Board Meeting
November 13, 2006
The Board Meeting of the Board of Trustees met in the Municipal Building, 14 Baker Street, Patchogue, New York on November 13, 2006. The meeting was called to order at 7:30 p.m. by Deputy Mayor McGiff with Trustees Crean, Devlin, Hilton and Krieger, Village Clerk Seal and Village Attorney Snead present. Mayor Pontieri, Trustee Dean and Village Treasurer Krawczyk were not present. The flag salute was made. Deputy Mayor McGiff read the safety message Upon a motion made by Trustee Crean, seconded by Trustee Devlin, and unanimously carried, the Board approved the meeting minutes of October 23, 2006, as presented. Deputy Mayor McGiff stated we have a number of “Patchogue Pride” awards. These are awards that we have enacted in the Building Department to recognize individuals who take pride in their properties and who improve our Village. The first one is to Jorge Tacuri, 99 River Avenue. Our next winners are Mary and William McDonald of 334 Rider Avenue, Frank Kolinek of 154 Lake Shore Drive, and Mark Degusperi of Ultimate Fitness on Main Street. Village Clerk Seal stated the bills submitted for the Board Meeting of 11/13/06, including the five largest bills were as follows: General Fund Trust & Agency Fund Capital Projects Sewer Fund BID Fund Housing/Code Fund Community Development Fund General Bills Total $262,821.44 $8,733.75 $41,159.02 $28,570.93 $11,504.55 $1,456.77 $7,980.92 $10,644.90 $372,872.28
Upon a motion made by Trustee Devlin, seconded by Trustee Crean, and unanimously carried, the Board approved the above as presented. Upon a motion made by Trustee Crean, seconded by Trustee Hilton, and unanimously carried, the Board approved a budget adjustment to appropriate $70,000 from the General Fund Surplus to Acct. #001-1640-9420 for the DPW roof replacement Upon a motion made by Trustee Krieger, seconded by Trustee Devlin, and unanimously carried, the Board approved a budget transfer of $61,800.00 to cover cost of roof replacement from #001-1990-0500 Contingency Account to 001-1640-0420 Garage Maintenance Bldg.
Board Meeting
November 13, 2006
Village Clerk Seal stated the cash balances as of October 31, 2006, are: General Fund $5,420,56.57 Trust & Agency 218,785.34 Capital Projects 864,511.21 Sewer Fund 907,456.01 BID Fund 211,839.70 Total $7,623,158.83
Surplus balance is $1,412,408.20 Village Clerk Seal read a notice is hereby given that a Public Hearing will be held on Monday, November 13, 2006, at 7:30 p.m. in the Municipal Building at 14 Baker Street, Patchogue, New York, by the Board of Trustees of the Village of Patchogue to consider a request by Dr. Frank J. Granati for a change of zone from “D-2” to “B” for his property located at 100 North Ocean Avenue. At said Public Hearing any person interested will be given the opportunity to be heard. (Dr. Granati was not present; hearing tabled until later in meeting). Deputy Mayor McGiff is seeking Board approval to set a public hearing for a change of zone request for property located at 6 Taylor Lane. Village Attorney Snead stated as far as the Workforce Housing project goes, this is the property at 73 Railroad, the DeFilippo family, rather than have to go through a rather lengthy proceeding to obtain it, the Village Board has agreed to do a swap of property. In essence, the Village had vacant land on which the DeFilippo house was moved to. The property is presently split zoned, D-2 and C and the application needs to be made to bring that property into C-residence for the entire parcel. This is an application that needs to go to a public hearing for that specific piece of property. Upon a motion made by Trustee Crean, seconded by Trustee Hilton, and unanimously carried a public hearing was set for December 11, 2006, as requested above. Deputy Mayor McGiff stated he is seeking approval from the Board to hire Jeremiah Rockfeld as a part-time dispatcher for the Fire Department, effective immediately. It is my understanding he will not be paid until his training is completed, and that’s at an hourly rate of $14.50 Upon a motion made by Trustee Devlin, seconded by Trustee Hilton, and unanimously carried, the Board approved the request as stated above. Deputy Mayor McGiff stated he is seeking approval from the Board for a 50 cent per hour increase for all dispatchers; not to include Mr. Rockfeld. Upon a motion made by Trustee Crean, seconded by Trustee Hilton, and unanimously carried, the Board approved the request as stated above. Chamber of Commerce Report – Gail Hoag stated I would first like to thank Trustee Krieger for yesterday, being out in the parking lot in the rain, when we had a show at the Theatre. We had the Shangra-la Chinese acrobats and they got the fastest stand-up ovation I’ve seen. Many people who came were from out of town, visiting for the first time. The “Holiday Boat Parade” is November 19th at 6 p.m. The viewing areas will be at FINS and the Sandspit. “Breakfast with Santa” will be on Dec. 2nd at South Ocean Avenue School.
