're never going to get to the over $1 million that IT says we need to go down in a basement and start scanning these items in. I really think there should be a sliding scale. And it should be, you know, $25. Just as a for example, $25 for anything less than 5,000 square feet. But when we go from 5,000. You know, to 15. It's $100. And we're going over something that's over $15. It's going to be $1,000. Whatever it may be. But the larger scale projects that greatly benefit through this should be paying a surcharge. Because the department is going to need to hire an employee to bring somebody in to sit down and start scanning these documents. Because you guys are already overwhelmed and overworked in itself. That's a fair statement, right? So we got to hire somebody to do this. And I've said all along, the building department needs to be self-sustaining. So the surcharge money for these things need to cover the cost of that employee to come into town hall and start entering those documents. And getting things in. And you know, starting with the current ones, the active plans. But then on the downtime, they start going to the basement and they start pulling out other plans. And eventually you start to catch up. That has a logical, you know, resonance. Because the larger plans would be larger. Larger documents to maintain. Ultimately, and then I just want to point out. How many building permits are issued a year? About 1,200. So 1,200 times 25. So we're only bringing in $30,000. We're not going to get a full-time employee for $30,000. And that's just the way that I'm thinking about it. I understand. Because I want it to be self-sustaining. It's not going to work that way. Well, we have taxes too, which I understand. Nobody wants taxes to go up. It's put. The building department needs to be self-sustaining. No taxes. Don't say the word. I'm not saying it. But we can do this. We have funds. We have funds. We have the money. We have the money.
We have funding sources. But from what Don said before, that's part of the justification for the 50% renewal. That's where some of that money is going too. We're justifying the increased staffing costs in that 50%. So we're getting a significant not from the 50% renewal to pay for these things. Plus- When you get into Heatherwood and you get into Petrocelli's hotel and you're going to tell me that they're going to pay anything over a $25 fee, I'm not going to buy that. Because it's going to make the world so much simpler. I opposed to large companies like that sending people over to Town Hall. And make an appointment with Bob and having to sit down and schedule inspections. To be able to do it online is going to save them thousands of dollars. Therefore they should pay a significant fee. Also the electronic permitting, it really is such a great solution because not only does it stop the bleeding on the digitizing of documents, like the minute we do it. But also we had a conversation with Jim Wooten because he's getting overwhelmed with notarizing. When you use an electronic permitting system, you're going to have- Yep. An account and you're going to be identified in your account. There will no longer need to be notarized documents. People will be able to see the progress and schedule permanent inspections. Bob and Heather can speak to this. I think we've looked at a lot of different systems to do that. But maybe you want to just jump in and talk about how much help it would be to building to have electronic permitting. And again, my credit, I'm 1,000% behind electronic. I'm supportive of the process. Let's make it self-sustaining. $25 is not going to cut it. Before we go there, I'd just like to back up a little bit. When we changed the fees, and I was given some samples, when you and Emory came with some samples and it looked good, where I will take full responsibility for not researching further, I need a model. I need a budget for building and planning. I want to see the fees and I want to get it just a general idea. But if we had 1,200 permits, because are we making the budget that we wanted? I totally agree with you because we both know $75,000 worth of scanning is going to get us nowhere. Right? That's a grant. Yeah. I understand. Completely. And also the 1.4 could be chunked up over time. I think that's the only way we can swallow that one. I also met with them about the $75,000 for that grant and that would be they wanted to bring in a company for making sure that it was, you know, it was a good deal. I think that's the only way we can swallow that one. I want to make sure that it was, you know, accurate and that we were able to do it in a seismic time. So we have a lot to look at in the scanning. But like you said, the electronic permitting starting and going forward. I want to make sure that if somebody, you know, a resident that owns a house anywhere in this town, somebody has their private residential home in Jamesport, waiting room, whatever it may be, that their taxes are not going to increase by a dollar because the building department wants to go electronic. And so that's 100% has to be covered by the cost of development. And that's where I'm going with this. I want to see the budget for building and planning, vehicles, everything included, you know, and I would... We did all of that, Jeanette, did all of that analysis and all of those budgets we can give it all to you. Yeah, I need... And as we left over revenue generated in the department outside of what... There is, there already is. ...to assist in the budget overall. There is. And we sat down and talked to them and it's not enough. The multi-year analysis, Jeanette, was kind enough to put it all together and overdo it. I think that's the only way we can do it. I think that's the only way we can do it. I think that's the only way we can do it. I think that's the only way we can do it. But, again, we just put it all together and over time, you know, as you know, sometimes we have a larger fee that comes from a big commercial project. Generally, we get a few of those annually, but the budget is not set to include those things. And so, it's a conservative budget. So, every year, but this year versus 25 versus 24, 25 was a little better than 24. And so, what we did last year was good, but we did not think about that. what's needed next and growing the department of planning for department function and growth but I do just want to point out like I think that the benefits I think you guys could just address the benefits of that system and how it would help you guys really streamline and make the public a lot happier in terms of access so with the portal that's available public facing and also facing towards us and our inspectors which we can't forget for the field work that's gonna make communication a lot better and communication takes up a lot of our time people at the counter endless phone calls emails to everybody text messages it's just that takes up so much of our time the idea with this this portal is that everything is right there that everybody can see so they don't need to call me and say call multiple phone numbers and say where's my permit they'll be logged in they'll go right there and they'll be able to see exactly where they're permitted is in that so that's that's tape wiping out all that time that we would spend doing that if they need to follow up sure they can they'll be able to do it right through the portal and so do we have plans when our plans examiner is has comments on something he doesn't need to call anybody it's loaded in that portal as soon as he puts it in there and it's immediately available to everybody so that's gonna be a big thing for us a lot of our time is spent chasing paper files to get answers for people who could have found this out in other systems we took fire marshal building and I don't know if anybody from planning went to Huntington two years ago and showed him a system and how the whole thing works so I'm very familiar with it I want to go back and I want to stay on the budget for a second right because I know after looking year after year after year right I think we looked at a four-year look back which was maybe the building department was gaining somewhere like around two hundred thousand dollars and then we got a lot of money and we got a lot of money and we got a lot of money and we got a lot of money and we got a lot of money and dollars over the year prior yeah it's anywhere from two hundred thousand to as much as like four eighty five hundred thousand okay so that's just earlier years right lost because of COVID right so that's building we are we taking the vehicles into consideration and we taking all the equipment and if you add like to me I would add a half a million dollars right to scanning right from the get-go right so you're not chasing this because it's gonna knock the foils down it also gives us the ability to do what Southampton does is once we have this they charge you there's a subscription this is what you need to access GIS not all the stuff that is on the public facing GIS is available to the public that's in the interact so I know I get it I totally agree with you I want to now we required a digital copy of an entire application no matter what when it comes in so once we get that that goes all goes into IPS I will say IPS is not the greatest system I particularly don't like it but it's as good as what you put into it your inputs are as good as your outputs there's gonna be a cost savings because we'll no longer be needing IPS so that will offset for a new system too so those are the things we've really thought about so I just want to give a heads up on that as far as 26 goes you're gonna see a little bit of a lag because there was a two year permit for commercial property so what's the lag give me the number of the lag because I tracked the first one months and the bigger commercial property so but there will be new commercial property coming on also in the meantime as we know so that should make up for some of that in 26 once these get implemented and then in 27 i think is where you're going to really start to see the biggest i would like to still i would still like i mean we think you know we're going back to 50 right for renewals i know that brookhaven's 100 they don't have a renewal you just get a new permit or if you know online it's 50 percent but we're this is the reason why i want to see the budget in its totality right including vehicles including every piece of equipment including planning you know you left with our guys don't know we don't have a vehicle yeah we do it in our own car you do but building they do yeah yeah i mean it's not as much as you would think it's not i'm not looking to