[0:13] Just to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, another

[0:22] out, the divisible, the liberty, and just as it is for all.

[0:27] And if we can have a moment of silence and memory about the moment of the war, close to life,

[0:33] and for a whole lot of roads, just up to this Friday and then at Caronson.

[0:48] Thank you.

[0:51] Roll call.

[0:53] Tell the turnipse, and fluid.

[0:55] Present, council, we'll be counting on theendories, council, we'll be doing one,

[0:59] June, 11 seconds.

[1:00] council, we'll be doing five, five or another.

[1:03] I hear council, we'll be in Diane and Jeette Nerasle.

[1:06] Ann council, council, Francis Shin.

[1:07] Present.

[1:09] We are going to start. We have two young students who are going to discuss a fascinating, you know, project that I read about a couple of, you know, months ago, let's see one crowd and Sharon, days ago.

[1:26] Sometimes we go to parks and you see memorials and it's made for somebody and you have

[1:34] no idea who it's made for it and Lexi and Sharon, I'm going to tell us about a very interesting

[1:42] and exciting initiatives that they started and you can make your presentation.

[1:57] Hi, I'm Lexi One-Trout.

[1:59] Hi, I'm Sharon Dreizel and we're both seniors at Irvington High School, thank you all for having us today.

[2:09] So we found to the Legacy Project, it launched back in July this past summer.

[2:15] We got the idea back in 2018.

[2:19] So one of our classmates moms, unfortunately lost her battle to Ovarian Cancer back in 2015.

[2:27] And, at one of our local municipal parks in Irvington, Sinek Hudson Park, there are some memorial stones

[2:35] with trees next to them that are dedicated to loved ones who have passed away that people can sponsor.

[2:42] And we knew that our classmates, Mom, had been honored down at the park, so we had gone down there to look for her tree and we unfortunately couldn't find it.

[2:49] So that's when we got the idea for the Legacy Project.

[2:52] I mean, we wanted to make all those stones more digital

[2:56] and more accessible for people outside of Irvington

[2:59] to find them and just honor them, honor their memory,

[3:03] and just spread the word, and honor them outside of Irvington.

[3:09] So, I'm going to talk a little bit about the process

[3:12] of getting our project off the ground.

[3:15] We started out by reaching out to the parks department.

[3:18] And from there it kind of went up to the higher levels for them to give us permission to contact families that own the stones and for them to release their information to us.

[3:31] So then we started by writing a letter that we were going to mail to the addresses of the people who own the stones.

[3:37] And we asked them if they wanted to take part in our project and if they did, we gave them a space to write a little about their stone that they've donated.

[3:45] and we were going to put it up on the website and we capped it at like 150

[3:49] words. We gave it about a month to get the letters back and then from there we

[3:56] started going down to the park taking pictures of the stones, the trees and then

[4:00] we typed it all up and it got put up by the park's department on to their website.

[4:07] So, Sharon was saying we got all the responses back and there was a lot of

[4:11] positive feedback from our community. Even some of the responses had like

[4:15] individual notes addressed to us saying, thanks so much for this amazing project.

[4:19] They all thought it was a great idea, and there was such amazing feedback from Irvington

[4:23] community and even family members that don't live in Irvington across the country.

[4:27] And so the project took about two and a half years to complete.

[4:31] And as I said, it launched us past July.

[4:34] And so you can see on the website, here's an example of one of the...

[4:45] And so this was one of the people that's honored down there, and this was one of the little

[4:53] tributes that the family had provided us with, and unfortunately the pictures aren't

[4:57] loading.

[4:58] But if you go on the Irvington website and you look at the Legacy Project, all the pictures should

[5:04] be there, and there's going to be a picture of the tree as well as the plaque itself.

[5:09] And all the people that chose to be in it, and there will be there as well as all the

[5:14] people that choose to donate new trees and plaques have the option to check a box saying

[5:20] I would love to join the Legacy Project and yeah so that's the one.

[5:27] We just really saw this as a great way to bring our community together and carry on the

[5:31] history of these plaques so that's all fine.

[5:36] Thank you.

[5:39] Thank you.

[5:44] We won't model for the entire nation because this is something that is definitely needed

[5:50] in all communities we really have to remember our past and appreciate history.

[5:59] So I'm really so grateful to you for this exciting initiative that you organized.

[6:05] Thank you.

[6:11] Okay, so I'd like to open up the hearing to consider repealing Chapter 260 of the Code of the Town of Greenberg and Title 3, and consider the adoption of a local law, creating a Chapter 260 of the Code of the Town of Greenberg and Title 3's community managed.

[6:28] Thank you.

[6:30] I'm delighted to see you.

[6:31] Thank you.

[6:33] Moving on, public comments? We're only going to have one public comment for us.

[6:39] We have three requests during this week,

[6:45] Ella and Pat Williams, right, for public comment.

[6:50] Oh, in Barbara's scene.

[6:56] Good

[7:06] evening, Dory Wilson. Today, on Dostre Road, there was an accident where the construction is being done.

[7:17] from, well, the construction is all the way from Westerst if you lay in all the way up to the Chelsea.

[7:23] Last week, Tuesday, there was a meeting between a resident of Westerst if you lay in myself,

[7:31] Steve Freyetta, Rich Fawn, Sergeant Rexin, all of the engineers from the Chelsea.

[7:41] I think it's Booker, Engineering, and a few assorted people.

[7:46] The Robert Rizley was also there.

[7:48] And one of the concerns that we had was not enough people

[7:55] on the road from the construction company handling the traffic.

[8:01] This is a long stretch of road, and it's only one lane in each way.

[8:06] So, basically, you're closing off one lane and you have to travel onto the other lane.

[8:13] We had asked for additional flaggers to be present, one at rest just a few lane, and one at

[8:22] Rivington to allow people to go into the lane going east or to make the right turn going west.

[8:30] It was supposed to be considered today when I was going out.

[8:36] The flag was moved from the one end all the way down to Westchester, New Lane.

[8:42] So they did not increase the number of flag as all they did was move him down.

[8:48] As I was going east, that's where the accident occurred.

[8:53] It must have happened just a couple of minutes before.

[8:56] And I don't know how it happened or I know it happened between a bus that travels on

[9:04] Darsford Road and a car and it looks like to me the bus was in one lane and the car was

[9:13] in one lane and I don't know if who was that fault?

[9:17] I don't know if there were any like I said I just passed by we just were told to move.

[9:23] But the best person was out there and then a patrol person came by as I was passing exactly by.

[9:35] The question I'd like to raise is, this was brought up at the meeting that the number of people is not sufficient in handling what's going on.

[9:47] And one gentleman is in construction in my community and he was upset and worried about as the

[9:56] weather gets into winter weather, what's going to happen because early equipment is lined

[10:04] up right at the edge of Dobbs ferry road and if it's slippery or whatever, will be a problem

[10:12] We will be an accident, and the question that he wants, no, is there a little statewide

[10:20] because it is a state road or a town road, I don't know, that equipment, these big,

[10:26] digging trucks, I guess, I don't know what they're called, but with the claws and things and

[10:31] those are the ones that are doing the chipping and those are the ones that are doing the

[10:35] digging out and all kinds of equipment and they have all these huge pipes over there, and

[10:42] and also have these huge, I'm not feeling it, but the over-secretment is all over the road.

[10:49] So we're going to investigate that, Ms. Lipson. Thanks for bringing that to our attention.

[10:53] So I was going to mention, she is right here if he would maybe tell us a little bit about it, thank you.

[10:58] Well, why don't you speak to him because we, you know, it's late. We have other speakers.

[11:02] But maybe other people want to hear about it, too.

[11:04] Can we just, Chief, is that something that we could take a look at?

[11:08] Right, there was also an additional problem when I could coming across the stops very

[11:12] road, because the Spluna was out right before we had where the work is going on.

[11:17] I was just from view, so you had traffic was being diverted around that just to meet at the

[11:23] next point and was getting kind of tacky there.

[11:26] So when if you've got two of them going on and not enough flag, or I think it's an issue?

[11:30] I agree, just feel like a chief blind line, chief of police.

[11:34] So we'll be visiting this construction site again tomorrow with RT.

[11:38] We've been trying to educate and work with the contractors and thank you for bringing this to our attention once again.

[11:47] It's considered to be having police officers who are more versed at directing traffic,

[11:54] be assigned to this detail as well.

[11:56] It wasn't any police officer there today.

[11:59] Yeah, right understood.

[12:03] So we may have to suggest that they actually have

[12:06] staffed us with police officers as well.

[12:08] We'll look into what we were trying to educate them

[12:10] as far as where they placed their flaggers kind of just

[12:13] teach them up a little bit so to speak and make it safe.

[12:16] But now we're an accident today.

[12:17] It's obviously it's not a good thing.

[12:20] Thankfully, there was no injuries.

[12:22] As far as I know with that.

[12:24] But again, we will look at this matter tomorrow morning

[12:26] first thing.

[12:27] Thank you.

[12:28] and we'll address whether there's a law.

[12:30] We'll research that.

[12:34] Papyrinstein?

[12:48] Good evening.

[12:49] I stuck around because I wanted to make clear

[12:53] to everyone assembled what the ECC is.