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Board Meeting
November 13, 2006
Trustee Krieger stated the Nilas Martins Dance Ballet was at the Theatre which brought in about 700-800 people. There were a lot of local people there. It was a great event. I would like to commend the Folk Festival last week which brought in about 800 people and was an all-day event. Very successful. Dominic Chianese returns on Nov. 18th. Recently there was an audit report at the Theatre and I’m proud to say the auditors came away with a nothing but promising report. The Theatre is currently running in the black. The new Board at the Theatre has worked endless hours to bring systems up to date and actually create a system (even though it is a non-for-profit, it doesn’t mean that it has to lose money). With all the new things in place, all their accounting measures, they are actually running a pretty tight ship and are a real asset to this Village. The audit report is here if anyone wants to look at it. It’s pretty impressive. They give a lot of suggestions on how to improve the systems, but all in all, it was a very positive report. Trustee Krieger stated we’ve started a new push to enforce the 2-hour limit parking, fire zone violations, etc. in the Village. We have our parking officer out there on a daily basis concentrating on Main Street and the parking lots in the back. And I think she is successfully making people aware that violations of 2-hour parking privileges will be ticketed. If you are a store owner in the Village, you want people to feel the convenience to park close to your store. There is enough space in the parking lots that people can park in a non-restrictive area. One of the requests we had was to reduce the fine from $50 to $25. A number of people, some of the merchants, and others felt that the fine of $50 was a bit excessive for a 2-hour parking violation. We are considering at this point to reduce the fine from $50 to $25 for a 2-hour or 15 minute parking violations. A lot of this is aimed at those people who regularly park over two hours. We are requesting approval to reduce the fine from $50 to $25. Theresa Rosavitch, President of the Elks Lodge, stated it is a problem for us what is occurring. The Elks is a community service organization and some of the functions that we have there, when people come to park, there is no place to park. You said there was enough parking in the non-restricted areas, but that is not the case. I notice that your engineering company H2M, have you have devised a plan to have them do an engineering survey on who parks there for long periods of time? And as far as our organization is concerned, sometimes we have a cook who is there all day. And even an owner of a store, there should be a place for them to park. And there is no place in the restricted area. One problem is Saturdays, especially, when the Theatre is having a function. There is no checking going on during a Theatre function. And many people come in and you know they are going into the Theatre and they don’t care. They just park right in front of our building. Where our building is, we must use the side entrance as an entrance. It’s very difficult. We have several spots in front of our side entrance that I feel should be open to the Elk members. Trustee Krieger stated one of the things that we tried to do one time with the Theatre because some of those people stay very late at night was we were considering giving them what you want, special “For Elks Members Only.” I don’t think we can do that. Ms. Rosavitch stated I am not asking for Elk members only. I am asking for that area by our main entrance, which is the side entrance, to have an unlimited time. We are only talking about 7 slips—if I have a cook there all day, he can park and he has supplies. Our alleyway, I don’t know where those people park at all. But where our building is, we would have to block the alleyway to have that convenience. There is no available parking for Elks to use that building. It is a little upsetting that the Village hasn’t noticed it.
