Full Transcript

Thank you. Good morning everybody. Today is Thursday, June 11th and the Knicks won last night on a last second shot. We're very excited about that, but we're more excited to join you for a work session today and we'll begin with the Pledge of Allegiance. And Councilman Kern is going to lead us in that. Thank you so much. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Supervisor, if I may hijack your meeting for one second while this photo is up here. This is where the live music is going to be on June 25th. Very excited about that. yeah that was great stuff so with that does anyone else have any other announcements do you want to give a time for that that did you know the time of six o'clock it's a Thursday evening and town clerk Jim Wooten has sponsored a 60s band to come and play music this is a free event so everyone is welcome however you just do need a beach permit to park in the parking lot but we hope to see a lot of people there I think it's going to be very well attended the last one was was great and I think this one's gonna be even better so on behalf of the Beach Committee we are ecstatic to be able to host this event for our town. Sunday is Duck Pond Day everybody go down to Wading River it's a great fun event and also it's flag day so please remember the day flag day and also the Elks Club is having the Elk Lodge rather is having their flag day ceremony as well on Sunday at 1230 thank you anyone else so there are fireworks at the South Jamesport Beach once again July 4th we're trying to activate as many spaces as we can and so and you can still apply for a float on July 4th for a grand parade but don't miss all the details for that online we're excited about all those wonderful things and with ending our announcements we'll move right into our open sessions open session and our first one is if we're ready mr. nice we have matters surrounding introduction of textile recycling and the possible addition of a position of recycling coordinator in the engineering department and councilwoman Mary field and our engineers rut and Dillingham are here for for to present for that so take it away I wanted to first let you mention mr. right about the on Saturday with the compost just you want to tell everybody yeah so we've been selling composters online and on Saturday the residents can come and pick up their purchased composters or rain barrels at the yard waste facility on Young's Avenue that's great and also moving right into that there's another topic you wanted to talk to everybody about. Do you want the handout or? Another way to recycle. So this is a textile recycling and this company. It's on our. Oh you have it? Okay. So this company they've they're around in multiple other towns and so for every pound that you collect in here. The town receives 10 cents. So every month the town will receive a check for however many pounds we've collected. They take all sorts of clothing if they're soiled. The only thing they don't take is if it's wet or moldy because that really degrades the textiles. They'll take shoes, pretty much everything that you would normally throw away. It can be either recycled and sold to thrift stores or another way they deal with it is downcycling, which they can use the textiles, transform it into insulation for buildings and other sorts of things like that. So if a clothing is torn or tethered in any way, it still can go in here. So it's not being like reworn or repurposed. It's being, I guess maybe it is repurposed. Yeah, yeah. Shredded. Yeah, so they can turn it into insulation. They also, they have three different categories. So they recycle it, they do textile to textile, and then they have a pile for thrift stores. So if the clothing is good enough, they will sell it to thrift stores like Goodwill and other places like that. But again, the town does receive 10 cents a pound on all the textiles, and it keeps the textiles from going into the landfill, which they don't degrade. They stay there for a very long time. I think this is great because, as Councilman Rappo was just saying, sometimes you have clothes that you just can't donate. You know, they're just not nice enough, and they're ripped and just soiled, and you don't want to donate them. But instead of throwing them out in the garbage and adding to the weight to our garbage, helping the taxpayers, we put it here, and that we actually make money on this. Yeah, so it's not going to be a lot of money. It's going to be something, and it decreases the load of our solid waste. Exactly, and other towns have put it towards small groups like the PTA for the schools or maybe some kind of youth sports league. you know there's lots of options that you could use the money for because it's really not going to be a whole large sum there you also get two points for climate smart this is part of the recycling program for public places and spaces so it's another why that's important is it helps us with grants yes exactly the climate smart once I forget bronze we can get we're qualified for more grants opportunities well it may not add to our income the biggest thing is we have all across Long Island we have a solid waste problem coming we really do it's a tremendous problem everybody in their houses needs to we need to work together as an island as a community because it's happening it's happening in real time with a Brookhaven dump being you know set to close you know lose their kind of where they're going so it's this is this is huge everything everything we can do you know crumbs make loaves and this is kind of very useful so one more last little thing they maintain the boxes ten feet around the whole space so they keep it clean and I've heard really good things from other towns that they've had success with this they check it once per month and make sure everything's clean and tidy and the bins actually have electronic sensors that will notify them before it gets full so they can come out and service it. Where do you want to place this? I'd like to place it either at like the senior center or the George Young Community Center or possibly the yard waste facility next to like the other electronic recycling and that kind of stuff there i was going to ask the same question can we do sorry about that um i just think we need to spread it out around the town so for example bayberry park in waiting river there's just there's a large volume of housing surround that park so if somebody i just don't want somebody to feel that they have to travel all the way you know right central riverhead right yeah if it's in that i think it just makes it easier for the you know resident and potentially may get more donations that's a good point um then the yard waste facility is kind of more centralized to you know all of Riverhead maybe that's a good spot or possibly like at a park like you were saying Bayberry yeah I mean I totally agree I mean we because we're really spread out right so I mean we should I would like to see a map but where we're gonna go Stotsky Park is good wherever we get a lot of people congregating are we limited to how many of these we can have in the town um so they they cost the company four thousand dollars each and they do have some available I when I spoke to him we said we'd start with one and if we have success we can add another one so you know there is um room to grow there it's like to our planning department see where the traffic patterns of people going through that's really because it's traffic pattern yeah where people are normally going and where they're headed so they could they could make the drop we do have code um on these where they're allowed to be they're allowed in the drc zone and the bc zone so um i think that if we keep them on town property locations that that would be sufficient would that be correct greg i mean it would be the armory on 58 great great you come up here so people can hear you at home that's a good point I mean, just speaking about traffic patterns and keeping things central, I mean, 58 would make sense. We own the property at the armory. There is that parking lot right up front where you don't need to open up the back. That would make sense. The most heavily trafficked corridor in the town, town-owned property, would seem like a logical spot. The only problem to me with that is that the armory is kind of a dead zone. I don't disagree with you because it's smart to get in the proximity to 58. Is there any other location? I mean, a supermarket would be great because people are in and out all the time. Yeah. I mean, those are privately owned. So to Councilwoman Woski's point, if it's on town-owned property, if it's a town-sponsored project, I think that's a lot cleaner than putting something that's a town project on private property. I can look at other, you know, I'll rummage through the old brain bin up here and try to think of some other locations. But that's just one that jumped out to me initially. Yeah, because to Cosm and Rothwell's point, I mean, you know, we're so spread out, right, that I could see one in at least three different hamlets. Yeah, absolutely. Maybe four. And to your point, we don't pay for this. No, these are entirely free to the town. So it's a win-win for both the town and the company. I just want to make sure everybody heard when you said it cost $4,000. Oh, sorry. Not the taxpayers. For them to build these boxes. You can get them co-branded so they can have a ton of Riverhead logos on them. That sounds great. Yeah. And it would be helpful not to compete with, you just brought up the Salvation Army. Yes. You know, it's like they do phenomenal things. Absolutely. And this can take things that the Salvation Army might not want to take, like worn-out shoes, shirts with holes in them. With clothing. purses that are destroyed, ripped clothing, exactly, all that. I just threw my purse out yesterday. It's so true. Like how many pairs of old sneakers do you have that are eaten out? And what do you do with them? You throw them away. Yeah, exactly. It's a great program. I'm going to add to one thing you said, you know, with what's going on with clothing recycling. They are, you know, insulation, yes, and the other thing that's happening is they're now shredding cotton and then turning it back into thread. that's a textile to textile recycling yeah I got elected to know these things great stuff thank you and so what we're not done well we're doing great but yeah for now for now but the possible addition Denise if you want to swing right into that okay in the past the town has had a grant for a recycling coordinator but they're the salary we haven't been able to cover the entire salary but it's come to our attention as the coordinator with the sanitation department and through the climate smart committees that we really do need a recycler a coordinator in the town and it's a pretty complicated complicated job has a lot of requirements to it and we do have the grant and I'd like Joe to explain the real necessity