[12:59] It's a civic association.

[13:00] They represent all of Edgemont.

[13:03] Our eight individual, it's an umbrella organization.

[13:06] There are eight underlying civic associations.

[13:09] Within it, we meet once a month,

[13:12] accept, July and August, our meetings are open to the public. Our meetings are held at the

[13:21] Edgemont Junior Senior High School. Our agendas are public. They're published on our website

[13:28] have been for years, along with the minutes of every one of our meetings.

[13:34] And town officials don't

[13:35] need an invitation to come to our meetings. They're welcome just like everyone else's. The fact that

[13:41] don't come generally, send the message, of course, but we don't make it a habit of disparaging

[13:48] you for not coming.

[13:49] We just take it as a given that you don't come and presumably, you know, why you don't

[13:54] choose not to come.

[13:55] And I know that you attend, when you wish, meetings of the Council of Civic District.

[14:05] I know that any number of you have attended those, you don't need a special invitation to go there either.

[14:12] So, and nor is the ECC some kind of a committee or group of people that sits around and talks about edge-run incorporation?

[14:23] I heard that today, and I thought, well, that pretty much indicates that the person who made that comment is to find a supervisor,

[14:30] to find her, doesn't read our minutes, and doesn't read our genders.

[14:34] Because if you had, you would see that that's not what we do.

[14:39] The ECC is neutral on the issue of incorporation.

[14:42] But we do discuss matters affecting the town.

[14:46] And, you know, it would benefit us if the town were to send somebody.

[14:51] We had Victor at our last meeting.

[14:53] And he was very helpful in answering questions.

[14:56] There were a lot of questions that were had, and it was good if him to come, but he hadn't

[15:02] been to an ECC meeting in 10 years.

[15:05] It was the first one he'd been to in the 10 years.

[15:07] He'd been commissioner.

[15:09] Our meetings are covered by the scars of an inquire.

[15:13] In fact, I think the meeting that Victor was at was from page news in the inquire.

[15:19] As our meetings generally, so that you don't come is really

[15:26] you not us. As far as what I heard earlier today, I don't know that whether anyone will reach

[15:32] out to us on the tree law before it's amended, but I will tell you that the comments that

[15:38] were made with respect to wetlands are not true. If you're denied a wetland experiment, you

[15:42] have a right to go to the planning board to be heard. If you're denied a ZBA permit,

[15:47] okay, a building permit, you can go to the ZBA. If you're denied a steep slope, you can go to

[15:51] planning. The fact that you have these administrative appeals built into your code and

[15:58] you deliberately chose not to do that for trees is part of your problem. We can help

[16:03] you fix it. But from what I'm hearing from your town staff, you don't seem to think you

[16:08] have a problem. And unfortunately you do.

[16:30] Mr. Finer, you're going to owe an awful lot of us some extra time because this is the

[16:37] second meeting in a row now that you've scheduled that we don't get more than three minutes

[16:42] for. May I ask what I didn't hear what you did on the tree law? Is that held open for

[16:50] all purposes or have you come? It's held open for all purposes. Okay. Just so that I can correctly

[16:58] give the information out to the Council of Green for specific reasons.

[17:02] question that any of any questions or comments you have try to get them to us before the

[17:07] mirror. I will try to do that. I do have another life still believe it or not. Sometimes I wonder.

[17:17] One thing I am not even going to take my full three minutes. Thank you for getting a different microphone

[17:23] here. I don't know why we had to raise all the fuss about it, but I'm

[17:32] presuming that people's voices go out and even when you turn to the side a

[17:37] little bit, you are still able to make your point. So have a wonderful thanks

[17:43] It's giving to you all.

[17:45] Bye.

[17:46] Thank you.

[17:47] Grabble, grabble.

[17:52] We have a bunch of volunteers who donate the time to the town. They don't get paid. They don't get over time. They spend many hours and we have two appointments today and we have two appointees here and rather than make them stay for the entire evening.

[18:20] I thought maybe we could take the our appointments out of the border and then if they want to say a few words, we could

[18:27] recognize them. So first the appointment of Trudy Holland to the Board of Ethics to feel full.

[18:33] Just the past practice. Does anyone have any comments regarding the appointment? So these individuals.

[18:43] So if I'd like to move that we take the Board's and commissions out of the border and the first

[18:48] Nominate is Trudy Holland to the Board of Ethics to fill in on the next four. I turn to explore. I December 31st, 2024. I'd like to move that.

[18:56] Thank you.

[18:57] Thank you.

[19:01] You make me so happy.

[19:03] I just want to say thank you so much for choosing me to be the newest member of the Board of Ethics.

[19:09] I know how very important this board is to our community.

[19:12] And I don't take it lightly.

[19:14] And once again, thank you so much.

[19:16] Thank you for agreeing to some.

[19:17] Thank you.

[19:20] And the next one.

[19:22] The next one.

[19:23] And next up, the appointment of Johan Snacks, as an alternate member of the Planning Board

[19:27] for a term to expire December 31st, 2020, I'd like to move that.

[19:32] Well, if they ever are.

[19:35] Good evening everybody.

[19:37] Good evening.

[19:38] I just wanted to express my thanks for the consideration.

[19:43] Definitely interested in being a clean, a logical role in this community.

[19:46] and your consideration and confidence,

[19:50] quickly appreciate it.

[19:52] Thank you so much.

[19:52] Thank you.

[19:53] Thank you.

[19:54] Thank you.

[19:57] Moving right along.

[20:01] At the time that we printed me agenda,

[20:02] we did not have the name of the person who

[20:08] succumbed to our injuries at the

[20:15] And so, our prayers go out to the family and assist the tragic tragic event.

[20:30] Thank you.

[20:32] Next, okay, town board, TV1, resolution, we're approving an agreement between the town of Greenberg and Village of Almsfair to provide five protection services to residents of North Almsfair at a class not to exceed 7, 7, 9, 8, 4, 1, 0, 5, I'd like to move that. Second, on favor, TV2, resolution, approving an agreement between town of Greenberg and Village of Almsfair to provide five protection services to residents of west Almsfair to five protection district for the year.

[21:02] She does 19 and the cost not to exceed 231, 5, 6, 1, 31 of like you would have.

[21:08] Okay, we're all right.

[21:09] Resolution of the Rising Taxors Bureau, I saw them in a American-bobbling company on 55-hunter lane. We fund 11,919. I'd like to move that.

[21:21] They've arrived. What the Rising Taxors Bureau, I saw them in the Verizon Equinox, 215,760.

[21:30] like to move that.

[21:31] I'm afraid we're on it.

[21:33] What the Ryzen Tech Serture, I said I'm going to petition our RBT company for property located

[21:38] at 380.

[21:39] So I'm going to be a little bit more of a road to like this.

[21:41] Tell them how it is.

[21:42] It is 201935.

[21:44] I'd like to move that.

[21:46] I'm afraid we're on it.

[21:47] A resolution.

[21:47] What the Ryzen Tech Serture, I said I'm going to put the Hudson Harbor condo.

[21:52] Tell them how it's 34.

[21:53] 485.

[21:54] I'd like to move that.

[21:56] Second.

[21:56] I'm afraid we're on it.

[21:57] Bye.

[21:58] The authorizing Edron Red from roundhold roads to the triangle, Edron Place for NetRound Association to hold

[22:04] the Samuel Christmas Tree lightning, a queen pun, the Sunday election for that.

[22:11] You want to provide, Edron Road for a month.

[22:15] Just three closing.

[22:19] The street closing to the east end of roundhold road for Edron Association to hold as annual Christmas

[22:25] of Caroling on Monday December 24th from 4th to 6.30 pm.

[22:30] Well, favor.

[22:31] Second.

[22:32] Bye.

[22:33] Resolution, declaring, the secret determination of the town board of the town of Greenberg, with respect to an amended

[22:39] site plan and all related applications by the front of the cemetery.

[22:43] Two eighties, seek your road, I'd like to move that.

[22:49] Resolution, what the rise in fiscal year, 2019 budget transfers of like to move that on February 5th, resolution, what the rising approval of moly men to perform an actual review as required with gas bait, statement, number 75 fiscal year, 2019, 2020, a manual close not to exceed 18,000 like to move that second on February 5th.

[23:15] We're off the rise in town of Greenward Department of Parks to accept the $150 donation for the nutrition program at Coana's Club of Parks, Della, like to move that, second.

[23:25] We'll figure out.

[23:25] Well, otherwise, in change order, amending the contract was sent to all construction companies for storm call, but we have a rotation at old summer of a road for special excavation for an additional amount, not six feet, 47, 790, 506, if I can move that.

[23:41] Second.

[23:43] Well, if they were.

[23:43] Hi.

[23:44] On.

[23:45] Authorizing.

[23:46] Change order.

[23:48] Amending.

[23:49] Number two.

[23:50] Amending.

[23:50] The contract with Pander.

[23:51] Peter Landy.

[23:52] For the construction of a sidewalk of Columbia Avenue.

[23:55] And additional costs not to exceed 65,000.

[23:58] Like from with that.

[24:00] If they were.

[24:03] Resolution.

[24:04] Authorizing.

[24:04] Continuing.