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November 13, 2006
Trustee Krieger stated we are aware of it and part of the job of our parking meter officer is going to help us reconfigure the parking situation. There has been the question, is there too many two-hour parking stalls and not enough unlimited parking. Ms. Rosavitch asked when we continue to have an increase of people into that area are there any plans to make more spaces available--to build. Trustee Krieger stated the number of parking spaces in that lot is limited by the size of the lot. The thing we have to consider is the number of limited parking spaces, parking there for only two hours. Ms. Rosavitch stated this parking meter person, in order for her to indicate which cars have been there, she’s been marking tires. I would think there would be a more effective way than marking cars. Trustee Krieger stated it is the standard way. Ms. Rosavitch stated our original building was on Route 112 and Main Street and we sold that and now we are in the Village. We would like to be and stay in the Village, but parking is an important issue. We need parking. I am a little discouraged that there really isn’t too much going on with trying to figure out what to do. There’s a lot of discussion, but no action. Certain attempts have been made, but we are also a business in a sense and we have to maintain our income. If something isn’t done relatively soon to relieve us then we would have to consider moving out of there. Trustee Krieger stated we wouldn’t want to see you do that. In your situation, if you had an event that held 100 people, those 100 people are taking parking spaces that maybe someone who is shopping at Blum’s would want. So, everyone has to share the parking lot which is a difficult thing to do especially when we have those types of venues there that do take up a lot of spaces, e.g. the Elks Club, the Theatre, the Temple. Edward Rosavitch, Chairman Trustees of Elks, stated most of the volunteer cooks are between 70 and 80 year’s old. We also have handicapped people, one of whom parked in a handicap space and was told it was a 2-hour parking limit and would have to move too. That’s what I was told by the member. We also have a tenant that has a recording studio who supplies local bands and musicians to do their recordings. One of the recording groups came in, they unloaded their equipment, went inside, parked the vehicle, came outside and got the vehicle ticketed. My tenant tells me that if he is getting tickets, he may not want to renew his lease and if he can’t renew his lease, we are going to lose our building. We have all that 2-hour parking, etc., and I have talked to a few of our members, and what they have said is take away all restrictions—first come, first serve. That way you won’t be giving out tickets and nobody could complain. I think everybody would be happy—everybody on the same playing field. I have to believe that a lot of the shoppers see the two hour parking limit and see the officer on the street and see the tires marked that they will pay attention to the signs. Gail Hoag stated I understand that you are trying to enforce what is on the books as far as parking goes. The yellow lines are all day, the white lines are two hours. If the Elks had all day parking spots, they would be gone early in the morning. I have a feeling that it would be less beneficial to the Elks Club. At least now you have two hours. You can park and unload what you have to unload and then can move your car. I can see the difference when tickets are being given out on one day, the next day there are spots for people to park on Main Street. And this is what we need on Main Street; the constant turnover for the customers.
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Board Meeting
November 13, 2006
Upon a motion made by Trustee Krieger, seconded by Trustee Devlin, and unanimously carried, the Board agreed to reduce the fine for a two hour parking violation (and that would include 15 minute parking violations) from $50.00 to $25.00 effective immediately. Trustee Crean stated as the Deputy Mayor has mentioned, the construction will resume quite soon with regards to the renovations of J. & R.’s Steakhouse. I got the opportunity to meet with the owner over the weekend and got a chance to tour the renovations that are occurring upstairs as well and they are coming along quite nicely. They are replacing all of the windows upstairs and he is hoping to have that completed by early spring. It has rather high ceilings and the apartments are of a nice size which will attract rather nice tenants for those apartments. It’s something that I think we should recognize as a Village, that’s he’s going to a very great length to restore this historical property. I think we should contact the Preservation Organization and make sure that he is recognized for his efforts. Upon a motion made by Trustee Crean, seconded by Trustee Krieger, and unanimously carried, the Board approved in the form of a resolution to transfer the real properties for the development of Copper Beech Village. We see the buildings going up, but behind the scenes there is a lot of legal work that is taking place and I would like to commend the Village Attorney. The village, working with the County, secured a little more than 3.3 million dollars grant money from the County. And for that grant, the title of these properties had to go through being transferred from Pulte, to the County, to the Village and ultimately back to Pulte. This resolution will effectuate the transfer of real property from Pulte to the County, to the Village and then back to the Village to complete the development of the Workforce Housing units. Village Attorney Snead stated there are a couple of things going on in this resolution. Trustee Crean laid it out very accurately, it’s a carousel of transfers. It’s all going to happen the same day, this Thursday. In essence what’s happening here is that the Village is going