and drew to explain the real necessity for why this is important for our town so our solid waste management plan we were required to reduce our solid waste to the landfills by 2030 and by promoting this job opportunity we can facilitate that by public outreach and promotions and they also will implement other strategies that will combine with our solid waste management plan to foster internal government recycling coordination so the food scrap program so the food scraps you want to talk about that true the food scrap program Oh the food strap program like the coordinator it's like the coordinator it's really key to our whole program because um education is very very important to the entire community as well as to the town as as um a single entity yeah i definitely agree i think that to councilwoman maryfield's point she's been been bringing this up is is that the solid waste problem we have and she said you know we have the grant to subsidize it somewhat but it is it's a it's a real issue it's gonna take the burden off of so many things if we can continue to not have you you know the great work that you're doing with all of these programs from the recycling buckets at home I know that we can engage more but we need someone to be running point on that you know five days a week really in helping us to do that so there's so many more things in the food scrap program that we whether it's here at our town hall or with the school district, but we need to expand that. Exactly, yes. Can I get a job description of that person? I was just going to say, Joe, if you explain what the person was doing. So there's kind of two different sections in there. There's a lot of education and public outreach that they'll be doing, so advertising, mailers, brochures, website, coordination with IT. They'll do different signs and displays and giveaways, things like that, to promote the education of recycling and how important it is for the island as a whole. The other aspect of it is more planning and monitoring the recycling coordination and the local program. They are also going to develop educational and promotional tools, implement recycling outreach strategies, establish monitoring and improving recycling markets, tracking and reporting. That's the thing that involved a lot of requirements, administrative requirements, that the two of you can't handle on top of what you're doing already. So if you just go into the administrative requirements, that helps you with. And then we can also, they'll be able to help us with our yard waste facility and selling all sorts of different things with that. It's a full-time position? Yes, absolutely. You just speak of the grant process, I believe, paid for potentially half the position? Yes. So we say you're matching costs. So we've applied for it and received it two years, but we had to deny it both years because we were not able to fill the position. So we recommend that we put the posting out for the job position and then apply for the grant. And the application, you have to apply for it every year, and the window is August, September, and October. I'm sorry, one more point, Bob. There's a lot of criteria and individual needs for this particular job. Absolutely. Could you define that for us? I'm sorry. Tell us what those were. I think it was a BA or some other. there was several years of experience like the criteria in order to qualify for the grant the position I believe I don't have it here but I believe when we spoke before it was the four years experience and a bachelor's degree environmental science yeah it's a pretty involved degree and it's it it has an awful lot of tests that they'd be assigned to with regard to recycling all through the town like we said with the composting with the yard waste with the food scraps with clothing bins with all different types of recycling that they would be responsible coordinating through the town right also substitute work experience for college experience or school experience but it did it did require several years of experience at the title right and yes it's not an easy It isn't an easy job to fill, I understand. It's not a lot of people have all the criteria needed. Right. Towns have always heard looking at it different ways in different towns, but it would also be someone who would need to be at, like, our Live on 25s and our different events to do the community outreach so that people would be aware of what programs we have in the town. Do you have another question? Yeah, I have a question. So are we required by the grant to hire them full-time? Yes. Yes, it is a full-time position. I will pay 50% of their salary and 50% of their work needs to be associated with the recycling coordinator. All right. Is there a cap on that matching grant? Up to $2 million. So we can hire a recyclable coordinator for $4 million? Yes. I don't recommend that. I'll apply. And to be clear, we don't have the grant this year. Well, we don't have it, no. they and the window to apply is August September and October so you have to apply each year to receive it so if we do hire someone it is you know you might not get the grant possibly the following year do we apply for the grant first and then post the position based on the that's what we've done in the past and we weren't able to fill the position and we had to deny the grant and that doesn't it's not great for our grant writers to just deny any grant is just not a down money yeah exactly we don't like to do that so but if we don't then we can hire somebody it may cost the town $100,000 and we might not get the grant exactly there's a risk involved I mean I mean and I wanted to bring that up that's a huge risk for us what is the salary what what is that salary pay the sixties okay okay and then you had mentioned like advertising the supervisor mentioned like being at alive on 25 right is the advertising an additional it's going to be an additional cost that's not going to be covered by the grant actually so it does cover specific things towards those grants so there's ineligible ineligible costs here that they list some so cost of items not primarily used for waste reduction reuse or recycling so if we had you know storm water event we wouldn't be able to pay for use money from the grant towards that so what's what's the addition over the salary that monies that we can use I believe it's what's the budget well don't we get to use well the cap is two million so I'm not I mean I would be helpful for me to make a decision to on and I understand where you're going Joe I mean this is I don't expect you to have all the answers right now but I would like to know and I think it's incredibly risky to hire the position and then not get the grant and then you know we're paying a salary of sixty thousand and there aren't a lot of recycling coordinators in other towns around the on the island so the likelihood that we received the grant this year is this high as time goes on and more recycling coordinators are hired are hired in other towns then the likelihood that they have the funds to grant oh yeah spread it out it decreases so that's why we received it two years in a row without even having someone hired because it's very likely that we will get the grant I think the thing just to I understand everyone's concerns but the thing I just want to bring forth to everyone is moving forward there are real problems with waste collection and this is one this is a one solution you know I mean it would be good even to just get applicants and then before we even you know we can set a start date apply and then have them start once the grant is granted or just that this is just brainstorming maybe this isn't the spot for it but but there's other solutions there there's definite concerns when they discuss it here I think there's there's so much to think about but it is a growing a growing need and if we and you're right it's it's not even how to solve it it's just a carve out of one section of it our solid waste problem is much bigger than this absolutely I think we can do is like Sunni Stony Brook has a sustainability program they have periodic events like environmental events they have what's ceremonies for students that are doing great work. It's sponsored by many different waste management companies. They provide these students and they also provide help for tuition grants and other things. There's an ongoing series. I think that maybe if we're proactive in terms of instead of just putting it on our website and hoping for response, that we could reach out to Stony Brook for their sustainability program and begin to attend some of these events and let them know that there's potentially a position available and what it entails. And that just seems to be like more proactive as opposed to just posting it on our website or something and waiting for a response. You go out there and say we've created this program, look at it, and I think you might find a lot more interest from students, especially coming right out of the college level, that they're having a bachelor degree in sustainability, which is great and you can reach out. One question I have, though, is if we receive this grant, what is the duration of the grant? So is this an initial startup, a one-time 50% match, or how many years does it cover? So you apply for it every year. So it only lasts one year. You apply for it every year. And I think you can apply for it indefinitely. Okay. Have they been favoring those that have already created the positions? Have you seen that they keep those positions ongoing, or is it a starter? I did ask that question yesterday to some of the state leaders, and they said that they feel like because of the move that we're doing, because the solid waste problem is such a big problem that the best answer they can give me is we believe that's going to be a possibility for the state, but that's also depending on if that state leadership is still there. So I think it's a matter of, you know, that's a great question. But I can say I'm great. You are going to thank you Councilman Merrifield for working on this because I do believe and I have advocated that Riverhead is behind some of the other towns in terms of like when you go out to Southampton and other surroundings there are multiple recycling stations and areas in which they're taking in cardboard by that you know and the residents are really I mean I know there's lines out the door sometimes and I think so this is a great way to get things going it's you know it just showed you know multiple avenues but I think recycling coordinator is definitely needed to get us to the next level there's in the long run it's about in protecting the environment and then And it can become a cost savings as well because in terms of just us participating, we started here in our own town hall to recycling our cardboard and plastic and things like that. So we're leading. But I think in the end it can become a cost savings and environmental protection as well. Yeah, at the