[24:05] Professional.

[24:05] Services.

[24:06] For building.

[24:06] for building a valuation and fitful planning for the town police and court for an amount.

[24:12] Now it's a C-45,900.

[24:14] You'd like to speak?

[24:15] You'd like to speak?

[24:17] Please do a second.

[24:19] Second.

[24:20] Now you can speak.

[24:22] Your second.

[24:23] Thank you.

[24:24] Good evening.

[24:25] Q. McQualley.

[24:26] Hodge the resident.

[24:28] I'd just like to speak on the list.

[24:32] Or whatever.

[24:32] With law.

[24:33] Resolution.

[24:34] We got a lot of, I've been monitoring the due diligence, diligence of the town, and Victor

[24:42] Corrosi's office, and this is a positive step in the right direction.

[24:47] No decisions have been made, but to have lot of proceed with some initial design work based

[24:55] on the needs assessment study that they completed back in March is sound business, and it's

[25:02] part of a process that's ongoing in conjunction with CRBE. So again, I'd like to say that C-B-R-E.

[25:16] And if you could read the Big E, I could at nine o'clock.

[25:24] But again, I think this is a great

[25:25] movement, and as a resident in a tax payer, I'm very, very pleased with the due diligence

[25:31] that's being put into the project.

[25:33] So thank the board.

[25:35] And I think this is sound money being spent

[25:36] in monitored by Victor Corrosi.

[25:38] Thank you, and it's staff.

[25:39] Thank you.

[25:40] Thank you, man.

[25:41] And while we're on the topic, one of the issues that was discussed

[25:47] by the board, informally, was that we're hoping

[25:51] that there is monitoring of why Northrop does.

[25:55] So that the money isn't used frivolously.

[25:58] And you gave the example of a wooden building.

[26:02] CBRA, hopefully, is not going to put that forward.

[26:06] So before, Walter Oak does any kind of an examination

[26:10] of a building, we would hope that there

[26:12] would be others that, including CBRA and you,

[26:16] meaning the commissioner of the Department of Public Works,

[26:20] would look to see whether or not it's suitable,

[26:22] so we're not wasting much time.

[26:23] And all that we can see in the areas currently to, like, to, you know, not to resent buildings that are more reliable consideration.

[26:34] You need to vote on that.

[26:34] I can vote for this.

[26:35] Probably just covering any mental alley.

[26:38] And giving them a favor.

[26:41] I'm sorry.

[26:41] Well, all in favor on this motion.

[26:43] I'm sorry.

[26:45] I'm sorry.

[26:46] I'm sorry.

[26:47] I'm sorry.

[26:49] I'm sorry.

[26:50] Service Agreement with the K-DIS,

[26:52] Prevaluation of what a disinfection for the Town of Greenburg

[26:56] consolidated, ordered to strict number one,

[26:58] order pump stations for an amount, not to exceed 18,500.

[27:03] Well, if they were, okay, I'll move we adjourn.

[27:07] I'm Fiverr.

[27:07] Bye.

[27:10] So, if I'd like to move that we open off the hearing? Second.

[27:15] All right. All right. Good evening. Supervisor Finer and members of the Town Board for the record,

[27:22] Orange Met, Deputy Commissioner and Town Forestary Officer with the Department of Community, Development, and Conservation.

[27:29] Thank you for having me here this evening to further discuss the proposed tree ordinance entitled, Trees Community Management.

[27:36] This is now the third public hearing on this matter.

[27:39] We are very appreciative of the constructive comments provided by residents of the community and have made a number of revisions, which I would like to share with you and members of the public.

[27:48] As previously discussed, the Department of Community Development and Conservation is dedicated to providing members of the public with helpful information related to the environment, including the proposed town tree ordinance.

[28:02] The department, through its web page, will post information on the following.

[28:07] Application forms with instructions, industry recognized proper tree trimming standards.

[28:14] Again, no permit required for general tree pruning.

[28:18] Examples of activities that could inadvertently injure trees,

[28:22] samples for determining the environmental value of trees proposed for removal

[28:27] And, for those proposed as replacement trees, how do I identify if you have an invasive species of tree on your property, along with the link to the New York State list of prohibited and regulated invasive plants?

[28:43] We'll also provide a link to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation's list of protective native plants.

[28:51] Department staff also will be available and pleased to meet with residents to answer questions.

[28:58] We will assist homeowners in determining suitable species for planting along with proper placement suggestions.

[29:06] We are also available to communicate over the phone and through email.

[29:12] Since the last public hearing on this matter, we have made the following improvements to the draft law, including a revision to Section 260-5

[29:21] five to clarify that only trees with toxic organisms which cannot be treated, which spread

[29:29] to other trees and are those that can be required to be removed by the town. There are no

[29:37] replacement requirements in connection with these removals. Further, Section 260-12B has been

[29:46] added to the draft law, related to larger-scale developments involving the removal of 50 or more trees,

[29:54] or on properties five acres of more in area, whereby a surge charge is to be paid in the amount

[30:01] of $500 per tree, or 1% of the building permit application fee, which ever is greater.

[30:08] These search charges would be deposited into a town-wide tree fund for tree planting throughout the town.

[30:17] The Department as well equipped to carry out the administration of this law.

[30:21] We will provide very detailed information and examples on the website to assist residents.

[30:28] We fully support the proposed ordinance with the improvements made,

[30:31] and believe it will result in a healthier, more livable greenberg for us and for future generations of the town.

[30:39] Thank you.

[30:41] Thank you.

[30:43] We're going to begin the hearing.

[30:47] The first two statements came in on Sunday and the others today.

[30:55] From Bill Darger, D-A-R-G-E-R.

[31:00] Dear Supervisor Finer and Town Board,

[31:02] The Old Edge Month Association encourages you to pass the proposed street ordinance.

[31:09] The proposal respects the environment and scientific understanding with outcome of bureaucracy.

[31:16] The regulation would apply to all properties regardless of size.

[31:21] It increases the size of hazardous trees.

[31:26] I'm sorry.

[31:27] It increases the size.

[31:29] Thank you, Francis. You must be reading along with me. It increases the size of regulated

[31:34] trees consistent with other local municipalities. It provides for expedited removal of hazardous

[31:43] trees. It makes provisions not require a replacement of invasive species of trees. It allows

[31:51] for replacement trees to be young and thus not costly.

[31:57] It reduces fees and paperwork.

[32:00] We appreciate the thoughtful consideration that this issue has been given by many individuals

[32:07] and entities within the town.

[32:10] We hope this becomes law promptly.

[32:13] Warm Regards, Old Edge Month Association Board of Directors.

[32:24] Number two,

[32:27] to Diana Jutner, Ellen Hendricks, Ken Jones, Francis Schian, Paul Tounner,

[32:34] Pope Paul Feiner, Town Board, from Alex Piotis, P-A-I-D-A-S, as a nine year resident

[32:47] of Greenberg, I have been very pleased with the decisions of the town, level of services

[32:54] and focus on important issues, the latter in dramatic contrast with Skarsville.

[33:02] The proposed tree ordinance is the exception for me.

[33:07] Property owners need to be able to decide how they manage their own property.

[33:12] There are merit reasons to cut, replace or train trees, colon, age, dangerous limbs, proximity

[33:25] to foundation walls, invasive species, excessive lean, etc., the town should not legislate.

[33:37] If anything, judging by persistent power, outrageous in our area, homeowners need to do more.

[33:48] I'm sorry, go back to that sentence.

[33:51] If anything, judging by persistent power, outages in our area, homeowners need to do more.

[34:03] not less to manage their tree populations.

[34:10] Please let homeowners, especially those with less than one acre, decide how to manage their property.

[34:18] Also, I have to point out that live and let live, quote unquote, live and let live,

[34:28] It's one major reason why many edge-mount residents resist the incorporation movement.

[34:38] Over-legislation

[34:40] Plays into the hands of the would be incorporating tours. Let's not do that. Thank you for your attention. Alex Piaides, P-A-I-D-A-S. Okay. Next,

[35:03] Lindsey is a Lindsey Kaufman or Lindsey Kaufman. Lindsey Kaufman?

[35:08] Hi,

[35:19] my name is Lindsey Kaufman and I'm a sophomore at Edmont High School, Mr. Finder and the Greenbird Town Board.

[35:24] Thank you for allowing me to speak tonight.

[35:28] The current legislation state said if someone chooses to take down a train or property,

[35:32] that person has to replace.

[35:48] The current legislation state said if someone chooses to take down a train or property,

[35:52] that person has to replace it with the tree.

[35:54] that when fully grown will have 90% of the environmental values that original tree.

[35:59] This law only applies to properties that are at least an acre,

[36:02] which is only about 10% of the properties in Greenberg.

[36:05] Trees are important because they move carbon dioxide

[36:08] at greenhouse gas from the air.

[36:10] According to Urban Forestry Network.org,

[36:12] a full-grunt tree observed about 48 pounds of carbon dioxide per year.

[36:19] In addition, trees act as a natural filter and remove pollutants

[36:23] that people shouldn't breathe in from the air according to Royal Park's.org.

[36:28] Please support CAC's proposed law that would change the current legislation so it applies

[36:34] to all properties regardless of size.