to agree to take the property from the County of Suffolk, and as part of that the Village will enter into a note and a mortgage on that property to secure the three million dollars that is being given by the County for the construction of the affordable housing units. And once the Village has taken the title to the property and executed the note and the mortgage, they will then transfer the property to Pulte so Pulte can go ahead as the Village’s agent, in essence, and build those units out. There is a further requirement here to state in the record that the property, even if we don’t yet have it technically and will only have it for the briefest moment, is not necessary to the Village for any other purpose and is, therefore, considered excess property. But that, in fact, the whole property as it will be developed is being developed for a public purpose….. Trustee Crean stated I was in the City to a concert this weekend and the Patchogue Music Hall of Fame induction ceremony was mentioned…… The network continues to spread and the good news that we hear about the Patchogue Theatre is rising broader and broader and I would just like to commend Trustee Krieger. Upon a motion made by Trustee Hilton, seconded by Trustee Krieger, and unanimously carried, the Board approved request made by Greater Patchogue Foundation Water Events Committee to host the 13th Annual Holiday Boat Parade on Sunday, November 19th. Our responsibility is going to be barricades and public safety. Trustee Hilton stated this holiday season Parks and Recreation will be doing something different at North Fork Plaza. Typically with the help of the Chamber and Parks, as was done in the past, North Fork Bank had purchased us a tree to set up in the Plaza and which we light at the end of the holiday parade and which remains lit to the end of 5
Board Meeting
November 13, 2006
Christmas. We also do the Menorah lighting at the same location. This year we are going to set up a little Christmas Village. We have a couple of gazebos that are being lent to us and which we are going to, with the help of volunteers, serve refreshments from. The night of the parade we are going to have our grand opening. Santa Claus is going to point to the Village tree and light it up. And from that point on, every Saturday and Sunday from 12 to 5 p.m. until Christmas, we will be serving refreshments and hopefully handing out the “Holiday Shopper Coupon Books” if we can get it all together in time. First, we are looking for volunteers to man the Christmas Village on Saturdays and Sundays from 12 to 5 pm until Christmas and we are also looking for entertainment to have at the Christmas Village during those hours. We already set up the chorus from St. Francis, a steel drum band, and a couple of other performers who will perform in a holiday fashion. If you have any interest in this, call Three Sisters at 475-4302. This is going to be the first year, so we are still in a developmental stage. But, I think we can give a lot more back to the Village. It’s very expensive for us to deal with the largeballed tree and I think, dollar for dollar, we can make it go even further by doing something like this. Trustee Hilton stated the Winona Hotel, the Halycon Manor, report is that we are moving along. Unfortunately, we have three areas of asbestos that we have to address, e.g. the floor tiles, the pipe wraps and the roof. That’s all gone out on bid. We have to remove the asbestos. Also, the boiler in 380 needs some major work. We are going to pump antifreeze into the sprinkler system and we are going to let the building go cold until we can figure which is the most effective way of heating the building for the winter. The asbestos can be encapsulated. The problem with that is that we have to keep very good records any time we drill through it. The floor has to come up anyways because the tile is sitting on soggy sheetrock. We are not entirely sure what we want to do with the pipe wrap and the roof; we are investigating it. I don’t want to particularly encapsulate the floor because I think we will just regret it. We have been in contact with Keyspan as far as installing solar panels on the roof. It would fit in well with the steam radiator heat that is in there now. My immediate concern is the sprinklers. For $1,500 we filled them with anti-freeze and they remain active; it’s a non-petroleum anti-freeze. Trustee Devlin stated with the help of Marion Russo we successfully got all the information into the DEC that we needed for the tree grant. By December we will know if the DEC sees fit for our project, which is to replace about 28 trees that we identified on Main Street and also some of the parking lots. Trustee Devlin stated it was a pleasure to attend the 5th Annual Symposium Creating and Implementing inclusionary Zoning on Long Island. Our Mayor was one of the speakers. The Village of Patchogue is apparently the new experts on workforce housing and inclusionary zoning issues. It was really great to see him. There was a panel discussion with Senator Mike Balboni, also the Mayor of Great Neck Plaza. James Larose from the Regional Planning Board and this was sponsored by the Long Island Housing Partnership. I thought our Mayor did an excellent job. He showed a video taken in front of the Copper Beech Village and went through the whole process. People were very, very impressed with what we’ve been doing in the Village of Patchogue. It was nice to see Mayor Pontieri honored in that fashion. Trustee Devlin stated on Dec. 2nd I am sponsoring something that I am calling “Clean-up South Patchogue.” If anybody here is interested, we will be meeting at the Beach Club at 11 a.m. What I’ve noticed on my morning walks is that a lot of trash has been coming in from the Great South Bay. Upon a motion made by Trustee Crean, seconded by Trustee Krieger, and unanimously carried, the Board rejected bid(s) for the 2006-2007 sludge removal contract. 6
Board Meeting Public to be Heard:
November 13, 2006