very beginning of the year when I met with Bob, he talked about even the screening of the material. There's so many areas that we can improve on. I have another question. And I have to say, Councilman Rothwell, you're the one that started the recycling program in the town. But my question is, do we know for a fact, like, some of the plastic that we're collecting has value, has value to recyclers. Are we taking it there? Is it getting commingled? You know, I would like to know where that stuff is going. It's just like we sell cardboard, right? We should be selling that plastic that has a resale value as well. Do we know, does Suffolk Community College have a program? That's question one. A program for the recycling coordinator? Well, just environmental science. I'm not certain. It's okay, Joe. I don't expect. Now, has anybody reached out to the Riverhead High School to see if they're doing any education over there? No. I have not reached out to the high school, but we have done recycling and stormwater education and food waste education for the elementary schools. I've gone there and presented. Given their food waste, and I know they have some greenhouses outside of the high school on the north side. Given their food waste, maybe they need to be educated in dealing with their food waste as opposed to bringing – we don't pick it up anymore, do they still? So I think that we're reengaging now. This town is going to pick up their food waste. They're not going to deliver it to us. I need to know that. So I met with the superintendent, and I met with our B&G, and I offered that I would be doing it if they couldn't do it, and so that we could make sure. And the superintendent and I are going to be doing it together at first to model that program for them. So you and the superintendent are going to be doing it, not the town employees? Well, we offered it to them, and so we just want to make sure we're not going to get a grievance and that they um that's one of the reasons we want to bring this person on is is being able to expand that to the other schools and do that so yeah but a town employee is picking up the food waste so they did it before and i talked to the bng guys and they said during the weeks that they could do it they would be doing it but if it became something that it was burdensome or the overtime that they wouldn't do it that i would be doing it myself so you're going to go and pick up up the garbage but here's the thing i mean we're using town resources to do work for the school and we did do it in the past and we stopped because the guy who had your job prior was spending half a day every single friday picking up food waste and we absolutely put an end to it when we found out about it we have put an end to it too because the food scraps was probably the heaviest material and which was going into the school district dumpsters and so forth and so when we engage in the school scraps program it was a significant savings to the school district okay on what they had to pay to have the dumpsters but we wanted the school district to engage and say okay what was happening is the school districts were picking it up at Aquebaq bringing it to the high school and then they were going you know to Riley Avenue and everything and and they had it in their truck and they were going over and then they were dropping it all off and piling up at the high school and then we were paying somebody to go to high school I'm like you just drove right by our Young's Avenue facility like why didn't you just simply deliver it there and why why were we engaging in and paying a town employee to do that when the savings is definitely in the best interest of the school district for what they were saving on their pickup fees. So that's why the superintendent and I talked about it, and we're going to look at that together. He's just come on, and so we want to do that. And then when the school comes back in the fall, we want to have a plan to have a partnership together for that. So that's really kind of where it's at. It's a great thing to expand the food waste program, though, this food scrap program. Yeah, it would be great if the school would take on, I mean, they can do it right on their grounds. you know they have you know I mean why aren't we teaching to do that I mean here's my problem my problem is that the taxpayers in this town pay our employees to work for this town and I do not want to see employees working for this town and these taxpayers are paying school taxes working for the school on top of that I mean that was our firm discussion yeah they should be covering the cost because they're driving right from Riley Avenue. They're going right by the Young's Avenue facility to deliver it to their high school, and it was like it just didn't make sense. They already had it loaded in their truck, delivered it to us, and then it becomes part of our program. For us to send B&G employees over to load up was not cost effective. My frustration is not against what this program is trying to do, but we have a responsibility to taxpayers who are paying school taxes, and they're paying town taxes and now we're using town taxes to do what the school should be doing which is absolutely unacceptable for me I think that we've gotten a little bit off topic because we're talking about recycling and I'm glad that this got unearthed you know because we stopped this in the past and we need to make sure it doesn't continue in the future this is a great position I think it has great value again especially environmental and and it's going to get us those points. And I think that we've discussed this for the past two, three years, and I think that we have to take the bold step and move forward and get it done. At least that's my thoughts. Thanks, Joe, for bringing it forward. So do we want to move forward with this? Do we want to move forward with this specific company? That's what we're saying, right? We're going to go with Mark Cooke. Thank you very much. I think that's a really good idea. I hope we can get more than one bin at some point. I'll speak to him and see. I just want to say that Drew and Joe especially, you've been phenomenal. Thank you. And with the Climate Smart Committee and everything and helping move things forward, the half-shell program, all this stuff, you've been a fantastic addition to the town. Thank you. Thank you very much. Great work. Thank you, guys. Thank you. Thank you, Joe. Joe is great on Merging Technology Committee. Yeah, I have something for that, actually. Our next matter is matters surrounding discussion of lot coverage as a follow-up to recent public hearing and proposed amendments. Perfect service. Bergman, we're going to have you stand up here. Councilman, Rothwell has asked that we table that. We have the business advisory committee who had initially prepared a write-up as a committee as a whole. We submitted. We had a work session. Great work. Great interactive back and forth. And from what I understand, you've made some potential adjustments to it. And I just would ask that it go back to the committee first for them to kind of, you know, just to honor the work that they're doing, give it back to them, let them review it, and comment on the, you know, proposed changes, you know, if there are any and so forth. So I just think that I just don't want to, I never want to circumnavigate around a committee. I know you're not directly doing that. You're following up, which is great. So if you don't mind, if we can just put it to the committee and let them review it and comment on what they think the proposed changes are. And then absolutely have you back here and kind of go over everything. And then we just compare what your proposal would be and what the thoughts of the committee would be on it. So if you wouldn't mind, I'd like to put the discussion off. That's at the discretion of the board. You want to do that? That's fine. Yeah, I agree. Thank you. So since you're not going anywhere, that's why I let you come up. Is matters surrounding amendments to the uses of business PB zoning use district? All right. So as the board will recall, about two months ago, it was before the board, there was an application to establish an esthetician's office at a property on Roanoke Avenue, which was previously a medical office. Right now the way the business PB zoning use district, which is generally described as Roanoke Avenue, east and west sides, basically from Northville Turnpike almost up to 58. Right now it essentially allows a wide range of professional offices and it lists about 20 different types of professional offices within that business PB zoning code. Now, the way our professional office is defined in the zoning code is defined as the office of a member of a recognized profession maintained for the conduct of that profession and enumerates a nearly identical list to that which is contained within business BB. But it also has a caveat in that definition that says any other professional office determined by resolution of the town board to have similar impacts to those listed above. So that function right there, you know, by resolution of the town board, that's why the esthetician's office came before the board for a resolution finding that the operation and nature and the impacts of that esthetician's office were similar to those professional offices listed. Now, the building department received a use permit application. There was an application submitted for a property at 1018 Roanoke Avenue, which was previously the Hoag Dentist's office. So it is a developed commercial site. there's plenty of parking on site, you know, it was previously a professional medical office, that application was seeking to establish a hair treatment studio, which is not explicitly defined, but it's effectively a hair salon. Now, hair salon or hair treatment studio is not listed under that list of professional offices. I do note that it is listed specifically in the definition of personal services. Now, personal service is defined within our code. It lists a number of uses, including fitness studios, for example, yoga, Pilates, dance, martial arts, and other exercise or movement-based services, beauty services, including hair salons, barber shops, nail salons, spa treatments, massage therapy, non-medical services, personal coaching, example, life coaching, personal trainers, esthetician and skin care services, fortune telling or psychic readings, cultural or educational studios including art studios music lessons language schools pet grooming services dry cleaner laundry excluding laundromat type operations in which the public has direct access to laundry machines or again any other use of the zoning office or determines to be similar in nature to those listed above so the those uses within personal services are generally low impact they're not noxious you know there's no outdoor storage or noise generally odor light etc so instead of placing the onus essentially on zoning officer at me at