[36:36] In addition, the replacement trees should be native trees instead of invasive species.

[36:40] This is because invasive species have no natural predator, so they tend to take over the

[36:44] area they're in.

[36:45] Finally, replacing a tree is not burdensome to the property owner.

[36:49] Has tremendous value to the community.

[36:50] Thank you.

[37:13] Good evening.

[37:17] My name is Aaron Hart, H-A-R-T. My husband and I are new to Greenberg. We chose

[37:22] Greenberg for the beauty and the character of its trees. I'm here tonight not only as a new

[37:26] resident who deeply loves the National Environment of my new home, but also as a biologist

[37:31] and firsthand witness to the consequences of inaction.

[37:35] I am a native to California,

[37:37] where the broad-scale devastation hits at least twice a year,

[37:41] and unlike a tornado or an earthquake,

[37:43] a hot dry wind that comes each fall

[37:46] has very little to any inherent power

[37:49] to wreak broad-scale destruction on its own.

[37:51] It's the human decisions surrounding that wind.

[37:56] Pardon me.

[38:00] It's the human decisions surrounding that wind

[38:02] that turn a routine weather invent

[38:04] into an unstoppable destructive force.

[38:07] Decisions of a greedously outdated environment of policy,

[38:10] lack of foresight, a deep siloed practice

[38:13] of disregard for surrounding communities

[38:15] that is responsible for broad-scale devastation.

[38:18] My hometown was lost in 1993.

[38:21] In 2003, it was threatened again.

[38:24] But it was spared by virtue of new laws

[38:26] that were created in the wake of the 93 disaster.

[38:29] This was a cogent, but incredibly horrible lesson

[38:32] that my town learned.

[38:35] So what do the field policies of the fires in California have to do with a tree lawn and westchester?

[38:40] My answer is everything.

[38:44] This updated tree lawn represents the kind of proactive insight

[38:48] and call for collective responsibility that would have deeply mitigated

[38:51] if not entirely thwarted some of the devastating events in my own state of California.

[38:56] Our current tree lawn is 45 years old.

[39:00] The amount of scientific shift and paradigm change that has taken place in that time is staggering.

[39:07] And the light of that fact and my own experience, I believe this updated law is not only a demonstration of wisdom,

[39:13] but more imperative to apply current best practices.

[39:17] This is a common sense law based in strong current scientific knowledge and conchanges planning for the future.

[39:23] It is a progressive for Westchester, but it's also extremely reasonable given what's at stake.

[39:29] It is my deepest hope that the leadership of my no-home will serve as a beacon of forward-thinking and collective responsibility to the communities surrounding it.

[39:37] I know too well the consequences that we are neighboring communities and our children will face should we fail to act to preserve and improve our environment.

[39:46] History has shown that even those who opposed similar laws before the crisis struck in my

[39:51] home state now stand in full support of those same efforts in hindsight.

[39:56] They say things like they wish they listened.

[39:59] They say that they wish they had been part of the solution.

[40:01] How do I know?

[40:02] I was there.

[40:04] And my family is still there.

[40:05] And these are the statements of those who fought progress only to win an argument, but to lose everything

[40:10] in the end.

[40:12] I dearly wish the leadership of my hometown had had the courage and vision to safeguard the future

[40:17] the way it is being proposed here, because the gravity of what we stand to lose cannot be overstated.

[40:24] In closing, I will lead you with the words when far-wise within myself.

[40:28] For in the final analysis, our most common basic link is that we all inhabit this small planet.

[40:35] We all breathe the same air.

[40:36] We all cherish the children, and we are all mortal.

[40:41] John F. Kennedy, thank you for your time, have a good week.

[40:52] Carol Demis.

[40:59] Good evening.

[41:01] D-E-M-A-S.

[41:04] Carol's in E.

[41:06] Thank you.

[41:08] My husband is Stewart Allen and I are grateful to have lived in East Irvington for 33 years,

[41:14] on almost three craggy acres with approximately 200 mature trees.

[41:20] It's been constant work and much of which we do ourselves.

[41:24] Our story illustrates what happens when neighbors unrestricted by current ordinances that apply to some,

[41:31] but not to all.

[41:32] We're free to do as they pleased, without regard to the impact on others.

[41:37] It is about damage we suffered due to neighbors abused tulip trees.

[41:41] Neighbors, whose removal of other trees that were preventing erosion, also threatened damage to a house below theirs.

[41:51] We are separated from these neighbors only by a single-lane easement road.

[41:56] These new neighbors, desiring a nice lawn, substantially raised the soil level around their tall mature tulip trees.

[42:05] A licensed, arborist friend warned us to expect trouble.

[42:08] the weight and depth of heavy so

[42:10] A call on those tree roots would damage and kill those tulip trees, or parts of them, would fall our way.

[42:19] I call the town to ask, are people allowed to kill trees slowly? To avoid potential conflict, I've explicitly requested no direct confrontation with the neighbors.

[42:30] A Greenberg representative showed up and he spotted an enormous pile of fill for which the

[42:36] same neighbors had no permit, a permit requirement which unlike tree laws applies to everyone.

[42:43] My neighbor verbally accosted me, left me totally shaken. To add insult to injury, we were told

[42:50] that since the neighbor's property was nine tenths of an acre, three ordinances in this instance

[42:55] did not apply to them. The tulip trees fell, they blocked our road, they broke our trees,

[43:03] they destroyed our plantings, enormous pieces flattened our fences and our gates.

[43:09] Our many trees are barely visible to most people, their precious and they need care,

[43:14] some age out and they die, a permit is required for their removal,

[43:19] as owners of larger property we are held to a higher standard.

[43:24] We request fairness. We're not about making problems for others. It's about requiring all property owners to adhere to the same rules, to care for trees, responsibly, to contribute to the town-wide environment, and protect themselves and their neighbors from potential harm.

[43:43] And while I'm at it, I am compelled to remind you of the travesty at Avalon Green, where ten acres of mature forest were clear-cut, overnight, and sold for lumber in direct defiance of a careful, well-considered official tree plan.

[43:59] The sold lumber more than paid the fines, it was a massacre, it was a hardbreak.

[44:07] My husband and I request that fines be raised to powerfully punitive levels to repelled

[44:14] developers from ignoring the law.

[44:17] Thank you for your time.

[44:25] Margaret Beale.

[44:33] Good evening.

[44:35] My name is Margaret Beale, it's a B.E.A.L.

[44:37] So, I am here to read a statement from my son, Matthew, who is at school, and he graduated

[44:47] college in 2018 with a double major in math and environmental science, so he has an interest

[44:52] in this topic.

[44:54] To the town board of Greenberg, we often look at new environmental regulations in terms of

[44:59] their costs to us, as a legislative hassle, unnecessary procedures and a drain on citizens

[45:05] time and money. What we don't often see is a hidden environmental cost of the status quo.

[45:11] The truth is, protecting trees will save us all time, money, and energy in the long run.

[45:18] Each year, urban trees provide over $500 million worth of ecosystem services to the world's

[45:24] 10 largest cities, including New York City. Cannabis provide shade, decreasing residents cooling

[45:30] bills in the summer, deep route systems provide water absorption, mitigating the impacts of

[45:35] floods, trees also protect our health, trapping airborne particulates and improving air quality,

[45:41] areas with dense tree coverage see lower incidents of childhood asthma and reduce symptoms

[45:47] of bronchitis in the elderly.

[45:50] So to fully understand the cost of this legislation, we need to consider return on investment.

[45:56] True, planting a tree represents an up-front cost.

[45:59] The average cost of replacing a hardwood in New England is between $20 and $50.

[46:05] In Greenberg, that tree will provide over $10,000 worth of ecosystem services in its lifetime.

[46:11] This figure includes cost savings on flooding, heating, cooling, wind damage, soil erosion and public health.

[46:19] Trees are not just good for aesthetics of a neighborhood, they're good for its bottom line.

[46:24] Think of this legislation as an investment in the future of the town.

[46:28] If you're willing to forego future wealth for short-term gain, then it makes sense not to

[46:33] support this law.

[46:34] But if you care about the longevity of our historic town and the health of this future

[46:39] inhabitants, then this law is a no-brainer.

[46:43] What do you envision for Greenberg's future?

[46:46] Do you want a town to be a cash-cow for developers, but it's easy to destroy hundreds of

[46:51] years of tree growth for a quick buck, or do you want to live in a robust healthy neighborhood

[46:56] where residents take pride in their built environment.

[47:00] Unlike most legislation, environmental laws

[47:02] overwhelmingly overwhelmingly begin with grassroots organization,

[47:07] a group of concerned citizens aware of the implications of the status quo.

[47:12] This is not surprising, since environmental issues disproportionately impact private citizens,

[47:18] small business owners and marginalized communities.

[47:22] We all have to do our part to ensure the planet remains

[47:25] livable for future generations. We have to include all properties with this law, not just

[47:30] large parcels. There may be strain on individual homeowners, but it will build awareness

[47:37] towards greener living. The tree law alone will not solve the existential problems of climate

[47:43] change, but by involving everyone in the town, we can coalesce a community of informed

[47:49] engage participants. It's not about any single tree. It's about building a sustainable community.