say that this is a humongous amount of money whatever the cost is we lost i tracked the first four months of last year and it's 100 you know it's a significant amount of money that was lost due to the new building fees i'm glad they didn't go into effect until april of last year so the first four months was the year was so what i would just i need to see the but you know what what we're but you know what that budget looks like for building and planning and are we charging the correct fee i think we were at 75 cents a square foot last year i think you're asking for more analytics than the we have the budget that's produced to the town you're looking for analytics like the carbon footprint like how much is that what you're looking for i'm looking for what the direct costs to the department are so that the taxpayers are not supplementing the developers just like we're doing with every other department you've seen that already for building so that i gave you that was the entire budget that i gave you with building and planning and vehicles and planning and vehicles and equipment we will then we will definitely i appreciate it and equipment and where we're looking to go electronically right i think it's eighty nine thousand the sooner we do that the better because every day that we don't have electronic permitting we don't I don't just we don't have the document storage the other thing is like document preservation there's there's a lot of people have access to files that you know what building goes down the basement they pull the file things are not in order they're not you know and it's just it's just so I get and really I really get all that I really do right but I think you need to build in an escalator every year the fees need to go because the old rates under the old methodology under cost of construction we were using rates from 2020 so we've built that into these new fees now so I wanted like these were the town board to revisit the retention and digitalization surcharge because you're not gonna get somebody to come in here for 30 something thousand you know we're gonna have that's a full time job it's gonna have health insurance and benefits that line has gotta tell me you're bringing in a hundred thousand dollars that's that's the purpose of the renown yeah yeah but the surcharge fee for the it should almost be like a designated item that and when somebody comes in if I'm a developer and I come in like why am I paying that and I want to say because we hired either her or him to sit down and enter this in to make your life easier and so it's a benefit that you're gaining as a developer a direct benefit your building process is going to be so much more simplified and there's a cost to that employee and there's health insurance and all the other things and biker and unemployment or all the things that go with it that that's why it all that has to be taken in so I would really like to know what is the title so we should probably talk to Ashley in personnel what's going to be the title position what is the starting salary of that position what is the health insurance and composite what is going to be needed to make sure that this is self-sustaining and that by going down this road we did not financially impact anything we provided a better level of service for a simple smaller cost to developers I have a question all right so you're speaking about the FOIL request so your municipal data retrieval companies your Realtors that are constantly looking for CEOs and all that jazz will they have to pay we can't charge for FOILs we could charge for copies but you can't I'm gonna say instead of FOILing would they be able to pay to have a subscription I would think so I know that you need to do that that would be able to generate revenue as well on top of I mean I totally that's down the road that doesn't get us started and so if we you know because like I say there is no system so I pay a subscription I want something from last year it's not in there so it's not helpful it's only down the road after this documentation event and then we can review this and say all right maybe it's a less of a certain more of a subscription I mean if we're waiting on the whatever the if we're waiting on the retention and digitalization fee to pay a salary that's that's you know that also would I mean everything has to come together and that's why this has to be a living organism to be something and I understand it definitely needs to change I think that's that's higher back to your thing on the budget I think you know the analytics that we look at it that's what I said down with you originally and we were talking and you were like no we're making money and I said I was like you're not making what you need to make to bring us to where we need to go and Jeanette was really pounding that pavement of like hey well it looks you know it is but we need to be able to and you know you guys have pointed out the the backlog of people who have permits that they've not followed up on you know we need to do a better job of being able to do that so staffing and all these things come together and you know where we've gotten to we definitely need to be poised to go to the future with this I would also just like Heather to talk quickly about the possibility of doing an amnesty program for people who have not renewed their permits in many years that has a potential to generate a lot of money for the people who are not able to get a job. I would like to get into that can I just back up to the budget for one second okay so I want to see exactly what the wish list is I know I know I agree totally with what you want I do really do then what I want to do is see does these numbers what we're proposing match what the with the building and planning department is trying to achieve because I'm not certain I don't want to guess at the numbers is it 75 cents a square foot you know what what does it what did what what do these numbers have to do and do they do their job in getting us to what our wish list is and the wish list is actually puts us in the 21st century I need to see that okay and then I can justify this because when we change the numbers we had no model no the model was based on the cost of construction we backed into it's essentially that's one piece Matt I don't know if you can see it but I think it's a good question. I don't disagree with you the fees the fees were so we backed into the old fees based on square footage instead to get achieve a number that was higher than what we would get on the old fee that's how we structured the change but but in but if you look at individual projects that's how we did it I understand but if okay so then I wanted to give you your answer to your question because you're asking for something that I can't predict what's gonna happen in the following year I don't know how many I'm not looking for predictions have to have a system that breaks all of the rules. I'm not looking for a prediction I'm looking for if Dawn says we we need to start out with a quarter of a million dollars to get scanning started we need the ninety thousand dollars for the software. I think you're gonna if we take that actual cost and build it into the permitting fee you're gonna kill people. Who's paying for all this? I would say you already have some of that. By the budget being in place. It's been carried over in general fund. I need to say I'm not gonna belabor this. So it's been there we haven't utilized it for that. So we want to continue to do that so we can utilize it for those for those reasons. The commercial end you know is a more financially robust but we have the residential end so people are getting permits for decks and permits for additions to their house or maybe an ADU and you know. That's why I say the deck should pay $25 you know for. And I agree with you on that yeah. But Heather. Heather would should be paying a couple thousand. We can figure out I think figuring out a sliding scale for that. That's the easy and that's that's easy rather than the rest of it. But at the end of the day we have to be mindful of the people that we're serving to who come to get the permit because you don't want it to be. Ponerous. Yes and and we're you know. But we've never had a taxpayer that's not a regular expense if you're building a deck then you've got a deck for 20 years you know. Well what. Yeah okay. That's a good. Right. Discussion for maybe later. Yeah I mean I'm happy to have that but. I mean we looked at a lot of different scenarios we did take a lot of samples I spent a lot of time on this. More than most people probably have. Are you doing expediting site plans? Can you. No it's that's the planning fees. We're this is building fees we're still doing expedited review which still covers the cost of expedited review which is great it gives people an opportunity. I think Heather had something to say. Yeah. I just want to hear what you decided to hear so. We're still doing expedited review. We're still doing expedited review. We're still doing expedited review. We're still doing expedited review. We're still doing expedited review. We're still doing expedited review. We're still doing expedited review. We're still doing expedited review. We're still doing expedited review. We're still doing expedited review. We're still doing expedited review. We're still doing expedited review. We're still doing expedited review. We're still doing expedited review. We're still doing expedited review. We're still doing expedited review. We're still doing expedited review. We're still doing expedited review. We're still doing expedited review. We're still doing expedited review. We're still doing expedited review. We're still doing expedited review. We're still doing expedited review. We're still doing expedited review. We're still doing expedited review. We're still doing expedited review. We're still doing expedited review. be. So we want to try to close all the open permits we have, expired permits, so that when we hopefully move to the electronic permitting system, it's less that we're moving forward with. So the idea of the amnesty program, we're still talking about all the details and everything, but it's kind of put out an incentive to have the public come in, renew their permit at whatever cost we discuss and end up on. And then if they don't, it's a higher fee, and they would have six months, nine months, whatever it is. Getting people in compliance and safety. We're in favor of that. I think that's an excellent idea. We do have something similar built in now. It's just for permits that are issued prior to 2002. You'd be surprised there are permits that are hanging out there since prior to 2002, which is what