this current time or any potential future zoning officer rather than coming back for the board every time for these sort of determinations and resolutions before the town board I brought this to code revision and recommended adding personal services initially I had recommended it as a permitted use through a discussion to the code revision office it was recommended to include them as a specially permitted use with the exception of dry cleaning your laundry just because I mean again that's the only sort of like I don't want to call it an industrial use but you know there may be some odors as use of chemicals there that's the only one that's a little dissimilar so essentially adding the adding we would propose to add personal services except dry cleaning your laundry services to the specially permitted uses within the business PB corridor. And then while we are delving into the business PB corridor, there's a little bit of cleanup and we want to add some additional residential uses to the business PB corridor. So back in 2022, the town board adopted a code amendment to allow one family dwellings for whatever reason that somehow got lumped into right now. The code says a permitted use is professional offices of one family dwelling that obviously should have just been a separate one family dwelling should have been a permitted use not sort of buried within professional offices and then in furtherance of some of the recommendations of the comp plan to increase opportunities for housing recommend since we already allowed single-family dwellings allow apartments on upper floors you know a lot of these existing structures on Roanoke Avenue they're all existing single-family residents that were converted to you know some type of ground floor office use in the case where someone wanted to convert a second floor you know unusable space to an apartment that would be a permitted use it does it makes logical sense I mean it's a county court you know County Road plenty of carrying capacity to accept a couple of you know apartments on the upper floors it's sewers so the sanitary density is not an issue they have sewer connection So to just sort of clean that up, and we have had some inquiries about apartments on upper floors along the business PB corridor. There are some that currently exist legally that were created prior to the business PB professional office corridor. And again, just to sort of open up some housing opportunities along the corridor. It makes perfect sense. I have one question, Greg. when you when you said special permitted use are you on page two like fitness studios what requires a special permit so any type of personal service yeah this was this was the recommendation of the code revision committee can I ask why I'm just curious because when I look at these lists of these uses here why would it be why wouldn't it just be am I am I looking at this frankly so in other where as I'm looking right here, these would require a special permit? So there were some concerns, again, not that the uses in and of themselves are generally noxious or offensive. It is a sort of transitional corridor. You do have residential properties essentially right off of the Roanoke Avenue corridor. So there was maybe some concern that if one of these types of uses wanted to come in, maybe there would be a need to limit the hours of operation, which there is some provisions in the special permit review by the town board, to consider an application before them and determine if there are needs for any sort of safeguards. Again, that was how that, the nexus for why that went to a recommended special permit. I mean, again, if the board disagrees, you know, I had no issue. Like I said, when I initially drafted this, I didn't find that any of those types of uses, I mean, personal coaching, esthetician, art studio, you know, to me these didn't seem like really offensive. permit. Again, that was the recommendation from coming out of the code revision committee. So I, you know, it went through the process. It went to code revision based on the conversations we had. The recommendation was to put it as a special permit. Again, nothing's written in stone at this point. If the board finds it, again, that is an extra step. It would be an extra step that an applicant would have to come in. And again, if someone was converting an existing residence that hadn't been a prior commercial use, they would have to come in for a site plan. So the site plan would have to be designed, they'd have to provide parking, landscape buffers, so those things would be handled as a function of site plan. But for this immediate example in the case where the old Hogue dental office is looking to convert to a hair salon studio, that could be done. If it's a special permit, it would be an extra step. If the board puts it in as just a permitted use, in a situation like that where it's an existing commercial site, it could really just be handled as a function of an issuance a building permit and a use permit that's where i think the one thing i was going to mention that a topic that came up in code vision is but you just don't want to see maybe it flooded with five tattoo parlors next to a doctor's profession five tattoo parlors with a doctor's office right there maybe the doctor's office wouldn't appreciate having that kind of business five in a row on that same corridor right i believe so that's sort of the idea for the special permits so we're not I mean, I'm not inundating it with a certain type of use that maybe you don't want to have 5,000 or 16, you know. So in a sense, when you, you know, if you, by saying something is a specially permitted use within that zoning district, yes, you do have the opportunity to review an application. And if there are provisions, I mean, it's probably more of a legal question, but I think you'd be hard pressed. In the case where all of a sudden Roanoke Avenue was going to be Tattoo Central, I don't know that there's a real legal basis to deny it because, oh, we already have three or four other tattoo parlors. I mean, that might not really stand a challenge in the scenario where that came to pass. My concern is at what point you got 23 items on the list here. Like at what point, you know, now somebody else could say, you know, in the world of AI, computer consultants, marketing, media companies, where you may just have, you know, one or two people sitting at a desk, a computer terminal, but designing, you know, print ads and things like that or, you know, building and designing websites as we become more and more computer. And I'm just wondering, like, when you go down the list, there's going to be hundreds of businesses that don't necessarily fall within this. At what point are we confusing the process and saying, well, you're not on this list, so you can't do it, you can't. And it's very, at what point do we take this list and say, maybe this should be written that it's just what is low-impact designs, you know, based on, you know. I can even attribute it to a hair salon saying, well, there are some people that may only have, you know, one or two chairs. and so it's going to be very minimal traffic as opposed to a hair salon that may have 30 chairs you know and it's a large traffic design you know like I just think at what point by by individually starting to list like you know occupations and businesses I think it's going to be too many that simply don't fall under these specific titles that we should really be focusing more what is the actual use is it an office use is it more of you know low impact low traffic use that would qualify as opposed to actually listing you are a put bookkeeper or you are an artist but oh you're a media company you can't go there I just you know I mean that's I mean and the fact that it does seem sort of kind of overbearing but the business PB zoning district frankly instead of listing out all of these could for all intents it could just say professional office or office. I don't think we necessarily have to list every one. A financial advisor that sits down one-on-one. It's not on this list. So is a financial advisor's office going to be a bigger impact than a bookkeeper or an accountant? I don't think so. This is the sort of the rub of what's called Euclidean zoning, where you have just lists of permitted uses. This town board is not the only board in the country who has had these types of discussions. I mean, there are, you know, when you talk about analyzing impacts and really getting to the root of whether certain uses are appropriate next to certain other uses, for example, commercial next to residential, I mean, that is kind of the fundamental question that, you know, we as planners sort of have to... But is it easier to say, you know, instead of all of these accountants, bookkeeping, investment engineers, could you simply say office setting with no less than you know 10 employees or you know 10 visits that could say we could just say professional office and office get rid of get rid of that list where everything's and just say professional office and office use that would be going to be you know some people that don't prefer certain titles you know we're in it we're in a day and age where you know and And to your point, it makes it much easier for someone that's looking at a location, and let's say they are a, you know, they're working in AI and they go, oh, can't do it. It's not listed here. And you and I had this discussion, and short of doing SIC codes, I think you have made it even simpler. Professional services, and I think it should be up to the zoning officer, should something come through planning, and then go to the town board and say, look this seems like it's outside of professional services would you entertain this as a special permit right I mean you know some that's that's what I would look at doing to make it because I agree with you wholeheartedly I look at these lists permitted you know not permitted I'm going what the hell I like I like easier I like I like cleaner I like easier I don't like to I mean again you know just noting some of the professional office of an artist I don't necessarily think an artist is a licensed professional practicing that trade so there's but there's also very difference if an artist is simply you know in there and they're they're painting or doing single designs but but it's not a gallery you know I mean the gallery is a much more you know impacted use where you know you're going to have you know events there and so forth but but for somebody you would have hard time convincing me that if somebody was painting you know family portraits or something in there and doing stencil work and all things that that that's going to be a higher impact than you know a bookkeepers office so would the board I mean just based on it would this board like to see just clean up and just we could amend the business PB to just allow permitted uses would be professional office and services office with the board so big the