[47:56] And Greenberg citizens lie at the heart of that. Thank you.

[48:05] Carol Sarsano.

[48:16] Ms. Mike and Sam. A. R. C. I. N. E. L. L. A.

[48:24] Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Finer.

[48:27] This evening, I want to endorse the new chapter to 60 Treat Community Management Law,

[48:33] which is a revision of the existing trees chapter 260. Upon reading and comparing the two laws,

[48:43] the new law is more specific and applies to all properties in the town. The law attempts to

[48:51] correct the egregious tree cutting that has incurred in some areas. The intent of the new law

[48:59] is to ensure that we maintain the existing tree canopy prevent water runoff and soil erosion.

[49:10] Of course, ultimately, we hope the air is improved. This law responds to current

[49:18] public awareness of the need to maintain and improve our environment. The creation of a

[49:26] Now tree fund will provide funds to replace trees in public areas and to assist those who are financially insecure and must remove disease trees.

[49:40] It's a very helpful innovation. The law seeks to correct problems that have occurred in the past

[49:48] years.

[49:51] The requirement, ultimately, to notify one's neighbors of intended tree removal, is

[49:59] common courtesy. And a sharing of information that might be relevant to a neighbor's future planning.

[50:07] I, too, had an impact of the tree removal on my property.

[50:14] I think we can work together to not only enhance our properties, but at the same time make

[50:21] decisions that will benefit our community and the environment too.

[50:28] By adhering to the specific procedures in the revised chapter to 16.

[50:34] Thank you.

[50:49] Good evening, my name is Dora Ashley and I'm a resident of Hardstale and the last three

[50:55] Ordinance hearing I spoke about replacement trees and I would like to talk again about replacement trees

[51:03] In chapter 20 to 60 section eight in standards for pyramids replacement of trees. It says

[51:11] Replacement trees shall be a minimum two inch caliper size for the city's trees.

[51:17] Last time we were told that two caliper tree is not tall.

[51:23] According to American standard for nursery stock, two caliper, the city's tree is on average

[51:28] 12 to 14 feet tall and at maximum 16 feet tall.

[51:34] I have planted many six foot trees in my garden so I know that many residents

[51:39] would be able to plant six foot trees themselves. However, for 12, 12, to 14 foot tree,

[51:46] one would have to hire a landscaper. Today I emailed you all a link where it says that it could

[51:53] cost from 1,200 to 1,900 depending on a tree to install a 12 to 15 foot tree. Planting a tree

[52:02] shouldn't be economically punishing, it should be something that people could afford and do

[52:06] themselves without breaking a bank. I proposed that you changed two inch caliper requirement

[52:12] to six foot tall tree. During Hurricane Sandy, I lost more than 10 trees in my garden. According

[52:19] to this ordinance, I would have to replace the street with 12 foot tall trees. It would present

[52:24] a big financial burden to a homeowner if the town would dictate replacement of a big number

[52:30] of trees at once. There should be a very lenient measuring place on how to replace the trees

[52:35] the catastrophic storms.

[52:39] Today I emailed my suggestion to the entire board and I urge you to

[52:42] consider them as their pointing out to many omissions. I wrote my remarks from experience

[52:48] maintaining a property with many trees.

[52:53] I don't think this ordinance is enough punitive towards

[52:55] our development. It seems to be more punitive towards our homeowners as far as I know to developers

[53:02] have applied to remove hundreds of trees. Between Maplewood Project and Hortsdale and Shoperide

[53:09] in Ensford, they are applying to remove around 600 trees. If we add to it, Metropolis

[53:17] it might reach a number of thousand. I would like to know what is going to happen with these applications.

[53:29] Thank

[53:35] you.

[53:36] Elaine Taylor Gordon.

[53:48] Do you want to just know my name?

[53:51] You got it?

[53:51] Okay.

[53:52] Hello, everyone.

[53:54] I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as a tree.

[53:59] I'm quoting Joyce Kermer.

[54:01] Because I want you to understand, I'm not against trees.

[54:03] I love trees.

[54:05] I have shy of an acre of property that is loaded with trees.

[54:09] Two and a half years ago when I moved to Greenberg,

[54:11] I had to remove 60 down trees from the property left for me by the previous homeowner who could not afford to haul them away.

[54:20] He didn't cut them. They were down by Mother Nature.

[54:24] We're talking about the deep frustration of the cannabis.

[54:31] And we're assuming that this is all caused by development that developers are causing the trees to be cut down.

[54:37] or that our neighbors are cutting down trees willing nearly.

[54:41] I'm sure that there are some developers in there

[54:43] are some neighbors who have done this.

[54:45] But I think that the majority of trees that are down

[54:48] are down by wings, storms, hurricanes,

[54:52] and they go down every day.

[54:55] In the storm of cut with weeks ago,

[54:57] I lost two more trees.

[54:59] Now, don't cry for me because I have hundreds of trees in my property.

[55:03] I also took down 50 trees of my own,

[55:06] which were diseased, or leaning, or falling, or when we were renovating our house,

[55:12] people felt that they were in the way of what we needed to do.

[55:16] But I also repented 63's, but I didn't repaint 62 caliber trees.

[55:23] My objection to this ordinance is not that I don't like trees.

[55:29] I know trees prevent soil erosion.

[55:32] I know that they lower air conditioning bills.

[55:35] I know that they add to the beauty of our lives to be able to look at on something green.

[55:41] I know that when you cut trees you affect the birds and I have loads of birds and butterflies that have come back.

[55:49] So I'm not against that. Let me tell you what bothers me.

[55:54] The process, which I mentioned on November 13th, I felt was a stealth mission.

[56:00] I felt that the ordinance was being put through without proper opportunity for the community to know what was going on and to express their wishes.

[56:11] And I feel that, as the Lord, you have an obligation to at least let us speak about what being done.

[56:19] I mean, you're six people or seven people, I guess, and seven people cannot make a determination without getting some feedback from the constituency.

[56:30] So, my third objection is cost.

[56:37] This puts the financial responsibility on the homeowner.

[56:41] Now, look around you in Greenberg.

[56:43] Not everybody is a wealthy person.

[56:46] We are not all people from Edgeman to be the most wealthy,

[56:50] although I think they are probably people of both throughout Greenberg and every part.

[56:56] We have a lot of retired people in our community.

[56:59] This is an all-community and the age of most of the constituents is up there, there are

[57:06] fixed incomes.

[57:08] They can't afford to replace every tree.

[57:10] That needs to come down. I really believe that we should take down any invasive species, any disease trees. I do not want to see that any of my trees are going to add to Dutch end disease or any other kind of disease. However, we have taxpayers. We have paying taxes to maintain the infrastructure. If there are tree decisions that have to be made, and I'm sure that they are valid ones, I believe that the

[57:40] community has to pay for this as part of the taxes that we pay in to maintain the infrastructure.

[57:48] No one has mentioned that. We need to have a tree fund. These trees will not plan to buy

[57:55] the majority of the people in the home here, and they need to have a way that people can manage this.

[58:01] Let me give you a quick economics and then I'll stop. The cost of removing tree on an average

[58:07] is $1,500.

[58:09] I have paid as much as $3,500 to remove the treat.

[58:13] And that was not the size of my tool of treat.

[58:16] My famous tool of treat that I've spoken to you about.

[58:20] The cost of purchasing, a two-carabetry is $1,500 plus in this area.

[58:28] In Lancaster, Pennsylvania, which is a relatively inexpensive area,

[58:32] the cost of removing a tree is $1900. The cost of planting a tree is $1,500, a two-cow

[58:43] up a tree. That's a big tree. I can't plant a 14-4 tree. I can't even lift it. I

[58:50] have to if I've got something that's 10 feet from home deep. Are they have to

[58:53] deliver it to me? Okay, I'm finished. I think I made my point and I thank you very much.

[58:59] Thank you.

[59:04] Jonathan Hale.

[59:13] The last name is H.A. L.E.

[59:16] The first name is J.O. and H.A.

[59:19] Good evening, Supervisor Finer and Board members.

[59:23] My name is Jonathan Hale.

[59:25] I am one-time resident of this town.

[59:29] And since I was 13, I'm also a certified artist and have been one for about 25 years.

[59:37] And I'm also track qualified, which is a tree risk assessment qualification, which enables me to,

[59:47] basically with some authority to assess the relative risk of a tree to target such as homes, people.

[59:56] And it allows me to, through that training, to really look at trees in a different way than many residents do,

[1:00:03] So I have a slightly different viewpoint on this legislation.

[1:00:11] I've always felt that cherry-mobile restrictions are needed, but that they fell to hit the target.

[1:00:20] Now, one of the facts or one of the statistics stated on the last meeting was the percentage of

[1:00:33] 12, we're basically looking, we're including Hurricane Sandy or Superstorm Sandy, whatever

[1:00:40] you want to call it.

[1:00:41] I go back to Gloria, which I remember a hit Bronxville, terribly, and I remember the

[1:00:46] tornadoes that came through.

[1:00:49] And in my experiences, I'm sort of straddling two worlds because I sell tree work.

[1:00:57] I'm responsible to speak to homeowners about their trees.