happens. We used to have no maximum permit. So I can't say there's a lot, but people would just renew in perpetuity based on whatever percentage they had to renew, probably to avoid it going on their taxes, even though the assessors can assess whenever they want. So if you see in the renewal, there's a legalization fee for permits issued prior to July 3rd of 2002. So I'm working with Bob. That's when the building code really changed. So it's a flat fee per structure, but that's an ability for someone with those old permits to come in, pay it, get it done, and then it's on the books. And if they miss that renewal, I think that's a good thing. That program, they'll have to pay a new fee at the current rate. How far out are we going with renewals now? You know, if somebody gets a building permit now, can they hold on to it? No, not on this. So every year you're paying? Yeah. One renewal on a residential at 50%, and two renewals on a commercial, and then the third renewal you're going to pay a new fee. So if you're building your residential project after year two, you start over with the original fee. On commercial, you're going to get an extra year because those projects typically take longer than a residential project, and so you could renew it twice, and then the third time, if you still need a permit, you would pay the full fee again. On commercial, too? Correct. That's beautiful. It's just a better clarification for the amnesty program. So how many people do we think are in violation? Well, right now, upstairs in our office, we have expired permits from 2021 that haven't been closed or issued. You had a number, right? Didn't you have a ballpark number for the total? It was like 160-something or something like that? I think it was around there. So what I would like to take a look at is that just as we have code enforcement personnel, if we need to have a code enforcement officer that's just to go through those permits, and if they're in violation or they haven't renewed, and they're inactive projects, then they need to receive a summons, and it brings in revenue. And when you bring in that revenue, you pay for that new position in the building department. The building department can't just allow to fall behind on other things. So if you've got stuff sitting from 2021, then I would be taking a different approach and going, well, let's hire somebody that's exclusively going to go through the permit project, go and visit sites, and let's take a look at what the – what the fees and fines and summonses would be for that, and is that another self-sustaining position? And now we're offering better service in the building department, but it becomes self-sustaining because if you've got that many, imagine that's probably a full-time job for somebody to come in there and play catch-up. That's exactly what we've been looking at. Trying to – the devil's in the details with this and how many we have, how many are going to be how far out, what our fees, penalty fees are going to be. But we actually – specifically that's what we talked about, was that this – if we figure it out, it should finance a person to deal with that and get that done. So it's better than cost neutral, I would hope. So be careful on the amnesty. Go and get the fines and the fees and the summonses and pay for the person to play. The amnesty would generate the fee. It's before 2002. And then anybody else who's expired now would have to come in and pay the full fee. So they don't get a freebie. What are you getting for the amnesty? Are you still getting charged? Yeah, it's low. It's a low. We have $700. I haven't highlighted. Commercial $700 and then $500 minimum or $100 per structure. With the incentive, we can maybe go higher. We've got to be – our thought is to be reasonable to get – because we want people to come in to do it. I can't imagine – let me finish. One second. Yeah, sure. When we were talking about the amnesty, it was a little different than this because this was just prior permits, but this was more so anything we have currently upstairs. Regarding this, they could be in the basement. They could be in the aisle downstairs for like 20-plus years. They have the language here. But this is solely just for the permits upstairs in our office so we can get that cleaned up. Part of the idea for this to be an efficient thing as well is instead of us going through them, targeting people going out after them, is we come up with this. It goes on social media. It goes on the town website. It goes in mailings. You have X number of months to get this in, so they're bringing it to us. The thing we have to be careful with that is if we say 90 days and now we get flooded with all this and we can't issue our permits and our COs and then customer service goes down because of that. So this is what we're trying to tease out. On top of everything else that we're doing, we're trying to look at who's done what, how far we can expand this, if we can do it staged somehow. If we can't overwhelm ourselves. I think that before 2002, your date is good. I don't think your amount is solid enough. I don't know how many there are, and that's the incentive to get these people to come. We can find out. But this is like the most important thing. We're talking about a completely separate program. It would be like something that the board looks at. We give you all the data and some ideas. If someone's expired now. That could be digestible with the staff. They have to be able to manage the applications again. If someone's expired now and they're that expired, they should be coming in for a new fee. That's what I'm thinking. So it's covered in the new fee. They wouldn't be able to extend. They'd have to come in and close it out. This is the amnesty program that we're willing to offer. This is just what's written in this legislation, which I'd like to relook at because I do agree. I don't think the. I mean, the 2002, if you want to go back that far, but I don't think the 700 really captures that they've been allowed to, you know. We have to figure out what it is and how much of how much the permit was. Let's look at it this way. They have if I mean, just entertain this for a second. Right. You're giving them and Bob, I appreciate your, you know, the time frame and you know what that does. Right. So but if we give it to code and code goes after them and the fee is twelve hundred dollars, they're going to want to pay, you know, a thousand. Let's say because I think these fees are a little low. That helps code enforcement get another guy. But if we did like the program first and those that did not come voluntarily, those would go to code and then they would be heavily penalized. The incentive to be to come in voluntarily and do it. But to ask code to do them all, I think up front might be overwhelming for them. But that's why I think you should have a permits enforcement officer in your in your. The building department that specifically does this and it's not falling on code enforcement to go and drive around. They they're they're behind as well. They need everybody's over once. But this could be another self-sustaining position. Well, I think once we go with an online portal, we're not going to have as many things slipping between the cracks. Not possible. Yeah. Yeah. Everything's going to be right there. Front and center documents will be easily retrievable. It's going to help the staff really manage. Yeah. Manage this the volume that they have. Yeah. Keep track of things and communicate with people like Bob and Heather were saying. When you you can request permanent you can inspect request inspection appointments through the portal. When the plans examiner updates the review of the plans, the applicant gets an automatic notification. Your plans have been updated. Please check the portal. You know, all those things. And then they can the applicant can communicate right through the portal. And say, oh, you know, and resubmit and everything. You know, nothing is paper anymore. All the resubmissions. The only thing the plans examiner is reviewing is the final set. And there's it's kind of an amazing system. And we do charge for resubmissions. I think on our triage list of what we're going to fill through this, I think that's the first step. And the enforcement officer in the building department will still have a long term position because even eventually when it all goes away, we're going to have to do a lot of work. Yeah. So, when the law goes to computer and you still, I think you should have somebody in there like who's currently looking at, you know, Google Earth and going, this one's got a pool and this one's got a deck and this one's got this one. But those are things that could be through enforcement in the building department where you still have longevity. Everyone, all the inspectors, I don't want to speak for Bob and give him more work. They're all, they all have the ability to enforce the code, right? But that's why I'm saying, but I don't want there to be fear eventually. Yeah. post this job and I don't want somebody going, oh, in three years I'm going to be all caught up. You know, like, no, we got to go to the next level. I think we could make it, you know, like a building inspector position. And within that, that becomes an assignment that they have. If we hopefully get to a point where we don't have enough full-time work for that kind of enforcement, there's other work to do. If you have somebody who's a certified building code official, they can do anything. They can do plan review. They can do administrative work. They can do field inspections. And I appreciate the thought to go after the violations. I do get nervous because if it goes to justice court, usually the goal, I would say, is compliance. I'm not a lawyer. So the intent is going to get someone to come in and not pay a fine. They're going to say, go submit your application and go get it done. It goes to your shed permit fee. And it takes a whole lot longer because they have a large document. That's going to cost money. And then it goes to the tax bill. So the goal is to get people in and pay. So that's kind of the thought with a little of these grace periods and that. It's used to get people in. It's used to get people in. It's used to get people in. It's used to get people in. It's used to get people in. It's used to get people in. When we did this with parking many years ago, parking tickets, we did an amnesty program in 2002. Yeah, that's a good example. And I think we generated about close to $500,000 in fees. So that's a real number that I think, based on what I'm looking at here, that's probably not a crazy potential result. Although we have to look at. We have