nature of this discussion related to the personal services with the board feel comfortable personal services as a permitted use where, again, there are specific definitions of personal service within the code. If the board's comfortable putting that in as a permitted use, that way it doesn't have to come before the, again, for this specific example where you had an existing commercial site was sold, the hair salon studio that currently has the building permit application could just be permitted to go with just a building permit and a use permit and it would not need an additional application to the board you typically calculate parking spaces based on like even if i'm an office am i a private office with three employees if you're if you're if you're in office it's one spark one parking stall i believe for 200 square feet so yeah i mean if you're in office however much however much floor area you have dedicated to that use i personally think that should be more the focus of like you know what's your intended use number of employees number workstations and how it affects traffic patterns parking you know we have when we go down places like Roanoke Avenue you know there's there's many different offices but some of them are one-on-one and some of them are doctors offices where there's ten people in a waiting room you know and that they're very different impacts so when you're doing when you're reviewing site plans parking is based on usable floor area and I mean I don't want to rehash stuff but the medical office on northern parkway again i i'm not trying to but this is just an example where the the site was reviewed they provided a site plan they had parking calculations it was a single practitioner was sold to a more intense use but yeah they didn't expand the building so you know whether a thousand square feet of floor area has one practitioner or three practitioners it's still a thousand square feet of floor which is how we review a site plan based on you know parking calculations based on square footage so yes i mean to your point if someone came in if they wanted to convert an existing single family residence to an office they'd provide a floor plan they would detail the amount of floor area dedicated to it i don't necessarily agree with coming in and saying well i'm an office and i'm only going to have two employees because, again, when you review a site plan, you have to think about its totality and ensure that it's parked appropriately. So that same office could then get sold or used as another office where they have more employees. So you want to make sure you're parked based on your square footage. The only thing I would just add is the only one I would like to just exempt out of this, I agree, let the personal services go there, but the dry cleaning and all of that, that's the only one that I think that would still happen. So that is, I did. It says it's convenient to just launder that, but the dry cleaners are allowed. All the way to the back page. The number nine. Keep flipping. If you go to page 43 of 401. Keep going. Next page. Keep going. One more. There you go. So the way it was drafted for the purposes of this discussion was personal services except dry cleaner or laundry. so again just those those type of office you know one-on-one client settings your business advisory or the code revision committee do you want these to go back through your committees again just to just to get their eyes on them if making these changes directly obviously affect businesses so I think it's good to it might go to multiple committees yeah this one is advisory committee as well yeah I mean this one's easy and I really I would love to see this done you know and I we've talked about this and I've talked to dawn about this who actually made the recommendation to me that we should really look at well you know what we do like wet and dry and really simplify it all because this is this is an ancient habit this is the way towns did things and you know it's time to get up to so we will so I'll redraft I'll strike the list of professional offices so it'll just be professional offices which is defined in our code clean up the one family dwelling make it clear that that's the permitted use apartments on upper floors and where's the personal services you want to just have a permitted use instead of the special permit unless you unless unless the planning department zoning officer says hey i'd like you guys to review this i think it may qualify for a special permit, you know, and I can't give you a scenario of what that would be. Well, so if it goes, if we put personal services except dry cleaning or laundry services into a permitted use, if someone comes in with something that is not, you know, it's not a fitness studio, any of those non-uses, but again, even personal services does give some discretion to the zoning officer. Exactly. I mean, if they want a gun range, you're going to say, no, I don't even think. I mean, that's not a permanent. That's not a personal. I don't know. I can't think of one right off that would be, you know. It shows gun range? Well, I went to the extreme. I'd like to see the revision. All right. But I have a general understanding of after this. Because some people are very specific about their job titles as well. and like you know and and and it so I think this is beginning a little antiquated trying to list each different things and you know like a bookkeeper I mean when was the last time you went to a bookkeepers office I'm fuel director or an underground engineer yeah she just mentioned a bookie but I know we have an employee here Devon who wants to be a fashion designer they couldn't do it in it so so all right great I think you have here good stuff so our next would be our matters surrounding update on golf cottages and zoning to the TDRs alright so I had to revisit the prior proposal the proposal for the golf cottages last time I was before the board or recommended rezoning the existing golf courses to our a 80 being that they were already receiving district for TDRs looked into a little bit further had some conversation so if we're going to map any new parcels to be TDR receiving districts they have to be mapped with specificity so just rezoning the property to our a 80 still requires a GEIS as I had discussed with the board previously that would have opened up some potential increased development on those golf course parcels in the event they closed, they could essentially double their density with the use of TDR. So just from a practical standpoint, when I was sort of like gaming out what a GEIS would look like and how we would scope that, discussing the growth-inducing impacts of that potential action was a little hard to justify in light of, you know, nothing in the comp plan really speaking to the potential increase of, you know, several hundred housing units. So I sort of went back to the drawing board and instead of rezoning the existing golf course is already 80 coming up with a golf course of zoning use district golf course zoning use district the way I would draft it and the way it would be written the purpose and intent would be to allow for flexibility to support the continued economic success of existing golf courses operating within the town of ripra head by creating the regulatory framework to allow for creation of accessory golf colleges with the use of TDRs while continuing to allow for low density clustered residential development in the event of golf course redevelopment so we would keep the existing dimensional regulations from the two acre zoning use districts there would be no potential under the golf course zoning use district for any increased density of use of tdrs it keeps the essentially the list of permitted uses the same as the apz zoning use district so if a golf course closed they could still do agricultural production one family dwelling A standard golf course would be made a permitted use within the golf course zoning use district, which makes sense in that we would apply this to existing golf courses. That would remove the need for if someone wanted to come in for golf cottages, instead of the expansion of a pre-existing non-conforming use, again, requiring a special permit from the town board. It would make that a permitted use so they could just submit a site plan to the planning board. Keep the same uses. I did put in some standards for golf courses, again, just based on some prior feedback from the public hearing when we last aired golf cottages. So golf cottages would adhere to the following standards. What page do you want? I'm sorry, I want to – The second page. So I'm in 301-119, accessory buildings and structures. Golf cottages shall adhere to the following standards. Cited in a manner that minimizes visibility of structures from public roadways and neighboring properties. No golf cottage shall be constructed unless the cottage is a minimum of 125 feet from a property line. For golf courses which have frontage along Sound Avenue, minimum setback for golf cottages and related improvements, including parking areas, shall be 300 feet from Sound Avenue. And then golf cottages can be freestanding structures or attached units with no more than two attached cottages with common walls separating units. So, again, sort of putting and responding to some of the comments that this was going to result in, like, strip hotel development, hotels, resorts, that sort of thing, keeping it so that there are no more than two attached golf cottages. Put in the language there for 300 feet off Sound Avenue just because, frankly, when Sound Avenue was designated as a scenic and historic corridor, both the 2003 plan and the current plan acknowledge that it never resulted in any concrete protections. So just from my mind, Sound Avenue, is that scenic and historic corridor? If we don't start implementing some protections, I don't really see the point of ever having that designation. When you look at some of the golf courses along Sound Avenue and you just sort of scale out 300 feet off the road, it seems to be that any golf cottage redevelopment would likely be more than 300 feet from Sound Avenue. So I don't see that as a detriment. I just see that as a tool to just really preserve the corridor, which is something that unless we implement regulations, there's no other protections there other than coming to a public hearing and hearing public opposition that maybe leads to redesign. So we did a lot of work and we responded to comments that were made. So the last proposal, so public knows, was 1,200 square feet. It went down in half, 600 square feet. My one question is with the common wall, can they be opened up where two units, two separate entities renting or whatever, could open up a door like a shared use and so forth? It doesn't have to be singly divided. That's not an issue, right? I mean, as long as it meets building code. I'm not a building code inspector, but as long as it meets building code and fire rating, I