[1:01:00] I'm responsible to assess their trees, to advise them, and in some cases I have to take

[1:01:06] trees down.

[1:01:07] So I'm sort of like a veterinarian who has to put animals down, but he also loves animals.

[1:01:12] I really do like trees a lot.

[1:01:16] And what I've found throughout my experiences is that all too often, the people that are doing

[1:01:25] treework and advising homeowners, miss the boat, they're not qualified,

[1:01:35] they advise types of treatments

[1:01:38] that are inadequate or inappropriate. And I think one of the things that we're not looking

[1:01:43] at is why some of these trees that we lose are being lost. Now, someone's mentioned that

[1:01:50] they're lost to storms, they're lost to natural, natural occurrences, they're lost to abuse,

[1:01:57] they're lost to people taking them down, and maybe necessarily, maybe unnecessarily.

[1:02:04] But in analyzing the number of times, I've seen trees damaged, I've seen trees lost,

[1:02:13] and I've seen trees that are retained, my conclusions are slightly different in terms

[1:02:19] what's needed. What I think is we need a legislation that requires qualification of people

[1:02:27] who come on to a property and advise a homeowner is to what to do about their trees. Homeowners

[1:02:33] need to be educated. We all need to be educated. I undergo a continuing education and my job

[1:02:40] is to accurately assess what the homeowner wants to do, what's available to them to do,

[1:02:47] And how it applies to the particular trees that I deal with.

[1:02:53] So, the really should be considered tree protection, proper tree maintenance.

[1:02:59] I mean, the most important person in your life is your doctor, not your undertaker.

[1:03:03] You don't want to get to the point where you have to take trees down.

[1:03:06] You don't want to lose a tree that you don't know why it came down, but it did.

[1:03:11] One of the examples I could give is today, and I'll show you a picture that I took.

[1:03:15] And you can all see it for where you are.

[1:03:18] And this is a project that was completed by a tree

[1:03:22] service that gets a lot of praise from social media

[1:03:26] because they're so reasonable.

[1:03:30] To me, this is very unreasonable,

[1:03:31] because I'm not looking at the money.

[1:03:33] I'm looking at the tree.

[1:03:37] So what I noticed, then I thought was ironic,

[1:03:40] because I took this picture today.

[1:03:41] What I noticed was about 75 feet to the right of that tree,

[1:03:45] There's a large twin oak, which leans out over old army road, and the power lines, which

[1:03:51] each stem is about, I'm going to say, 30, 32 inches in diameter, that's an enormously heavy

[1:03:56] organism.

[1:03:57] It's the weight of several school buses.

[1:04:00] At that point, it has no inertia, but when it starts to move, it takes a lot to stop it.

[1:04:05] At the base of that twin, which is a weak structure, is a gigantic hollow.

[1:04:10] It's a very dangerous situation.

[1:04:12] So what do they do?

[1:04:13] They pay attention to this trick.

[1:04:14] I would have a hard time serving that customer's desires if this is what they were, what

[1:04:20] except.

[1:04:21] Now, do they know that this is what they want it to do, that's evil.

[1:04:30] And then you can go to the many other things that people do to trees and you can say, well,

[1:04:33] they didn't remove 25% of the canopy or the crown.

[1:04:37] Well, so a lot, these trees are permanently damaged there.

[1:04:40] They're now crippled. These and these trees are in a senescent age. They're at the point where it's very hard for them to recover.

[1:04:48] If you could just finish the term, I'm long-winded, I know.

[1:04:52] But I appreciate the time, and I hope you take a different tack when you view tree protection. You have to start early.

[1:04:58] It has to be preventive, and it has to be done by people who know what they're doing.

[1:05:04] Thank you.

[1:05:24] I don't think I'd ever be here talking about trees.

[1:05:28] I think it's nice that you're trying to do something to protect trees.

[1:05:31] But you can have a well-intentioned law that operates improperly and unfairly.

[1:05:36] I like trees, I also like property rights, and I like the ability of ordinary citizens to be able to understand and comply with the law.

[1:05:43] The current tree ordinance, which is right here, is five pages.

[1:05:49] The new one that's proposed, at least going by the one I picked up outside, is 18.

[1:05:54] It's probably killed a lot of trees just by publishing it, but it's beside the point.

[1:06:00] The thing that I dislike about this proposed law is that it applies to ordinary citizens throughout all of unincorporated.

[1:06:09] The villages don't have to deal with this, of course, they can decide for themselves what burdens

[1:06:13] they want to put on their neighbors.

[1:06:15] Some of them don't have any rules whatsoever.

[1:06:19] And the ones that do, at least allow an opportunity for a hearing before their neighbors,

[1:06:23] of some sort, if they don't like the decision that's made.

[1:06:28] This ordinance says that to remove or even damage a tree greater than eight inches in

[1:06:32] diameter, you first need to get a permit, you have to file an application, there's a fee need

[1:06:37] to pay, you have to file a landscape plan which presumably means you need to hire some professional to do that.

[1:06:44] While the application is pending, you need to circle the tree with orange tape, you need to send copies of your application to all your neighbors and the people across the street.

[1:06:51] They get an opportunity to object.

[1:06:54] Some of the applications are decided by the time board of the planning board.

[1:06:58] But for most of us, it's going to be just decided by the forestry offer.

[1:07:03] one official who decides everything throughout the entire town for the vast majority of us.

[1:07:08] The forced officer can grant or deny the application with it without conditions,

[1:07:13] but there's nothing in the proposed statute about any sort of hearing.

[1:07:16] About any sort of opportunity to respond to whatever objections get made by your neighbors or by whoever.

[1:07:22] There's just a decision that you get notified of.

[1:07:26] That's a due process violation. You can't do that.

[1:07:28] You can't just make decisions about people's property without giving them any opportunity to be heard about it.

[1:07:32] just can't. That's a flaw in the statute that you want to fix. It's also, by the way, very different.

[1:07:39] I mean, I'm going to skip ahead. The other problem I have with this proposal is, you're changing the rules under the current law.

[1:07:47] If someone doesn't like a decision that gets made about a tree removal, there's an appeal to you to the town board.

[1:07:53] They can just come here like I'm doing right now. Under this new proposed ordinance, anybody who's agreed has to file a lawsuit.

[1:08:00] They have to hire a lawyer and file an article 78 proceeding if they're agreed by that.

[1:08:06] Now, they don't have to do that for other types of permits throughout the town.

[1:08:08] If the building inspector denies the permit, you can appeal to the zoning board.

[1:08:12] There are all sorts of examples where you have an administrative right of appeal.

[1:08:15] You just come here and you have accountability.

[1:08:19] If there's a decision that gets made under the current law, they don't like it.

[1:08:22] You are accountable for that.

[1:08:23] There's an appeal before you.

[1:08:25] Maybe you win, maybe you lose, but you own it.

[1:08:29] Now, ordinary citizens who don't like the decision they made, including, by the way, if it's

[1:08:34] a decision they're objecting to buy one of these developers, they got to hire a lawyer

[1:08:40] and go file a lawsuit.

[1:08:42] How do you think that's going to work out against the developer?

[1:08:45] Can the developer afford to hire a lawyer?

[1:08:48] I think they can.

[1:08:50] Can the ordinary person who doesn't like the decision that's made to hire a lawyer?

[1:08:54] You're going to go to court, you're going to have to file an article 78, it's going to

[1:08:58] be tied up for years because it is not going to be anywhere near the priority of the court.

[1:09:03] And then you're going to lose.

[1:09:06] And the reason you're going to lose is because the courts just going to ask whether it's within the statutory

[1:09:10] authority of the forestry official who has carte blanche authority under the statute.

[1:09:16] There's incredibly broad delegation of authority of the forestry officer.

[1:09:20] So I applaud you for trying to do something good for the environment.

[1:09:23] I really do.

[1:09:24] I think that's a great thing.

[1:09:26] But I think the way you've gone about doing it in this statute does not sufficiently protect

[1:09:31] the property rights of the residents of this town.

[1:09:34] Ordinary citizens, you're expanding this to cover anybody who has property less than an acre,

[1:09:39] which has never been the case.

[1:09:40] And I don't think that you give them a fair opportunity to be heard if they object to decisions

[1:09:44] that are made about their own property or about neighboring properties that affect them.

[1:09:51] Thank you for letting me be heard.

[1:09:53] Thank you.

[1:10:01] Thank you.

[1:10:01] It's very hooking.

[1:10:11] Thank you.

[1:10:12] Good evening.

[1:10:17] I addressed you last time.

[1:10:20] If you had known my comments about hazard trees, I already made my fear that one of them

[1:10:24] is gonna fall onto my house, really.

[1:10:26] One of these days, and the next big storm,

[1:10:31] I expressed this concern here.

[1:10:34] What is it?

[1:10:35] about a month ago a little, but not even a month ago,

[1:10:37] it was earlier this month, right?

[1:10:38] On the 13th, I believe.

[1:10:41] I can have to be 13th there, I think, two weeks ago.

[1:10:44] Anyway, on the 15th, a lawyer for a set home

[1:10:49] and association that I'm dealing with drafted a letter,

[1:10:54] accusing me of putting a garden in an easement

[1:10:57] and a conservation easement right next to my house.