inspectors. In CDA, there's an inspector, correct? Dan, yes. So we do have people that can cross-pollinate at least. As we do this, if there's people in the building, until we get someone in that position. And I would say, like, if we're issuing notices of violation, they should be followed up on. But I know it's hard to do. Sometimes in times in memoriam, they would be issued and then nothing would happen. So, like, I think it may became a hollow threat. But it's easy to follow up. So to go back to this document, we're going to look at the sliding scale. Yep, the sliding scale. We're going to look at the scale to make sure it makes sense for the post-2002. Yep. Yep. And then because of this document, we're going to look into a possible amnesty program of most reasons to get them compliant. And then we'll work together. Yeah, I don't want to speak for the building department. I don't know if it's worth it to give amnesty to people who just have current permits that they're not following up on. They should probably come in and just pay the fee at the current rate. Yeah, I agree with that. Because they're not doing it. They have no incentive to do it. The incentive is just to say, you can come in now and pay the original fee that you need to pay. Whatever it was. But if you don't come in now, you're going to pay a much deeper fee and potentially be subject to. Step one again, pay the initial filing fee. Right. When we say amnesty, we're not saying come in and close it out. It's not a freebie. Come in and close it out for what's reasonable, depending upon your project. But if you don't get it done, then it becomes an expensive. Yeah. Okay. But that's the next step here to this. Yes. So for me, I agree with this. I agree with the surcharge. I just need to see how the budget is in its totality. I want to make sure that the building department and planning has the $89,000 for the software and how much is being devoted towards scanning. Yeah, we don't have the pricing yet on the electronic permitting yet. We have five or six. Five, I think, different entities that we look. I think the high number for now. We don't even have any numbers for now. So we're just looking at systems, and then we're going to work on the pricing piece. Well, to me, that has to be incorporated into these things. And that's what we did. So I think we can show you the methodology. I would appreciate that. So my idea, we can figure out how much time it takes to scan a certain amount of things, regular documents and full-size plans, average it out. And then we can go to an employee and we can base our surcharge number off of that. That's a hard one. Yeah, you could do that. I mean, I've spoken to scanning companies in the past. I know Southhold, for example. They used one. It took them five years. It takes a long time. Yeah, it depends on how you do it. But the longer we wait, the worse it gets. So it's just like a growing blob of stuff we need to do. To do this, and I spoke to a company that does this, they know what documents to scan. It's very, very risky. If you get somebody, they go to lunch and they forget something. It's based on the quality of what's in the file. So sometimes there's, if we're not purging and keeping stuff in there that's supposed to be there and stuff that's not, or like 10 copies of one thing and one copy of another, it's just going to take more for someone to go through and say, do you need this? Do you need this? Do you need this? Do you need this? And in our initial scan, we may have to look at, and we probably have to have a whole discussion about where we begin with that and how we tackle that and how we approach it. We could hire them to do it in-house. We could contract to do it. There's a lot of different opportunities. I think to wrap this up today, I think we have some things to work back on this document. I want to appreciate all your hard work on it. And, Jeanette, thank you so much for keeping this in the forefront of all five of us. You have brought this continually. Thank you. Yeah, you've made sure that it's been approached. So thank you. Anybody else have any questions or comments for me? I just want to make sure that we keep momentum on this because to me it's ridiculous that we're not there yet in the town of Riverhead in the year 2026. I've been pushing hard for this. I know. I know. I've been working on this issue for a long time. It's been a discussion since I first came on the board. And I would like to see us where we should be. Yeah, definitely. We'll get closer and then continue. We can take our leap of faith. Yeah, that's it. We're going to do it. So thank each and every one of you. Thanks. All right. Our next matter actually is matters surrounding proposed amendments to establish planning division fee schedule and amend the site plan review procedure with Mr. Charters and Ms. Thomas. So thank you, Bob. Thank you. year I said well now's a good time to go on a planning department tour you to do the same thing so if the board's not aware all of the fees that are administered by the planning division which are subdivision fees site plan fees conservation advisory council fees zoning board fees chapter 219 fees which are which are your cultural erosion hazard area wetlands those are all still embedded in our code and as you know we've been going department by department to get our fees out of the code and establish a fee schedule so that's largely what this does so it pulls all the if you see that for it should be in order I went in a numerical order myself but yours might just be slightly out of order so anywhere a fee is referenced in the various code sections so chapter 105 will be zoning board 219 chapter 219 301 is subdivisions and site plans is is to eliminate the fee that's in the code and then says as determined by a fee schedule set by the town board and then the fee schedule is set by the town board and then the fee schedule is set by the town board should be in your packet as well so instead of just taking our existing fees and leaving them as is when I established a fee schedule all of the planning fees went up by a couple hundred dollars knowing the increase in cost and time it takes we were just a little bit behind the April some of these fees and the planning department haven't been updated in my conservation as we committee fees are a joke yeah they were like a hundred bucks spending countless hours out there making multiple trips to a site for $100 yeah so this is all in a nice organized schedule I went in order of operations to kind of what we do the most site plans are first so they'll be $700 plus 10 cents per square foot so we always have a base fee so that's that 700 and then a square footage on either floor area total disturbance and an amendment is 500 plus 10 cents per square foot a de minimis approval so that's a very simple thing it doesn't happen to order too often that's 500 bucks that's something that happens in house and we say okay you want to move a parking spot you want to do this we just need a record of a plan that's a de minimis fee and then an extension we don't have an extension fee now so people have the ability to extend but there's no fee associated with it for us an extension is very very administrative so they have an approval they're meeting conditions and then they're going to have to go to the and then they're going to have to go to the! and then they're going to have to go to the! we're saying okay here's your extra amount of time so I think for that $250 is very reasonable it captures it have you I have a question kind of what he said last time have you worked with Jeanette on this at all to look at that? yes I have subdivision applications I'm just gonna go through a little bit Bob and then I'm happy to go through it those all go up as well so 600 per lot sketch plan fees so the way our fees are broken what are the fees I mean do you have to pay for them? yeah that's okay it would be good to have it side by side but that's just how they are so like if you look in each section unfortunately you just kind of have to cross reference it's usually they're usually going up by like 200 to 250 bucks per item and these how long how old are these fees? I think the subdivision fees I want to say they were updated in 2018 maybe but not all of them. yeah so it's it's they've kind of been a little stagnant so the stagnant so that's why I thought you know if we're looking at building we need to be looking at planning to why they you know they should also go up the way they're calculated is the same way they're calculated in the code unfortunately the way we do engineering fees in the town of overhead it's baked into the site plan review so there's no other way to do it than what you see here it looks a little complicated but we design professionals understand how to pay so those are subdivisions. subdivisions. side by side. so the second page is land transfer so that's $1,200 an extension for a subdivision which we do see that's usually people get stuck at the health department so our process especially for a minor subdivision so four lots or less is very quick it takes a few months but then people get stuck at the health department sometimes for like two years but it's not much work on our end so that just takes in the fee for us to prepare the resolution review with the planning board and cover that cost variances are all going up so area variances I believe are now $300. they're going up to five use variances for residential are going up to 800 area variances for commercial are going up to seven. go ahead. so is it per variance? no. why? I it doesn't take necessarily more time to review the variances I don't know of anyone that charges per variance like say if you need front yard side yard it's always because it's one application it's noticed once a year. it's always because it's one application it's noticed once a year. I don't know if we could justify charging it per yard. if it's more than just a sideline. so you're saying if they needed side and front five and five? I don't know if we could do that. no. I don't know. can you check into it? yeah I just we'd have to justify it why because the zoning board's considering it at the same time they're looking at it all at once I don't think it takes more time or like thought for them to do it that way without speaking for them obviously. okay. yeah. what if you need a variance because you want to put up a pool house? yeah. a pool. maybe not necessarily a garage but different aspects of the property. yeah. I mean there's still the hearing still could heard the same way it's all denied the same way so I don't know. like if you would need it. yeah. I mean I don't know if it's a use and area I think we charge you for each. I don't know. yeah. on the rare side. yeah. interpretation. yeah. interpretation is more common. those would be logical to separate out because they're two different. yeah. analysis like even though they could be heard at the same time. yeah. you're thinking about different ways. there's two different ways to analyze those applications. Emory. I'm sorry I know you just. yeah. can you just comment. so we're just asking and for the variance. yeah. if you could comment. if you could come up for a moment just because being on like zoning board of appeals and so forth I think. which Mr. Councilwoman Woskie has a good point like in terms of if somebody's getting one variance or they're seeking three four or five variances can you range a fee structure for that. I'm not saying it's the same amount of work but. we charge per request for per application. yeah it's an application fee. yeah. so typically when somebody if they come in for an area variance. Yeah. it's unusual that they need perhaps a side variance and a rear yard that's one thing you don't charge per request for relief. yeah. it's going to quickly. if you're coming in for use variance. yeah. we charge separately. that's. it's a different application. right. it's a separate application. safe interpretation. yeah. also different thing. 