mean, there would be no issue if, you know, a group, two guys, two groups wanted to, you know, rent a common unit so that they could sort of still have some. And I appreciate you diving deeper in this because, you know, we had intentions of, I think, what we saw, what we wanted to create. But then as the public came forward, they wanted to, like you say, make sure that there wasn't 18 of them in the room or nine on top and, you know, nine of them. And you have a two-story hotel complex. None of that was ever the thought present. but we tightened it down I think just to reassure residents that that was not gonna be the case in here and there was some strict limitations so I think the same goal is at hand we just kind of you tighten it up added a lot of things just to make certain that we didn't step out of bounds at any point I think it's very helpful I think this is really good work I looked at 300 feet which is huge I mean I'm fine with 200 feet and I know you and I discussed this I mean both numbers are arbitrary I understood and but when I calculated 300 feet using a parking lot it's huge you know and I would just like to see it go to 200 and it's going to be screened anyway we're gonna require screening right yeah I mean yeah yeah 300 football fields you have to look at and I can prepare all I can get a little map together and scale it out I can send it out I don't have it in this packet but i see i can scale it out and send it to the board to just identify those golf courses that have frontage on sound avenue to just identify what a 300 foot buffer is you know maybe i've heard you know in my 10 years here i've heard mention of people wanted a 500 foot buffer on sound avenue which again that that's that's a lot um again but i'm trying to sort of be cognizant of existing development, existing property layouts. So I will send to the board just a map of the different golf courses and scale out 300 feet to sort of show you. I love that. I don't think it would be an impediment to any golf course that would seek to do these. Yeah, let's look at that. Because, you know, my motto is you can't move forward into the past. And a lot of stuff that has been done in this town in the past has led us to where we are. And we are sitting as a board to move this town forward. you know and it seems far because it would take Bob three three clips to travel on a golf course 300 feet three hit right through swings as a golfer I'm thinking you know it can go back to farming and I'm thinking about like some of the golf courses how hard they would be to farm you know and again I mean that's that's if these courses closed I mean realistically if they closed they're likely going to go residential development. So you'd have clustered residential subdivision, which, again, would still require open space preservation or preservation of farm soils, which, again, on these existing courses, I'm not really sure what the status of the prime agricultural soils is anymore after the redevelopment or excavation. But, again, that's something that just this is done to just sort of get away from that growth-inducing aspect of potentially allowing double density and the in a worst case scenario the creation of a few hundred extra residential units that weren't really anticipated and the overall goal I'm sorry and the overall goal is to give the golf courses the economic ability to stay golf courses and help the town commercially yeah all right I'm ready to put in a for another public hearing so I will I will provide the board with a sort of time frame because we do have to do a GEIS I would likely recommend rather than having a public hearing on this and then having a public hearing on a GEIS I would look to combine so I'll prepare the EAF I would just recommend issuing the positive declaration and preparing you know starting the scoping process and the GEIS process and then just combine the hearing for the code amendment and the GEIS at one and then just going back to the lot coverage do you want me to send that it is the town board coordinator gonna refer that to the business advisory or would you like me to send that to the business advisory doesn't matter what I was easy for you you can sell it directly all right stop maybe in its way copy if you don't mind yeah absolutely thank you for doing work on that and thank you thank you great job right very good thanks our next open session item is just a matter surrounding the follow-up discussion regarding the possible early retirement incentive for CSEA PBA and SOA employees with myself our financial administrator and our payroll so the Apollo and the speaker gonna come to the table just last time we had this discussion was just two weeks ago I just want to kind of review again with their information to see if there's any questions or what we can do the problem and you know consult on what you're wearing today chance to sit down with them I did have a chance to sit down but the problem what I have is that this would end up being a correct me if I'm wrong a contractual matter so there are things that I don't want to say publicly that I would say privately you know for my reasons and I you know so I'm just letting you know this one no can we move it to executive session then that's how I I would move it to executive session. If that's willing, so if that's what you guys want to do. I think it's budgetary, so I think it should be done in the public. So we can discuss the hypotheticals. I think once we get to the actual specifics, we do need to go into executive for that. I just want to make sure that if we're willing to move it back into that phase and to actually begin to have those discussions. But I wanted to have enough of us that wanted to see that. All right, I did go through this with Jeanette in depth. And looking at the fact that as of right now, we're going to be piercing the cap. This would reduce the piercing of the cap. So for that reason, I would like to sit in exec session. I'd just like to make a statement that I did sit again with Jeanette. In addition to the two executive sessions and the work session, and also now with you separately. And the one thing I just want the public to understand is while it was very unpopular, the budget by the prior supervisor last year and the town board had approved it, it was that fiscal, unfortunately he had to pierce the cap last year, but a large part of the savings that we now have that we're talking about, this $5 million, a large part of that came from that budget last year, savings. That was a piece of this, and we discussed that. So while the public was very upset and unfortunately had to pierce the cap, that budget helped create this fund balance of $5 million extra that we have. In addition to the cannabis, we talked about that as well, which I'm absolutely against, but it did help the taxpayers. And that fiscal responsibility that he tried on our town board when we adopted that budget, even though it had to pierce the cap, It did help create this fund that we're now talking about that we have the benefit going forward to utilize here. And I just want, you know, it is unfortunate, but it did help create a benefit. And I just want the public to know, you know, Mr. Piala did not find this in a file cabinet. Five million dollars, open a drawer and go, wow, look what we have. It was a result of what he was trying to do and what the budget was trying to do the last two years. I mean, I'd like to state it's always better to be over budgeted than under because you never really know how spending is going to go during the year. So I think the town did a great job overall of really watching expenditures. That's been the theme all year. You know, try not to spend, really try to save and cut wherever you can. And in 2025, clearly the town did a great job of that. It wasn't like glaring that this 5 million came from just one or two line items. It came from a bunch of different line items. So it was a combination of higher interest earned than budgeted, which we're always conservative about because you never know if the market is going to tank. It also came from the cannabis funds, as we discussed, because we didn't budget for that. We didn't know what we were getting. And then it also comes from a bunch of expenditure operating accounts that the town did a great job of not overspending or spending up to the total budget. So, you know, it's always difficult to come up with a budget. Like I said, we try to cut wherever we can. The year before we only had 1.9 in excess, so this year we had 5 million, which, you know, as I say, it's always better to have more than less, and now you're in an opportunity where you guys can decide how you want to spend that 5 million. I would just like to say thank you for pointing that out, Councilwoman Merrifield. And the majority of the guidance that Supervisor Hubbard got was from you. So job well done to you for being able to store away some funds so that we're in a position like we are now. So that was very good. I'm just taking a look at the best way to utilize the funds. Does it belong back to the taxpayers? Councilwoman Merrifield and I have been actively having discussions with John Thomas and the building department about computerizing the department as a whole and that potentially if we invest funds in that, what we're still doing is waiting for numbers to determine through fees generated and hours saved from employees what the overall financial impact is at. Is that something that's going to, in other words, generate additional revenue? So do we take this and invest it that generates different revenues? I am not saying by any means that I am against any retirement incentives. I just want to – so there's more than a multitude of just this, so it's not a single road. Is the money – let me speak. Is it best that we can invest in something that may potential, you know, increase even additional revenues, saving on the budget next year? I want to do a comparison of a few different things. So whether it be investing in the building department, computerization, is it retirement incentives? I just, I'm still doing my homework before I can say, okay, what is the best way to allocate, you know, this interest earned? And again, I just want to say that to taxpayers that they don't feel that they were overtaxed. It was an increased estimate of what interest was earned on fund balance. And what other methods? There are a few things that we've talked about that could potentially generate additional revenue. So what's the best way to invest this interest earning? And I don't have an answer quite yet. I still need to do homework. I wanted to bring that with yourself and also Councilwoman Watzke. I want to bring that to work session in about two weeks' time, the digitizing. I've been speaking to Chip. I've been speaking to Ms. Thomas. And we're just waiting for Mr. Muller. He's having an issue. waiting for that to resolve itself we're going to bring that to work session to show the public