Laura Costello, 29 Waterworks Road, stated we live on a small road by West Lake Inn and we have recently had signs put up on our residential road. There have been problems along the way with parking from the catering hall, on and off, but the issue is at this point that we need to park in front of our homes. It’s my understanding that this “no parking” has been in effect since 1976 which at that point had only 3 of the 6 homes that are there. If you look at those homes you’ll see the driveways are all the back. The driveways that were put with our homes are mostly for one car. Most hones have 2 driveways if not more. Also, on that block we have firemen, parents with little children and me, I have a child that’s handicapped. I am here tonight to have the Board reconsider the fact that we should at least have parking on our side. I agree that it should not be on the Water Authority side. I agree we cannot have parking on both sides; it’s a small road. But, for us to be able to park on our side of the road, there is still plenty of room for cars to go by. I know the issue is probably for emergencies. The signs have not been there when I moved in and only recently did they reappear. When I called about it, I found that it’s been on the books since 1976. Why they were not there, I don’t know. But, we have been doing it for six years. The signs say “no parking – no standing.” I think the catering hall up to this point has been most accommodating by having valet parking in most cases. If it’s a big event, it could be a big deal. Upon a motion made by Trustee Krieger, seconded by Trustee Devlin, and unanimously carried, the Board set a public meeting to be held on November 27, 2006, regarding parking on Waterworks Road. Pamela Barr, 177 Cedar Avenue, stated I applaud the enforcement of the parking regulations that are on the books in the Village. I am sure that it will be even handedly applied. I have a pet project which I am hoping your parking officer can address. That is the enforcement of cars that are parked against the flow of traffic. I tried to get this enforced when I sat where you sit and was not very successful in my efforts. I remember a horrific episode from when I was a child. Someone ran out from in front of an ice cream truck. There was a car behind the ice cream truck, parked the wrong way, he was looking over his shoulder to cross into the proper lane of traffic, the kid ran across the street, only looking towards the direction he expected the traffic to come from, and the result was one child dead and one adult’s life ruined. If that could be addressed. It is a problem occurring more and more in the residential neighborhoods. Also, people parking in the municipal parking lots overnight has become more and more of a problem in the lots on Terry Street primarily. Gilbert, Cedar Ave and Laurel, when can we expect to see some repaving? Village Clerk stated I heard it will be done soon, but don’t hold me to it. Ms. Barr asked, Trustee Devlin, has the tree grant been applied for or received? Trustee Devlin stated it has been applied for. The applications were due Oct. 31st. It’s a matching grant up to $7,500. Ms. Barr stated a website that I monitor is Village Police Cases.com and I have the printout regarding the Village of Patchogue shall initially pay or cause to be paid two million dollars to resolve the action. And then there was supposed to be a fairness hearing on this on Oct. 27th. What was the outcome of that hearing? Village Attorney Snead stated there was only one objector who did not appear. That fee is being paid by the insurance company. And that was the resolution of the case with 7
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three municipalities. There is no admission of liability. We felt because of the extent of the litigation that would go on, it would probably get to within $200,000 to $300,000 to litigate the case and as long as we had NYMIR on the hook for it, we decided to do it…. It won’t affect our premium with NYMIR. Ms. Barr asked Trustee Krieger, there is something out there that says that the Village is considering offering $95,000 for the North Fork Bank building on Church Street. Is that anything that anyone can confirm? Deputy Mayor stated basically my understanding is there were back taxes owed by the Sports Hall of Fame. And they are negotiating with North Fork to maybe swap that property; it’s all contingent on the appraisal obviously. I don’t think there has been an appraisal yet. There is ongoing negotiations between North Fork and the Village. We are thinking there would maybe be 30 to 35 more parking spots if it comes to fruition. To my understanding, this is all secondhand; once that appraisal comes in it looks like it may be a swap. Attorney Snead stated, in fact, what’s happening is the Sports Hall of Fame owes the Village taxes. There was a piece of State legislation which waived a portion of their taxes because they were a _____ organization. But, unfortunately when the legislation was drafted the …. did not necessary coincide with …. So, we have gone ahead and asked a County certified appraiser to appraise that property and whatever the property is worth the Village is considering swapping the property for knocking off the taxes. Deputy Mayor McGiff stated just for clarification I think these back taxes are from like 1999 or 2000. They have amassed penalties that for whatever reason were not addressed. Upon a motion made by Trustee Devlin, seconded by Trustee Crean, and unanimously carried, the Board agreed to hold over the public hearing scheduled for November 13, 2006, regarding a request by Dr. Frank J. Granati for a change of zone from “D2” to “B” for his property located at 100 North Ocean Avenue, to be held over to November 27, 2006. Upon a motion made by Trustee Devlin, seconded by Trustee Krieger, and unanimously carried, the Board agreed to adjourn the meeting at 8:45 p.m.
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