[1:10:59] I didn't put the garden there, but somebody else.

[1:11:02] And they connect that issue with my request to remove hazardous trees.

[1:11:09] So I just wanted to bring this to your attention because I think there ought to be some way for a resident of this town to be protected from nuisance or hazards or dangers.

[1:11:21] Just like we protect ourselves from noise contamination from loud noise or if what else can there be?

[1:11:30] I mean, construction activity on the weekends, that kind of thing.

[1:11:33] This is, I think it hazardous trees more dangerous.

[1:11:36] And following up on this gentleman who is a tree expert,

[1:11:39] I think there is a special expertise needed

[1:11:41] if you're dealing with hazardous trees.

[1:11:43] There are sometimes rotten trees that you can see

[1:11:45] from the outside as an ecologist.

[1:11:49] I see it because I see fungal growth on the tree.

[1:11:53] I've often told there is nothing wrong with the tree

[1:11:56] and then we cut the tree down through enough, it was hollow.

[1:11:58] You know, there are signs that you can see that a normal artist doesn't necessarily almost see.

[1:12:04] You can see the trees go, it's nice and growing and this walks past the tree and says nothing wrong with it.

[1:12:09] And that's my my car.

[1:12:10] I don't want to make it too long for you here, but my comment is essentially a little bit

[1:12:17] protection for the homeowner, even if I'm not. I mean, I can cut, if the tree is on my own property, I can cut it down.

[1:12:24] The law allows for the draft law allows for this. But if it was my neighbor's property, I can't do anything about it.

[1:12:30] And if you can find a way to incorporate that, that I'm protected to as a neighbor, I think it would really appreciate that.

[1:12:37] Thank you.

[1:12:42] Bob Bernstein.

[1:12:47] Mike and Aaron.

[1:12:49] Mike?

[1:12:50] To be going to send the front rows.

[1:12:52] I'm sorry.

[1:12:53] He'd have to learn the whisper or move the tack.

[1:12:56] It's very difficult.

[1:12:58] It's very difficult.

[1:12:59] But it also means you're not paying attention to the speaker.

[1:13:04] Good evening.

[1:13:05] I want to make a couple of points.

[1:13:09] First, again, I want to stress that the edge of my community council has not an opportunity to weigh in

[1:13:14] on this law, our first meeting to discuss it will not be until the 1st of December, or

[1:13:20] the 1st Monday in December, and we like the opportunity to be able to get advance the

[1:13:27] ECC's directors to weigh in on this. I asked that the last time and you scheduled the hearing

[1:13:32] for tonight. So I would urge you not to close the hearing and allow us to speak again.

[1:13:38] With respect to the issues I wish to speak on tonight, I want to reinforce what Blair said about the statute and the way it was drafted.

[1:13:54] In my judgment, this draft will not work. It does violate due process.

[1:14:01] It can be fixed and should be fixed, but let me try to underscore exactly what's wrong with it.

[1:14:11] The fact that you in Section H, which I read out loud last time, require notice to the neighbors,

[1:14:18] before the Forestry Officer makes his decision.

[1:14:22] And the fact that in that notice, you solicit comments from neighbors to be given to the Forestry Officer.

[1:14:29] Before he makes his decision, is what makes this a violation of due process because then the applicant will get the decision,

[1:14:41] but he will not have had an opportunity to be heard in respect of any of the comments that neighbors might have made that may have affected the decision.

[1:14:49] I'll try to imagine that if a neighbor said something and the applicant who would not have

[1:14:54] received notice of it, doesn't know that that was a factor in Aaron's decision.

[1:15:01] The applicant's only recourse is to go directly to court.

[1:15:06] He doesn't have the opportunity to seek an administrative appeal before whatever administrative

[1:15:15] thing you set up.

[1:15:16] which you currently have now, and you are eliminating.

[1:15:22] There are other villages in the town, and I think Blair alluded to this.

[1:15:27] Three villages, by the way, do not regulate private property trees at all.

[1:15:32] Hastings doesn't.

[1:15:34] Artsly doesn't.

[1:15:35] Elm's for does not.

[1:15:37] But the three that do.

[1:15:40] Tarytown, Irvington, and Dobbs.

[1:15:43] Each provide for administrative review.

[1:15:45] And they're very careful about it.

[1:15:48] In smaller villages like Irvington and Dobs,

[1:15:53] you can appeal to the village board of trustees.

[1:15:57] Terry Town actually goes even further

[1:16:00] and creates a seven-member tree commission

[1:16:04] to decide these things on appeal

[1:16:07] from the forestry officer or the person designated

[1:16:10] with responsibility.

[1:16:11] And they actually provide for the forestry officer sits on the commission, the Billion Spectre

[1:16:20] sits on the commission and a representative from the CAC or their equivalent, their

[1:16:25] officer sits on the commission. And three residents who don't have an agenda, they sit on

[1:16:31] the commission that decides appeals from residents who are concerned that the application

[1:16:36] was not treated fairly.

[1:16:39] That's what Terry Town does, there are about 14,000 people, that's basically a third

[1:16:44] of the size of unincorporated greenberg.

[1:16:47] They went to the trouble to make sure that the appeal right was there.

[1:16:52] You obliterated it, eliminated it completely.

[1:16:55] If you're going to go after private property owners and I would love to ask some of those

[1:17:01] who feel so strongly about this, why they feel so strongly about it.

[1:17:06] And interestingly, they said, because we had a neighbor who was on property less than an

[1:17:12] acre, who cut down trees and we were offended by it, it bothered us.

[1:17:16] Well, okay, fair enough.

[1:17:18] But I'm also in agreement that large trees on small properties that come down could very

[1:17:24] well create a problem on a neighboring property, or it could create flooding issues.

[1:17:29] They do require experts to make sure it's being done right.

[1:17:32] And it's fair to require that, I think, but it's also fair to require that there be a

[1:17:40] right of appeal, because I can assure you that if there's no right of appeal, this statute

[1:17:46] will be declared unconstitutional because it violates the 14th Amendment due process, right?

[1:17:52] And you could easily fix it if you would allow the opportunity for us to be able to work

[1:17:57] with you to get it fixed, but as it stands, it doesn't work.

[1:18:01] remember, I've been before you on appeals of tree cutting permit. You eliminate that here, and I don't know why.

[1:18:17] Patricia Williams, that's WEMS, and I view on behalf of the Fairground Civic Association and I'm also, would like to speak on behalf of the Fairview Civic Association.

[1:18:32] And after listening to this gentleman, I don't know his name, I am glad he stated what

[1:18:37] he did because it was a completely different from a perspective that I had not even looked

[1:18:43] at.

[1:18:44] In my community, it is no way, it's under an acre, there is no way that anybody is going

[1:18:50] to be able to pay, $7,000 for any removal of one tree.

[1:18:55] And that tree is probably going to fall on the home of the individual who owns that property.

[1:19:01] And we have quite a few there because the trees in my community are over a hundred years old.

[1:19:09] So now if I'm speaking to the Deputy Commissioner for the Department of Community Resources Affairs.

[1:19:19] Then you have not taken in consideration the community that I live in and how you can see to it that there is some type of justice.

[1:19:27] You're telling me that they have to go to court, higher lawyer, to do one of those things, and I think that's a bit much.

[1:19:36] If one person here spent over $7,000 to remove a tree...

[1:19:40] And then to replace it, that's $25,000 easily. So where is that money supposed to come from in my community? I expect you to address the issue, but to also include what you're doing and where you're doing it.

[1:19:55] And if this is only for a part of Greenberg, the unincorporated area, you need to turn around and take a look at what you've stated.

[1:20:03] With this, I naturally am against the ordinance that is going to put an undue burden on the people who live in my community.

[1:20:12] So I would like to tell the board, I hope you can look at this and come up with something that is workable and doable to everyone in the town.

[1:20:21] or remove anybody who has less than an acre of property, remove some of the things that you are

[1:20:30] stating that everybody who has born then an acre has to do.

[1:20:37] Thank you very much.

[1:20:42] Here, Goldenheimer,

[1:20:49] Lorraine Kenshorry,

[1:21:04] good evening, Supervisor Finer and Tom Board and everyone

[1:21:08] who came out here tonight.

[1:21:11] I want to thank the artist for coming here.

[1:21:14] I'll let you tell you something.

[1:21:15] I have the utmost respect for everything

[1:21:18] you said about the care that an artist takes to make sure

[1:21:25] that they're doing the right thing.

[1:21:27] And those photos that you held up, the butchery of beautiful trees,

[1:21:33] is actually really disturbing to me.

[1:21:35] And I just wanted to say that there should be a way that these companies are coming, whatever

[1:21:43] companies they are have standards that contribute to the beauty of the landscape instead

[1:21:52] of like an eye so I think a telephone pole would probably be more attractive at that point.

[1:21:58] I also believe that the ordinance is going to inspire neglect because there will be individuals that are not going to want to go through the process of filing of dealing with neighbors, I'm very lucky I like all my neighbors.

[1:22:16] What if there's an A, but that just doesn't want anything done, and it just holds up the project?

[1:22:23] I think that the level of neglect could contribute to trees,

[1:22:27] falling, breaking houses, and entering, et cetera.