that savings and also to reiterate your point because that is a cost savings going forward there's also the um parking enforcement with that modernization and the ticketing those are other ways to spend this but again i agree i don't i'm not opposed to an incentive yeah i think that's why i said last week when you asked councilman merrifield you know you didn't want to do this and not be able to and i said it's not either or it really is a both and i guess my question today was I just wanted to make sure that you guys had said, you know, two weeks ago we just had talked about it in a very positive way of, hey, we want to sit down with Jeanette and talk to her. So I wanted to see if you had had that opportunity. And, you know, I know talking to each other is good, but if you've had an opportunity to sit with her and actually do the numbers, which is just constantly so. I think Jeanette will tell you that there is, like, an element of time. Yeah. That's what I was going to say. Sorry. So the reason we're bringing this now, there is definitely a timetable for this. You know, our budget prep starts the first weekend in July, essentially. So we come in that Monday after July 4th weekend, and we roll the budget out to the departments. We have to give 30 days notice, from what I understand from council, to the employees to decide if they're going to take any proposed incentive. You have to get outside council involved to draft some sort of memo or addendum to the contract, I believe. don't quote me but so there's definitely an element of time in this so I'm just saying that out loud because we will obviously want if you're going to go through with this we want it to benefit the budget for 2027 so at some point hopefully before September 30th this is all decided and rolled out into the budget so we can actually quantify the actual thing and I'm gonna just speak a little bit too because I looked into doing the building department three years ago software is roughly about at that time it was $90,000 this where the big and it would require larger monitors, you know, for planning a building and the fire marshal, which is really nebulous in terms of expense. It's actually 1.4 at this point. I was just talking to Chip. Can I finish, please? I'm just letting you know. Yeah, and your 1.4 includes scanning documents, correct? Scanning the building. I have to get the specifics from Chip when we bring him into work session. you can discuss the software is not 1.4 million dollars this the scanning is the bulk of the expense and i've looked into that as well i've worried i've done a lot of homework on this you know with other towns blah blah blah and and so i'm aware um i've also asked the building department to go for a 75 000 grant last year they missed it this year i forget what dawn said but that's what towns do so that gives you a kickstart but getting the software allows us to start scanning everything that comes in now and starting from scratch and there is a revenue stream that you get in Southampton is a good example of it because and it helps with foils people paid a foil and you know and some extremely familiar with the program it's not if you want to go to full Monty and you know scan everything from 1980 on up it's very very expensive we need to start scanning now when we get the software and work backwards that's you know so I'm very familiar with it it's about it's a bit because miss councilman very field has been working on it I know with that and yourself and so I did ask it's about 100 I think they gave me a range of like 120 to 140 for the for the software to add it but here the 1.4 is is where it's so the software I think it went up a little bit you have a 1.4 is what that's the scanning you can separate you know it scan everything in one year right so that's that's a separate charge but then your your electronic permitting is about is what don't know about classic yeah absolutely ask about that so but I think the question here would be really do we want to move this to a work session to go into I mean to an executive session to have those things so I would ask the nor to make a decision on two is what is the intention of the feelings of the overall board in terms of believe in 2019 it wasn't negotiated with the unions it was the town board made a presentation of what and just made a set offer and it was you know take this off early to shot to take this off as an incentive it wasn't something that was negotiated with the Union so is it our intention to sit down with the unions and negotiate and ask them what what they're requesting you know for retirement centers or what they would accept or is it the intentions of the board to just to select a number and say this is what we can do and it's without negotiations so what what what will be the participations of the unions in this process. So we have the CSEA, we have the SOA. I think that's why we brought it to the executive session at the beginning because that was kind of the mode that they had done it. We were allowed to have a conversation with them to see what would be something because we want to create an incentive that they would actually be incentivized by. And so I think that's why we went the route and then it kind of felt like it died so we brought it back to this. So if we're willing to do that again I think we can either discuss that here of which mode we want to do it but I think at the end of the day it's going to be our decision to offer the incentive whether we have a conversation with them and understand where they're at that would be when side executive of speaking of their their specific contract specifics if I'm if I'm so in 2019 it was only offered to CSCI it wasn't offered to the other two unions it wasn't negotiated with the CSI is that correct so in 2019 it was I believe just a set packet like take it or leave it this is the same as different approaches to it but it wasn't offered to all three right so with offering it to all three there's different criteria for each union like we're not going to get the savings by giving CSEA what we would get if we gave it to PVA because of the retirement savings that we're gonna get 2019 was you want to speak to that um money in prior years incentives this one I know we're saving money yeah so many numbers from the past ones and I'm not confident that we actually save money so your reason I have numbers that will save money for the town and will offer a nice incentive for the employees it is a win-win for both sides and I think early feelings are that the unions are good with what we've come up with and I do believe they'll take it I personally would not recommend going higher than what we've done because I think it's fair for both sides right now otherwise you're getting to the point well what's the point of doing the incentive after this now we go to exactly yeah discuss absolutely you and not you know random things I don't think that that's I just think the one thing I do want to clarify is from what I understand from our meeting is the CCA number set and there was an agreement on that okay I mean to be honest it's correct it was an agreement think it was that initial conversation they came back and I think today just said we could do it we didn't agree as a board we have to agree pretty much reached agreement with us on a set number for the incentive right it's the PBA and SOA we don't have necessarily I think they're pretty much on board at this point I could be wrong I think it's just a matter of like this right it's a matter of like you guys being okay with it and then being able to offer it to them before we can give you an exact number as to who's is going to take i i would love to be able to say that my numbers are 100 correct but i'm not infallible like these are my guesstimates and this is just 26 years of experience knowing the people that they are but they're guesstimates until you say do you want this incentive that's the only time and every incentive has an irrevocable letter stating if you say you're going to take it you cannot take it back we've had other you know retirees say we're going to retire we budget that they're going to retire and then they pull that letter back and then they don't retire and then all of a sudden our budget didn't account to have certain things in it so there is a revocable letter stating i'm going to retire i'm going to take this incentive i can't take it back and this is the day i'm leaving and huh you're beautiful sorry yeah no that's the hoop i understand that's the hoop you don't know like i don't know but the actual incentive amount is still kind of it's you guys have to come each individual person to pay out have to come up with that number numbers and what you've stated prior um i think we need to go to exactly talking about it i'm sorry is there is there negotiations that have been going on with the with the pva that we're not aware of that number no that's the one that's Yeah, it's the number. So how did we get the numbers? How did we know that they were proof of it? An exec, we talked, and you allowed me to have a conversation with him, and they came back with a number, and inside that sphere of a number, I went to Jeanette, and she just said that was doable. But then after that, when we were an exec, we just said we didn't want to move this forward any further. I'm not sure the town has to negotiate with the unions. I think you can just say what you're offering. 