205 Osborne had like a significant list of all different items whether it be lighting and. they had a bunch yeah. there was a lot of stuff. and parking. parking. parking. and they had. didn't that create more work than somebody's seeking a single variance? was it one application for their variance? it's one application. it's one application. it's one application. it's one application. know bring up a very valid point of course it's more work because it's more potentially impactful so with every variance that's requested let's say it's an area variance you're looking at all the properties around it all the properties in the surrounding neighborhood you're looking at the configuration of their lots what the existing side yards are for the other properties all around it so you're correct that's a lot difference than it's a bull lighting sign variance show in a way you're correct because if you come in and you need front yard side yard rear yard now you're examining every parcel in the surrounding area on every single one of those issues from side rear so could you do $700 for the first variance and then $150 for each additional requested variance on the same project this one can now have to be 700 700 700 yes you can say partially of the work is done but there's still more work to be done that's a good that'd probably be a good way to do because the second piece of that when the staff writes the decision it's longer it takes longer to those numbers just initially seemed very fair because we're already doing the processing the paperwork for the posting so this is my question not to disagree so if someone needed front and rear or front rear inside it's 1500 bucks that's more than a use variance for residential yeah but all it should be $700 the first one plus 115 another 150 is three and now it's a thousand that's fair because it's I think it's quickly going to become expensive not that it shouldn't be well but also entices residents don't ask for variance stay within the code sometimes there's an idea some sometimes because of the configuration of the profits yeah it's almost impossible there's not always just you know you know force size to the property there's like a parcel is a square I can't go that's less and far between especially now that we have small lot ordinance it's a little bit less but there are still lots there's lots out there that have three front yards I mean I can tell you in the last eight months you would be surprised how many large lots very large slots are coming in for two and three variances why it's what they desire yeah it's not what the code says it's not in conformity with the neighborhood it's a personal desire we allow the development in those situations provided it doesn't you know negatively impact the neighboring properties there's more tax rateables for the town too so so variances are tax revenue if you're allowing to build more of the property you have a bigger building you're gonna get more taxes yeah I think there's a happy medium for the goals and the benefits of the goal is zoning compliance correct yeah the goal is to avoid non-conforming uses non-conforming structures and I don't know of any town in Suffolk County or New York that doesn't seek to eliminate non-conforming structures the goal of zoning we're probably more liberal than most because we let you change from one to another and we it's good if you could go back and work on that and bring it back next week that would be good so yeah yeah yeah ! And now with that I would just ask one thing Matt and because I've done a lot of fee changes as you know in the town other stuff too I need to talk to you about besides the fees but just quickly did you look at what other towns charge I did okay five east end towns and then some western towns as well okay yeah and where where are we with because the thing that we don't know we don't know when they change their fees it's good to look but we have a good idea especially for Southampton I have a good idea I because I used to work there South old were above Southampton were about the same for our fees Easthampton were above I believe it depends what it is some are up some are down but we're where we're supposed to be I have other code stuff baked into here no it's okay no it's not just the piece so in each section I have them in numerical order so it's it starts at chapter 105 this one is so chapter 105 filing fees that is just fee elimination What page are you on? Are you at the very beginning? 105.9. I don't know what order they gave it to us. I'll just go through each one just so you guys know when it's time to notice what exactly is changing. So this eliminates fees. Those are all the old fees. The new fees are on the fee schedule, obviously. This is one we need to work on when we think about, okay, an initial rate and then an additional rate per relief, which is understood. We can come up with that. And then 219. That's 409 for everybody in the packet. Again, this eliminates the fees that are in the code. So if you can see, 219 was very confusing. So we just made it one fee that was more money because it was the way it was. It just didn't work. 295 is wetlands. That's CAC. That's a strikeout. It was $100 for everything. Now it's $300. Yeah, hold on, hold on, hold on. 295.6 is the code section. What? One of nine. Yeah, one of nine. Oh, you're really bouncing all over the place. I'm minor in numerical order. Sorry. Just give us the same. One of nine. One of nine. Okay. Got it. One of nine. So just show it to me before you start talking about it. No, no, so I can tell the next one. So that is an elimination fee. As you can see, it used to be $100. Now we have it in the new fee schedule as of late, $300. 301. Which would be? 301.2. 209. On the bottom, you also struck out on E. There's something else on the bottom you struck out. Thank you. That's another fee, too. I'm sitting here. You struck out 300. Oh, for a violation. Sorry. So 295-10E, we struck out 300 in addition to the application fee. Yeah, so it's 500 now. So if you violate wetlands, it's a $500 charge, and then you have to pay the application fee. So 5 plus 3 instead of 3 plus 3. The next page is 6 of 9, 301.288. Yeah. This is minor subdivisions. Oh, look at that. Is that one? Right there. Thanks, Matt. That's okay. Did you spill your water again or something? I know. It's puzzle day. This takes the fees out, and then also in number three, in our subdivision regulations, for whatever reason, we did not have a public hearing requirement. We had a posting requirement, and it was only a seven-day posting requirement. Everything else within the town has a public hearing requirement. It's a good thing. People should be heard. So this establishes a public hearing for minor subdivisions, and then the noticing requirement, which is the same for every other application, is 10 days. Sorry, from 7 to 10. So that is 289. Seven, right back in number seven. Number seven, number seven.
Put in public hearing there, too. Yeah, so 289 is to? Strike the fees, and then put the public hearing requirement with a 10-day noticing requirement. That's all on that one. Wait, seven of nine? Yes, sir. Great. You just really change the? That's a lot. That's a lot of little two- Okay, where are we now? Wait, what's the next one? Yeah. Next one is- One resolution every year. There we are. Exactly. We did, did we just have major, right? 289, so next is 291. Eight of nine. Eight of nine. Eight of nine. Okay. Oh, I got it. This is what it takes to extract stuff from the code. This took a little while. A lot of extraction. with legal, it's a nightmare. I understand that. I don't help with all this. Yeah. I don't want to be AI. So to- They give you a service. 291. So there's a small change. So our consideration for review was 16 days, which is a really weird amount of time. So it goes up to 30, strikes out the fees, and then again, puts in the- Public hearing requirement with a 10-day notice, which I think that is it on industrial. It is.
All right. Site plan, which is the fun one. What number is that? Nine of nine. Nine of nine. Oh, right. The big one. Okay. Well, there's two. So there's this, and then there's this. What's this? 301.302, which is site plan review said article- That's two of nine. So you need two of nine and nine of nine for this section. Oh, man.