2019 there was no you don't have to it was just a conversation of something that would actually incentivize them so I want everybody to be happy but I want to make sure that I think councilwoman was key will say something I just want to say that when this first was brought to us not knowing how many people would actually be stepping up and saying that you know they they were going to take the incentive whoever did the petition of support for the retirement it gave me a better sense of who actually is seriously considering this and the numbers are this as opposed to this you know so far there's there's only a small amount of PBA members. I don't think any SOA members, CSEA members a lot. So I really, I think that I'm more drawn to supporting this knowing where the numbers lie because when something is presented and we have no idea how much we're actually going to be taking out of our fund balance to support this when there are other projects that need attention, immediate attention. I think that this should be brought to executive session at this point. And I think that the employees and the unions, they deserve to know what's going on because they're making life-altering decisions right now as to what their future holds. And to To hold them in limbo is not fair. And again, I give credit to the CSCA member that came forward with this idea and got it to you. And thank you. Thank you. Petitions, to your point, Councilwoman Nowoski, to your point, Councilwoman, the petitions did help. The letters with the petitions, so we have a real idea of the numbers. And so for disclosure to the public, I absolutely appreciate what Councilwoman was saying, but the public might not be aware is that a particular member of the CSCA kind of went around and presented letters to multiple employees within a town and asked them to sign if they felt that they had interest, and that's what was presented before us. Mike concerns and it and it doesn't seem to be within those letters but my concerns was like decimating like the water district for example but you know seems to be more younger workers there because unfortunately there's been a high turnover right but that was one of the things that kind of and the letter seemed to be more like scattered throughout multiple departments and at different levels which makes it much more bearable you know that we just weren't gonna suddenly sweep a department empty and go how do we rebuild from here and so but they seem to vary from from the CSA different departments and as well as the police departments from different levels and so forth so it's not just the whole spread out then it becomes more manageable I guess it's the best way so we can add it we'll add it to exec and we'll have that discussion and this is we sure can and this is very exciting stuff for our town and our taxpayers because I think that it gives us a lot of opportunities as spoken before so with that said thank you both for coming in and sharing that we'll see you obviously during exec and seeing stuff and so all right so with our next so Jeanette you're not you're gonna miss Diapola miss Diapola you're gonna stay for the first 32 resolutions so not joking actually first 32 resolutions so so our resolution pack is next with our deputy supervisor Devin Higgins and I've asked financial administrators to stay up just because the first 32 pertain to some documents with her and just want to make sure if there's any questions that she's available. Yeah, so I'll just give a brief overview of what all these capital project closings entail. Every year during the audit, so this is all related to the 1231-25 financial statement audit. We go through and we send emails to all the department heads who are responsible for capital projects that look like the spending is near done in the project, so the budget is usually fully utilized. We have to capitalize those projects once they're at completion and put in service. Some of them have ... Some capital projects could take one year, some can take five years. We rely on the department heads, engineering, Contesta, Drew Dillingham, and water sewer superintendents to close these projects out when they tell us that, yes, they're definitely done and complete and in service. So that's what these resolutions refer to. This is an audit requirement that we do resolutions to approve of the closing of the projects, and we capitalize it. They allow us to do this effective as of year end, and then usually by the time the audit is done and the letter is signed off for the audit these have to be adopted by the town board so that's what these are all referring to that one resolution no because if you guys deny one of them we have to redo the whole thing it's painful sorry this was a lot of work and you want to thank Melissa Blackmore did a great job on doing all these project closings for us so yeah she did a fantastic job it's a lot of work as you can see all right so we'll have her stay here while Devin goes through them if there's one you want to add a question she'll be available so. Okay resolution number one capital project number 12101 town square properties closure. Number two capital project number 32218 ARPA security camera installations closure. Number three capital project number 44037 7, downtown revitalization round 18 closure. 4, capital project number 52311, EPCAL emergency access road project. Number 5, capital project number 52312, 2023-24, CHIPS closure. Number 5, I'm sorry, number 6, capital project number 52313, 2023-24, paid New York closure. Number 7, Capital Project Number 52314, 2023-24, EWR closure. Number 8, Capital Project Number 52315, 2023-24, POP closure. Number 9, Capital Project Number 52413, 2024-25, Paid New York closure. 10. Capital Project No. 52414-2024-25 EWR closure 11. Capital Project No. 52415-2024-25 POP closure 12. Capital Project No. 72323 Stotsky Park Basketball Court closure 13. Capital Project 7-2406, Parking Lot at Veterans Memorial Park, closure 14. Capital Project 7-2509, Pickleball Courts at Veterans Memorial Park, closure 15. Capital Project 7-2519, Improvements at Bayberry Park, closure Number 16, Sewer District Capital Project number 8227, DeFriest Pump Station closure. Number 17, Sewer District Capital Project 82231, Odor Control System closure. Number 18, Water District Capital Project number 82117, Peconic Farms LLC closure. 19. Water District Capital Project No. 82225, Hostad Subdivision, closure. 20. Water District Capital Project No. 82304, 1001 Scott Avenue, closure. 21. Water District Capital Project No. 82320, Marist Subdivision, closure. 22. Water District Capital Project No. 82328, TOD Railroad Avenue closure 23. Water District Capital Project No. 82330, Riverhead Self Storage, 817 Pulaski Street closure 24. Water District Capital Project No. 82332, 41 Manor Lane, Hydrant closure Number 25, Water District Capital Project number 82333, 38 East Main Street closure. Number 26, Water District Capital Project number 82401, 901-923, Berman Boulevard closure. Number 27, Water District Capital Project number 82409, 901-903, Scott Avenue closure. Number 28, Water District Capital Project number 82410, Route 25A, Wading River, Venezius Square closure. Number 29, Water District Capital Project number 82501, Kent Animal Shelter, 2259 River Road, Calverton closure. Number 30, Water District Capital Project number 82504, Nogles Barn, Hallockville closure. Number 31, Water District Capital Project number 82508, Laika Cauliflower Square closure. Number 32, Water District Capital Project number 82516, Washville 1535 Old Country Road closure. Somebody was offering free washes yesterday.

Wow, I've heard that. It's fantastic. Number 33, 2025 budget transfers. I'm just going to explain this really quick. This is a normal, another year-end resolution that we process every year. After the audit is pretty much close to being done, I can't promise I'm not going to have any more budget transfers. It depends if we have any more audit adjustments for the year, but I do believe for the majority we're good. So anytime we have a negative in a spending account or expenditure account for 2025 we have to do a resolution to transfer money from an account that would actually had excess funds in it to cover the negative sometimes it's payroll because payroll goes negative because we have people leave and take severance and that's usually why we would go over the budget or if there's a lot of overtime for something unexpected we have to make the account positive in order to close out the audit so that's what this represents right here so these are all over $30,000 so needs board approval in order to process these Okay, resolution number 34, police department transfer of vehicles. Number 35, sets fire prevention operating permit fees for 2026. Number 36, promotion of the position of police sergeant. Number 37, appoint seasonal personnel to the recreation department. Number 38, ratifies amendment of resolution 2026-486 appointing a student intern 2 to the town attorney's office. That's you. Number 39, ratifies the appointment of a water treatment plant operator 2B, Calderon. Number 40, ratifies the appointment of an automotive equipment operator. Number 41, appoints an automotive equipment operator to the highway department. Number 42, amends terms and condition of employment for senior citizens program director, sewer district superintendent, and payroll supervisor. Number 43, extends bid for corrosion control chemical PO4 for Riverhead Water District. 44. Approve special event chapter 255 application for Friends of Ken Rothwell concert event. 45. Approve special event chapter 255 application for Northeast State Shakespeare in the Park, All's Well Ends Well. 46. Ratifies amendment to resolution 549-2026 fireworks application for Riverhead Raceway rain date change to June 13, 2026. Number 47, approves fireworks application for Riverhead Raceway July 3, 2026. Number 48, temporarily waives signed provisions of the Riverhead Town Code for East End Disabilities Associates, Inc. So they can wrap the building patriotically for the 4th of July parade on May 2. Yep. Number 49, authorizes the Community Development Department to apply for a Cinderella grant through National Grid. Number 50, authorizes town clerk to publish and post notice to consider a local law to amend Chapter 289 of the Riverhead Town Code titled Vehicles, Traffic, and Parking Regulations, Article 4, Parking, Standing, and Stopping. Number 51, adopts a local law to amend Chapter 213 of the Riverhead Town Code titled Bicycles and Electric Scooters, Article 2, Electric Scooters. Number 52, authorizes the supervisor to execute a license agreement with Stein Seafoods LLC to allow the operation of floating up-wheeler systems Flopsy in East Creek, Nunc Pro Tunc. Number 53 ratifies the authorization for the town attorney to execute a retainer agreement with Siegel and Sittler at PLLC.

Number 54 authorizes the supervisor to execute a short-term runway use agreement for Racetrack Not Street 2026 Summer Motorsports Classic. Number 55 authorizes the supervisor to execute short-term runway use agreement for racetrack Knott Street, 2026 fall motorsports classic. Number 56 authorizes the supervisor to execute an agreement authorizing the town to accept funds from Suffolk County Office for the Aging to supplement the town's expanded in-home services for the elderly program. Number 57 approves agreement between Town of Riverhead and Windship Media LLC to utilize police parking personnel and police cars for the 2026 jazz in the vines number 58 ratifies the authorization to commence legal action against 400 david court llc number 59 authorizes speed limit changes on northfield turnpike cr43 riverhead new york

number 60 pays the bills that ends our uh reading the resolutions we will in just a second ask for first and second to end our work session where we are going to executive session where we'll do contractual matters surrounding agreement between town of Riverhead and the Riverhead Central School District with our counselor Howard will also be adding matters surrounding follow-up discussion regarding possible early retirement incentive contractual for the CSE APBA and SOA employees and then we'll also be doing matters surrounding an update on litigation between the town of Riverhead and URT with Tinneberg, Lipinski and Brown and matters surrounding legal action impacting the town uh easement with Hurley and Prudenti may I have a motion to dismiss all in favor aye goodbye have a great day go Knicks

Thank you.