Do you get points for finding it quick? You can buy me lunch today, Bob. Put it on AMRE's credit card. So in the town of Riverhead, for whatever reason, we have a three-step site plan review process. We have pre-submission, which is optional. Pre-submission, you can't require that anybody does. It's helpful. So that's our Tuesday meetings. We say, come and schedule us. You can meet with planners. PLANNERS, SUPERVISORS SOMETIMES WITH US, WE SOMETIMES HAVE THE PLANNING BOARD CHAIR TO SAY, OKAY, WHAT'S YOUR PROJECT, WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO? YOU GIVE US A GENERAL SKETCH, WE TELL YOU THIS, THAT OR WHATEVER, IF IT LOOKS GOOD, MOVE THIS, DO THAT. IT'S VERY HELPFUL IF PEOPLE COME IN AND DO THAT BECAUSE IT GETS THEM ON THE RIGHT PATH. THEN IN THE TOWN OF RIVERHEAD WE HAVE WHAT'S CALLED PRELIMINARY SUBDIVISION APPROVAL. SO THAT'S WHAT WE DO WHEN WE GENERALLY NOW DO SECRA AND HAVE A PUBLIC HEARING. AND THEN THERE'S FINAL SUBDIVISION APPROVAL WHICH IS YOU'RE MEETING ALL OF YOUR CONDITIONS OF PRELIMINARY AND THEN YOU SUBMIT FOR YOUR FINAL AND THEN MEET SOME MORE CONDITIONS OF APPROVAL FOR YOUR FINAL APPROVAL. I CAN'T FIND ANY OTHER TOWN IN SUFFOLK COUNTY THAT HAS A THREE-STEP SITE PLAN REVIEW PROCESS. MOST TOWNS HAVE TWO. MOST TOWNS HAVE PRESUBMISSION WHICH IS OPTIONAL AND SITE PLAN APPROVAL. SO THAT'S WHAT THIS DOES. WE ELIMINATE THE THIRD MIDDLE STEP. THAT'S NOT TO SAY WE'RE NOT GOING TO HAVE A PUBLIC HEARING. THAT'S NOT TO SAY WE'RE NOT GOING TO DO SECRA. WE'RE GOING TO DO ALL THOSE THINGS. THEY'LL JUST HAPPEN IN ONE STAGE. I DON'T THINK THERE'S ANY REAL LOSS TO THE PUBLIC. THEY WON'T HAVE THE ABILITY TO COMMENT ON ONE RESOLUTION. EVERYTHING, HUH? YOU'RE NAKED NOW. YEAH. SO THERE WOULD BE A PRELIMINARY SITE PLAN RESOLUTION THAT PEOPLE COULD COMMENT ON AND THEN THERE WOULD BE A FINAL. BUT ALL THE CONDITIONS THAT WOULD BE IN THAT PRELIMINARY WOULD NOW BE IN THE FINAL. IT'S EASIER FOR STAFF BECAUSE WE'RE LOOKING AT EVERYTHING AT THE SAME TIME ANYWAY. PEOPLE NOW ARE GOING TO BE ABLE TO DO THEIR THINGS THAT THEY WOULDN'T BE ABLE TO DO. SO YOU'RE GENERALLY GETTING HUNG UP WITH THE TIME FRAME BECAUSE IT'S ONE YEAR AND ONE EXTENSION AND THEN YOU COME BACK FOR FINAL AND IT'S GOOD FOR THREE YEARS WITH ONE EXTENSION. NOW IF WE DO WHAT THIS SHOWS, YOU'LL GET YOUR FINAL, IT WILL BE GOOD FOR THREE YEARS AND THEN YOU HAVE THE ABILITY TO EXTEND ONCE. IT'S FOUR YEARS. IF YOU CAN'T GET A BUILDING PERMIT WITHIN FOUR YEARS, I THINK YOU PROBABLY HAVE A PROBLEM. YOU GET IT IN A YEAR. YEAH. SO IT'S A GOOD CHANGE. IT WILL BE MORE EFFICIENT, MORE STREAMLINED. YEAH. THAT'S REALLY IT. SO WE ALSO DID CHANGE JUST THE LANGUAGE ON OUR ADMINISTRATIVE REVIEW. IT WAS A LITTLE CONFUSING BEFORE BUT THAT IS ON PAGE IN THE SITE BLEND REVIEW SECTION. ONE, TWO, THREE, THE FOURTH PAGE. SO THAT'S G301, 304G. SO THAT'S ADDITIONS TO EXISTING PRIMARY ACCESSORY OF PERTINENT NON-RESIDENTIAL BUILDINGS, 4,000 SQUARE FEET OR LESS OF FLOOR AREAS. AND THEN THE SECRET LANGUAGE WHICH I THINK THE TOWN WAS ALWAYS TRYING TO DO. SO THAT'S SOMEONE COMING IN DOING A SMALL ADDITION. THEY CAN COME IN BEFORE THE BOARD, GET AN ADMINISTRATIVE APPROVAL, DOESN'T HAVE A PUBLIC HEARING BUT IT'S CONSIDERED BY THE PLANNING BOARD OR THE TOWN BOARD. IT'S DISCUSSED. THERE'S A RESOLUTION, USUALLY A STAFF REPORT. BUT IT'S A SIMPLE ONE. THERE WAS A COMMENT AND I GAVE ONE TO YOU. I HAVE THOSE. SO A LOT OF THE STUFF FROM THIS MORNING, THE ONE YOU JUST HANDED ME, THE PUBLIC COMMENT, I SCANNED THROUGH IT. I THINK IT WAS WRONG. JUST WHAT I NEEDED TO, YOU KNOW. SO REFERENCES THAT WE HAVE A MAXIMUM SITE PLAN FEE NOW OF $350,000. OUR MAXIMUM FEE IS $30,000 WHICH IN THE FEE SCHEDULE WE'RE ACTUALLY PUTTING UP TO 50 NOW. SO A LOT OF THE STUFF, I DON'T KNOW WHERE THEY GOT THE INFORMATION FROM. YOU GOT A CHANCE TO SCAN IT. THANK YOU. IT'S NOT CORRECT. OKAY, GOOD. JUST FLIPPING THROUGH THE REST OF IT, THAT'S PRETTY MUCH IT. IT'S THE ELIMINATION OF THAT STEP. WE'LL GET RID OF ALL THIS CODE TOO SO WE CAN GET TO YOU SOON. THIS IS HELPFUL. THIS IS WHERE WE GOT OUR RATIONALE. WE'RE NOT DOING ANYTHING THAT'S A TYPICAL FROM ANYONE ELSE IN THE STATE. WE'RE SIMPLIFYING OUR PROJECT, OUR PROCESS. SO IF ANYBODY WANTS TO FAMILIARIZE THEMSELVES WITH THIS DOCUMENT TO SEE HOW WE GOT THERE, IT'S ON THE WEBSITE. THREE, TWO, NOW. GOOD JOB. MATT, CAN YOU? I NEED AN HOUR TO PUT THIS ALL BACK TOGETHER. THANK YOU. YOU'RE WELCOME. WE'VE TALKED ABOUT THIS FOR A LONG TIME. YEAH. WE'VE TALKED ABOUT THIS FOR A LONG TIME. BECAUSE IT'S FINALLY GROWING ACROSS THE LINE. THANK YOU. lives staff lives a little bit easier you'll see stuff in the same amount but just it'll make more sense and you're gonna have a fee schedule now which I really appreciate every year you know same thing we would do with building tack on tack on an increase this make having a fee schedule makes it so much easier for the public because that's the time I can't even see it all one piece of paper say it's this black and white no gray thank you very much we'd love for you to stick around longer but not really thanks our next open session matter matter surrounding construction of the new highway barn in waiting River their highway super-continent Mike's let's keep councilwoman a counselor Prudente purchasing department the Ryan that's back I believe any coming to the table with you would you you can just introduce any since document supervisor if I can make a suggestion that a lot of people are sitting here for two hours work session that starts at 10 if we can try to put those that have multiple people from different departments either to go on first and then maybe if it's just bad following up because he seemed to do for the row and I feel bad that Teresa and right and Vinnie and they're all in general sitting here for two hours waiting for their time it is a lot of work to be done yes we're just as a thought yeah I mean none of that so and then usually we do typically swing them around today just unfortunately didn't happen so thank you all right Mike good morning everybody so a Marie town attorney Vinnie Gordiello is the engineer on this project Mike highway superintendent Teresa purchasing and of course Jeanette with the money here while we can make this short and sweet yes or no yes only if Teresa says that you get you going down the right path the highway department building like to validate the building is an atrocity that is up there it is unfit conditions for any employee to be there for highway employees to have to take a bucket of water to emptied into the back of a toilet and to use a facility is a disgrace and is unfair treatment of the employees this needs to be built we plan to build this again the last year and we're still sitting here waiting on this this needs to be built now we sit and we hold press conferences and we praise the highway department for all the great work they're doing they're amazing you're amazing and then we tell them to go back to this shack that is dilapidated rat infested non-working bathrooms it is not appropriate and I wish the Suffolk County Department of Health we got frankly come over and shut it down but it needs this is a project that needs to go forth now right it's not fair for the workers I've sent a few emails well as counsel I recommend we not show photographs we just be positive and we have a way to deal with the bathrooms and this has been an issue that you when I came on board you told me has been expired year after year you've been asking about this and so so one of the things that you and I said that talked about and I've expressed to you and expressed the Bob who was talking about the bathrooms is we while we're doing this because we want to make sure of it and we had to wait till the snow was out so we could do it we're gonna move our portable bathrooms there so that they have something but we are gonna get on this ASAP we've been looking at the ability to fund this with making sure we could fund it without you know just you know just you know just you know just you know just you know just you know absolutely you know crushing the taxpayer even more and so what we would have what a reason I ask you here for that so I wanted everyone to know we're gonna be moving forward unless somebody has a problem with the bathrooms going there and being adequate they would have been there sooner this year once I was aware of it except for the snow and stuff that we've had to do but Emory has come up with a plan and I just have a question about that is that we're gonna be using the chips money is is that correct well in fact if I could detail it a little further so originally the thought process when Councilman Kern Rothwell Mike and Jeanette sat down the original goal was to use highway fund balance typically New York State accepted government fund balances are around 30% the highway department typically historically in the town of Riverhead has always had a higher fund balance in the event of a critical storm hurricane snow event however the highway fund balance now is not simply above 30 it's at 50% so when the councilman met with Mike and Jeanette the goal was and under the prior supervisor the goal was to use make sure that the highway department was able to make sure that the highway a small portion of general funds and the remainder using highway reserve fund um surplus fund rather however when uh anyway short story uh inquiry was made to legal uh i hesitated did not believe we could utilize the fund balance in that way and regrettably unfortunately i got a legal opinion we cannot so in the alternative the highway superintendent being creative came up with the idea of utilizing chips funds chips funds are not guaranteed and they are averaging about 400 000 a year so about 400 000 a year so i made inquiry again about utilizing chips fund and or in the alternative the highway superintendent agreeing to the town board if chips funds were not available or if it didn't cover the full principal interest of the bond indebtedness to make up that with an agreement to reduce his budget why can he reduce his budget because also under the law town law 113 you can use surpluses particularly for items under section 141 of the highway law so if he were to to if he didn't have chips to fully cover he could and he is a green he would reduce his budget he wouldn't reduce the services or the equipment necessary to do the highway job instead he would take it out of that available surplus that surplus of 50 percent would allow correct me if a jip jeanette knows the numbers more but it's almost almost adequate enough to fund the entire project but again i got a legal opinion we cannot utilize it that way so that's the plan that's why i think we've talked about different financial scenarios and if we go down to using no more than approximately 200 000 a year chips money and we and we put this out over 10 years or something that gives mike the safe zone of never worrying about having to dip into that you know so he knows he's getting approximately 400 000 in chips each year and half of it's dedicated to this and after this is going to his regular services we stay in that safe zone the whole time we don't try to you know say let's pay this off in three years or four hundred thousand dollars a year it's not going to work that's too bad puts you in too much of a tight financial state so spread it out and it doesn't raise property taxes correct another key component of this so it's another project getting done the goal of using property taxes not to put a burden on the taxpayers and the town board you have serious budget issues that are going to be in front of you for the upcoming year and you know everybody is aware of the impacts to town residents so under the chips program it specifically identifies this i put a copy i provided the supervisor with a copy i put a copy in front of the councilwoman it specifically provides an expenditure for a barn for highway equipment is permissible but i want to be honest with the town board the way the chips works is once they give you the money no matter what you want to spend it on you propose it and get their approval and that's exactly what we could do how could i make this work on paper by resolutions if the town board is in agreement i can lay out a plan where it's fully set forth in a resolution and the town board and highway superintendent never have to address it again i just like to make sure in that agreement that if we are required to lower his budget that there is a plan on the back end of that that resolution and that to to re-increase that that at the end of that time period that he's not setting with a deficit that it kind of begins to balance out the scale and i did go when i went to the association of towns training in january uh janet had given me the plan the idea of where she'd come up with lowering your budget and then doing that and i wanted to validate that with the comptroller's office because i know in the past uh the town had had issues with paying for this and we need to get those you know all that machinery out of the weather making sure that they're not you know the guys aren't trying to start it in a blizzard so all of that is agreeable and this is a something that i've inherited and i think this is a great plan going forward but can can that be worked into that contract a hundred percent and not only that though those that resolution will also provide if the highway superintendent lowers his budget on any given year during the bonding period the town board authorizes him to spend his surplus pursuant to town law 113 equal to the amount of his budget reduction she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she's she It seems to be that Mike is the guy that, where there's a will, there's a way, he'll find it and he'll get it done. And I'm confident that he can work within the financial constraints for me. He understands it, but this is a necessity of what we're talking about now. So this is a burden that we have to bear for the next three years to pay this off. It gives the next 30 years good sanitary conditions for workers to work. And you've had first analogies as liaison. Who was the liaison before you? And how long have you been the liaison? I've been liaison for three, four years. Three, four years. All right. So, yeah. So I'm glad we're getting that done under that. So for the critical other decision the town board's going to make, everybody take one pass down. Three potential bonding scenarios. Five years, 10 years, and 15. You don't have to decide it. You know, Mike wants this project. Moving fast. But ultimately, the town board in consultation with the financial administrator. I think you're missing one copy of the 10-year plan. Well, you should have a 5, a 10, and a 15. So I think we should probably discuss the details of the contract in this in executive session. Yes. It's publicly known. No, no, no. I'm saying like once we decide who we're going to go with, we're going to go with any year. Hey, Maria. That's not what she's asking. She's asking about how much money do we spend. And I really think this comes down to Mike's insight towards what you think you can afford a year. So, like, I think the five-year plan, I think, is putting you under too tight of a restriction. I think you go 10 years, $188,000 a year before getting $400,000 in chips. You're in a very safe place. And I don't see the point on dragging it out into a 15-year. That's my own personal opinion. But I think the 425 is putting you too close to the numbers. So, I'll just comment that the town attorney, Eric, did review it. His recommendation was the 10-year. I recommend the 10-year.
I have a question, though, on the chips. Did we get approval and officially ask the chips agency about this being covered yet or not yet? No, it's specifically set forth. So, it says it on their website? Yeah. Okay. It's in storage. But we're going to build in if it, for some reason, gets rejected. We're going to lower the budget. Just so everybody knows, because I don't know that the residents would know this, but both the general fund and the highway fund are townwide funds, meaning that every resident contributes to both. And that's why we can go lower in the budget for Mike. He can give up, let's say, $200,000 of his budget if need be. But if chips is covering it, that's fine. But the general fund can go up for the $200,000. Because the general fund would have to be the one to actually do the bonding for this. But so no impact on the residents, no tax increase necessary, which is why we're taking this approach to it. And Mike said he'll still pick up the leaves. Don't even bring that up. I was close to that. That's right. That's right. You just said we were here a really long time, and they've been waiting. So, we've been along. So, I think that, yeah, we put a resolution forward. To bond this for 10 years. That would be good for 10, I think. So, I want Teresa just to update. There we go. All right. Before you go to the bonding part of it, we need to award this. So, this has been sitting out for a number of months. I would like to ask the board's indulgence to fit this into the agenda for next week. So, we could get this bonded. So, I'll get the resolution into the clerk's office today. And we have to do a bond authorization. So, we can't spend any money on this until we get the authority to bond. So, we can work with bond. Council on that right away as well. Okay. Great. Did we receive confirmation from construction consultants that they're comfortable with that number? Absolutely. Awesome. And the fact they reached out to me yesterday saying, hey, what's happening? Yay. On the low end of price. Oh, they have. Oh, good. That's why we have Teresa. I'm just going to compliment Vinny. Town board had approved by resolution to retain him. He has a lot of experience in these type of buildings. And as a result of working with him, Teresa was able to put out excellent specifications. And as she just stated, review of those responses were pretty much right on target. Right? Right on target. So, it was a good machine moving all the way through to this point. Time is critical right now because our next step in awarding this award is going to be a lot of work. So, we're going to have to get this done. And the reason we're doing this contract would be for construction to consultants to order their building. Yeah. Knowing what's happening in the world today, who knows where steel prices are going to be in three months, six months, et cetera. Obviously, this is a pre-engineered steel building. So, as quickly as we can move, he locks in on the building and then we move forward. Well, Teresa just got an award about how amazing she is. So, it's going to go like this. All right? Thank you. Count on that award-winning ability there. So. This award is getting highway born. It's constructed in two weeks. That's right. It's someone else's job. Once these guys start, you're probably going to see this building up and substantially completed in about four months. You know, they're not going to jump. They're likely not going to mobilize until they get the building ordered at an approximate delivery date. But the way that these building, a lot of these contractors, what they don't want to do is go out there, build a foundation, and now wait months for the building to show up. So, they'll come in. They'll get a ballpark on that. They'll back, say, four weeks, six weeks out, start the site work, get it ready, get the concrete cured, building shows up, and it goes. It's an erective set. Yeah, exactly. So, just really quick, too, I just want to definitely let everybody here know, this is not something we just thought of overnight. This has been something. Okay. It's been years trying to put together. It's been also decades of, and I'm one of them, men actually there struggling, making do in this area. Finally, this is all coming together. This was a commitment, though, two years ago, because when we agreed to build a water tank, you worked excellent in the highway department, you worked top-notch in-step with the water department, and gave up. We had a lot of space at the highway yard, and we built a water tank, but this was all part of the whole give-and-take scenario. Yes, to tie everything in. We're standing on this point. The water department is almost complete. When this is complete, we're going to tie everything together. We're a joint yard there, water and highway now, with their water tank and soon-to-be this yard. And again, I just want to thank everybody here, Anne-Marie, Vinnie, Teresa, Jeanette, the council people, my liaison, Ken, Supervisor Halpin, you guys. You all understand the need and necessity of this. We all came together to find a way where it's not going to be a tax burden to the residents, and I'm just very glad and grateful this is finally about to get in gear. Well, let's add one thing. You're spending over $300,000 for a truck, and now they're going to be protected. There's over a million dollars of equipment sitting in that yard. Yeah. Just so you know, the design of this building and the way that it's going to be locked is going to be keyless. So, you know, if you have a police officer over there that needs to go to the bathroom, he pulls in there. He can get into the, there's a modest lounge area and a bathroom. Boom. You have a cup of coffee, he goes. He's on break. I'm just saying, it's nice to have this type of facility in the waiting river. There's nothing on the west side of it. Exactly. I mean, I don't, you know. Okay. The town of Southampton has fun. Five barns. Five remote barns throughout the township. So, and so just so we're clear, for next week for our resolutions, we need to put one in to remove the existing dilapidated structure. We need to make sure that we get that, whatever mechanism we get that done, to get our bathrooms over there, to make sure that they have a place to be. I'm sure I'll work with engineering, Ken Testa, with this mobile facility unit. As far as the trailer, that might be a whole other discussion. When we get rid of that, I was possibly donating that to maybe a fire department to train or whatever. It has no value. That's a great idea, Mike. Actually. I know there's a few places that have asked. And just to dot the I's and cross the T's of this project, we do have health department approval for this project. And we are now going, we have everything that we need to file for a building permit. So we intend to file for a building permit and give ourselves a building permit. I just want to let you know that this was a project that we were working on. I'm not sure if you can hear me. I'm not sure if you can hear me. I'm not sure if you can hear me. I'm not sure if you can hear me. I'm not sure if you can hear me. I think this was all prediscussed prior to going through this. But there will be no stone unturned with this project. Are you ready to go? Yeah. Yeah, we are. That's really good. Thanks, Vinny. What are you waiting for? Can he get this project done? Trouble's going on the ground. So I'm going to work with Anne Marie and Theresa on the bond authorization amount. Normally, just so you know, we authorize bonds for a higher amount so that we don't have to go back and amend anything. Yeah, exactly. Hopefully, we won't go up that high ever. but just so you know don't freak out when you see that i think we should do our standard construction contingency at minimum yeah okay oh and just so you know within this contract with consultants which is a contingency item so there is fifty thousand dollars in this contract right now that should there be a change order because we need to move something around it's already in the contract and it would just be a matter of hey give us what you need and it's not going to be a resolution of the town board should any of that money not be used that's a credit so it's going to be fifty thousand dollars less it's something i've done with other municipalities it's just to your point it just streamlines the process you know you gotta you don't want to see a change your back for twenty five thousand dollars it's just a matter of hey give us what you need and five hundred bucks because you know we're gonna we want a thicker chain you know i mean it gets to a point where that's really smart vinnie i i just that's great thank you very much thank you everybody exciting time i am very excited thank you you all you almost might raise a pothole on um i know you you know you caught him there right now
we'll get out of the truck thank you everybody thank you our next item will be resolutions with deputy supervisor devin higgins and she's going to read them so fast
do i normally read them too fast oh okay i gotta stretch my legs yes okay all right if the board's ready we'll get started
affirmative yeah okay resolution number one sewer district capital project number eight two two one zero budget adjustment for biosolids facility and we have Tim Allen the sewer superintendent here this is just moving some funds from contingency to the construction line but Tim can come up and just expand upon it a little further
what we're doing is moving from our contingency budget items into our regular sewer improvements for this because what happened was it was bid out over two years ago and the prices have gone up the total price of the contract hasn't gone up okay as of yet I don't like that word are you had to sit over two hours to tell you that okay all right we'll see thank you sir number two budget transfer for 2025 legal fees the number listed is 60,000 but I'm told from accounting and from legal that we need to the board is amenable change it from 60 to 60 six to cover additional legal fees I think the board was sent an email about that so if everybody's comfortable with that I understand what the transfer was for with legal fees I meant it as tonight about that
so every year we have I guess I just come up really quick every year you go through through a budget verse actual report and we find money for line items like this legal fees is usually one almost every year since I've been here where we've gone over it's based on current lawsuits that are pending grievances for CSEA it's a bunch of different cases essentially so we have money in the 25 budget to cover this essentially these are invoices that relate to 2025 so we finalize our bills around this time of year they all have to be processed by March 31st and we often use them for things like this one-off one-off one-off one-off one-off one-off one-off one-off one-off one-off one-off one-off one-off one-off to the budget versus this one that's not favorable. This is just a repetitive budget adjustment we pretty much do every year. So we have to raise it to 66 just because there were a few invoices included in the 26 invoices and we missed those. So it's now 66,000 that we need to adjust for. But it's not an increase overall to the budget. It's being covered elsewhere. I believe we're covering it from the retirement line from the general fund. So. Okay. Thank you. Questions? Okay. Thanks. Okay. Resolution number three adopts budget adjustment for children's adaptive playground capital project 72404. This is 20,000 coming from grant money moving over to professional services. Four ratifies acceptance of donation of roses for senior center. Number five adopts town and riverhead petty cash policy. Just what I say about this one. This is a budget adjustment. This is a great catch. It was brought to my attention, our attention, all of us that there was no policy before this. We're so glad to be able to put this in place to keep it in mind. So thank you. Resolution number six increase of petty cash account for the Riverhead Parks and Recreation Department and assigns the custody of the petty cash account. Resolution number seven amends resolution 2026-161. Second? Second? Second? Second? Second? Second? Second? Second? Second? Second? Second? Second? Second? Second? Second? Second? Second? Second? Second? Second? Second? Second? Second? Second? Second? Second? Second? Second? Second? Second? under consideration for you guys. I think it was during the first meeting in January, and if you recall, we tabled these resolutions. So just from a clerical perspective, it's my understanding these resolutions were reentered, so they've been kind of created in duplicates. So we're going to probably, we'll speak to the clerks, but I think it'll be cleaner if we untable, and we're correct if we untable what you guys previously tabled. But more to the point, on page 50 in your packet today, so in resolution number 8, there's a chart included in there. The level that's listed there is reflective of a future level. Do you have a copy of it, Ashley? I know you gave us copies, but we left them upstairs inadvertently. But the level that's listed on your chart there is all going to be changed down one level. So, for instance, the top one says level 6. It's going to go down to level 5. Resolution number 8. How come it keeps, like... It seems to be ongoing, like, why can't we get a resolution with the actual figures in it? So Recreation made the change. They just didn't, it just didn't save properly when they made the change. So we caught it this morning. We spoke to Recreation this morning. And your packet that you have on Tuesday, when you guys go to vote on it, will reflect the correct level. Anything further on that, I think Ashley can answer more succinctly than I can. Do you have any questions for Ashley? Do you want to come up? Can you come up here, Ashley? Would you mind? Thanks.
We know you just stepped up, like, kind of running the whole department now, but it's just simple. We're just asking, because we spoke to Ray earlier on in the year, they were inaccurate, so he was going to change them, and then he submitted them, and they were wrong. So we postponed it and submitted them again. I don't know if this is the work of Ray or whatever, or if we're finally, you're going to get us, we're putting our faith in you to get us straightened out. Yeah. So the original one was put in based on what we had done in the past year after year. We changed the rate. Not all the rates were changed, but most reflect minimum wage, the salary chart that you have. So that was changed for 2026 in the initial one, which also was then mirrored in the staff chart that was put there. So their levels every year usually went up a level, just like how we get a step in our stuff. That was tabled. So then we put it back in, reverting everyone back to their 2025 level. So it would basically be the same that they were making last year. So we put that back in after discussion with the supervisor and other personnel. So that also wasn't agreed upon to match this salary chart going back to their original level. So then I made this chart go back to 2025. So now it's the same as the 2025 chart, except for this recreation aid one has changed to meet the minimum wage of $17 that New York State has changed to. So that's the only change with the levels. The levels are all still the same. So now the people who are being passed are 2025 levels. This chart is the same except for that title, and they're all back to 2025 rates that they were making last year. Sorry. You're good. All right. Thanks for handing it out. I don't want to see it again either. Okay. Thanks, Ashley. Number nine, set salaries for 2026, call in in seasonal recreational personnel. And number 10, appoints a call-in park attendant to the recreation department. Number 11. Call-in personnel one, set salaries for call-in seasonal recreation. Are those numbers correct? They will be on Tuesday. This one also not currently correct, or is it? Number? Number 10. Nine. Set salaries for 2026 call-in and seasonal recreation personnel. So are these ones incorrect, or these are the corrected ones also? My understanding from Ashley this morning is these are correct. Yeah. The other ones I copied. Number nine is correct. Eight is the one that was incorrect. Correct. Okay. So I think we are way to 10. Are we all good with 10? Yeah. Yep. Okay. Number 11. Appoints a call-in park attendant to the recreation department. Number 12. Appoints a call-in assistant recreation leader to the recreation department.
Number 13. Appoints an account clerk to the finance department. Going from provisional to permanent. Number 14. Provisionally appoints an ordinance inspector. Number 15. Appoints Douglas Borge to the town of Riverhead emerging technology. Second. 16 reappoints Richard wines to landmarks preservation commission 17 reappoints Kelly sugar to the landmarks preservation committee 18 reappoints James McMahon man mcmannan to the landmarks preservation committee 19 reappoint Stephanie bail to the landmarks preservation committee 20 reappoints Joe Petrucelli to the landmarks preservation commission 21 reappoints Peter Lucas to the landmarks preservation commission to reappoints Alta endelman to the landmarks preservation committee 23 amends Riverhead Water District schedule of rates and charges 24 Joe Petrucelli to the landmarks preservation commission 25 !
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