[1:22:32] As far as my abilities, there's definitely, there's definitely, I was swarm of my abilities.

[1:22:40] They, you know, common sense is not so common these days.

[1:22:43] There are some people that will ignore the problem until it becomes, you know, catastrophic, okay?

[1:22:50] And another thing I mentioned last week, and I don't know if anybody even paid close attention to this,

[1:22:55] why do the reasons why trees are becoming disease is that there are people that have fiber that's brought in from all over the place,

[1:23:05] And, you know, there are insects that harbor, there's a lot of invasive species across New

[1:23:10] York state, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and we need to have a wave that, if anyone's

[1:23:16] growing five-word, you know, there were the fact that they could be being five-worded, and

[1:23:21] the insects could, you know, proliferate on the property, the lava could burn into the trees,

[1:23:27] and, you know, you want to save money on heat, and yet it's going to question thousands of

[1:23:35] Okay, so I really think that's something that is very important to do with the invasive species

[1:23:40] will slowly decimate and destroy the canopy in Green Book.

[1:23:46] Thank you again. Have a good evening.

[1:23:53] Eric, Senior.

[1:24:00] Okay.

[1:24:01] Elopriser?

[1:24:21] Elopriser?

[1:24:25] Like Bob Bernstein.

[1:24:27] And I am going to ask that you put this over so that the Council of Greenberg Civic

[1:24:33] Association has the opportunity to discuss it.

[1:24:38] The Council will be meeting that first Tuesday in December, December 3, I believe it is.

[1:24:47] Quite frankly, I do not feel that there has been enough information on this proposed

[1:24:56] law, which will impact every property owner in the town.

[1:25:03] The very first discussion on it, not a public hearing, where certain people spoke, but

[1:25:10] the first discussion took place at the planning board last week.

[1:25:15] And yet there was no previous notice that this was going to happen or anything.

[1:25:20] I think it's important that people really understand what is being proposed.

[1:25:27] I have a number of comments.

[1:25:30] I have not had the time.

[1:25:32] I have a whole bunch of things going on in my life right now.

[1:25:35] And I have not had the time to sit down and put my comments and writing.

[1:25:40] But I have numerous concerns about this law.

[1:25:43] One of them, Blair Connelly, and Bob Bernstein brought up is this whole business that there's nothing except

[1:25:53] file and expensive lawsuit if you disagree.

[1:25:58] Why are most other codes in the town providing for an appeal process, but why are trees different?

[1:26:09] There are so many simple little things I have comments written on almost every page of this document.

[1:26:18] I don't have time to do this right now, but I ask that you hold this over.

[1:26:27] What is the rush? Please tell me, what is the urgent rush? The first hearing wasn't even two weeks ago.

[1:26:38] This is a third hearing and less than two weeks.

[1:26:42] Is that really sufficient outest to the community to get out just because you've helped three hearings?

[1:26:50] I don't understand it.

[1:26:52] As you know, anybody who has worked with me over many, many years in this town, I'm a nitpicker.

[1:26:59] And there are things in this law that I find troubling.

[1:27:04] I have a problem when you have misplaced modifiers when you do not

[1:27:10] Follow normal construction procedure and what have you. Maybe you all don't think that's important. I don't know.

[1:27:22] But I really want to know what is the rush. Is there a reason that this has been going on? We've had the existing law on the books for years, as you know.

[1:27:37] Simple little question, what about, and you do have to know, I've had any number of phone calls regarding this over the last two weeks in my house.

[1:27:48] And I've tried to advise people, I'm not opposed to this per se, but I am opposed to the way it's written.

[1:27:58] I don't know that I even know, for instance, it says you can't cut down, remove or top

[1:28:06] of tree without getting a permit first. If I get a permit, can I top of tree?

[1:28:14] Can this be

[1:28:15] professionally done? This is what you have written here.

[1:28:22] If I get a permit, can I cause

[1:28:25] some kind of action to the critical routes out.

[1:28:30] That's what you're lost, that is.

[1:28:35] I'm not going to go on.

[1:28:37] I only have 46 minutes.

[1:28:39] Please put this over.

[1:28:43] Let the community work with you to create a law that is that will possibly work with the community.

[1:28:51] Right now, I think what is written is terribly onerous.

[1:28:57] It won't be onerous on you, Ms. Hendricks.

[1:29:00] It won't be entered onerous on Mr. Feiner.

[1:29:05] And it won't be onerous on Diana Jockner.

[1:29:09] What do you think is oner?

[1:29:11] Because they live in condominiums and Diana lives in a village, and she will not have

[1:29:19] to comply with this law, can you will have to comply?

[1:29:23] I'm there.

[1:29:24] I beg your pardon?

[1:29:25] Thank you, but that was unclear of what you've

[1:29:27] based on a session on.

[1:29:28] OK, but only you and Francis will have to comply with this law.

[1:29:34] So I'm asking you all, especially those of you who will not be

[1:29:39] impacted, to give the community a little bit more time on this.

[1:29:44] I thank you.

[1:29:51] Sir, Mr. Governor, you did science speak.

[1:30:05] Supervisor Feinertown board, thank you.

[1:30:08] So tonight, we've heard a Peter Guggenheimer,

[1:30:10] G-U-G-G-E-N-H-E-I-M-E-R.

[1:30:15] So tonight, we've heard a lot of thoughtful people,

[1:30:18] state issues that they've had with the law,

[1:30:21] Jonathan Hale, who I know is advocating

[1:30:23] for more professional standards

[1:30:26] in taking care of trees, which I think is a great idea.

[1:30:30] I can't really address anything about the right

[1:30:32] appeal because I'm not a lawyer. I'm sure the lawyers and the audience can argue that.

[1:30:37] They're probably enough of them here. In terms of a neighborhood associations not having enough time to weigh in on this.

[1:30:44] This is now the third public hearing. Even though neighborhood associations have regular meetings.

[1:30:51] They can parole and talk to each other via chats via a phone.

[1:30:57] Certainly, one neighborhood association in EdgeMot has already weighed in and been in favor

[1:31:03] of the law, and as to claims of not enough time to review it, it's been 45 years since

[1:31:11] we've changed this law, it's time to move on it.

[1:31:15] I urge the board to not hold this over indefinitely, not to let it get wrapped up and lost

[1:31:21] when in the discussions of the budget and to do what you can to move this law, even if

[1:31:29] it's imperfect, forward, get it on the books and thank you, let's say.

[1:31:37] Aaron, I just had a question, the question about condos, my understanding is that everybody,

[1:31:46] you know, would have to comply, would you just be able to clarify that?

[1:31:52] Yes, supervisor Finer, you're absolutely right, so on any property within the town would be required to comply with the proposed tree ordinance.

[1:32:02] Okay.

[1:32:03] I also have other remarks or responses, but I'm not sure if the public's done speaking yet.

[1:32:10] Okay, so we don't have any further requests to speak on this public hearing.

[1:32:15] Okay, so I'm happy to address a number of matters I took some notes while folks from the public were speaking.

[1:32:24] First off, with respect to the tree replacement size,

[1:32:30] some had mentioned that a two-inch tree is just too large and too costly.

[1:32:35] I did some research on my own, and I do have it upstairs, I apologize I don't have it with me.

[1:32:40] But I looked at three local nurseries for cost of trees at the size that we had indicated in the draft law.

[1:32:50] And for two inch caliber, deciduous trees, the range was approximately $250 to $350 on average.

[1:32:58] a six foot high ever and somewhere less I'm giving you know an average six so we're

[1:33:10] as as written to inch caliber replacement tree for deciduous and then for ever

[1:33:15] greens we have a six foot in height standard and those trees were approximately between

[1:33:22] $200 and $300.

[1:33:25] So I had heard about $1,500 plus and I just wanted to state,

[1:33:29] I have that information.

[1:33:30] It's upstairs in my office.

[1:33:31] I'm happy to run upstairs and bring it down.

[1:33:37] I'm sorry.

[1:33:39] No, that's the cost per unit.

[1:33:44] Right.

[1:33:44] Well, someone had said that, could you go down to a six foot tree?

[1:33:49] In fact, for Evergreen's, we are at a six foot tree.

[1:33:52] So I want to clarify the record.

[1:33:53] let

[1:33:56] me move on. With respect to trees falling as a result of storms, trees that have

[1:34:05] completely fallen over, there's no permit required, so you may go ahead clean up those

[1:34:10] trees. There's no replacement required in those instances, either. The tree is completely

[1:34:15] toppled over, no permit required. The only time a permit would be required is when a portion

[1:34:21] of the tree still remains, that's greater than 4 feet in height, that's the height at

[1:34:26] which we measure the diameter or circumference of a tree.

[1:34:30] So there would be a permit required, in that instance, however, it would likely qualify

[1:34:35] as a hazard tree removal permit.

[1:34:38] The tree was mostly top-dinistered.

[1:34:40] In short, you would be able to run through the hazard permit application process, which is a quick process, and that permit can be turned around the day you come in and file for it. So we have a process set up for that.

[1:34:56] I also wanted to emphasize that with respect to replacement requirements, none in the proposed law, there are no replacement requirements for invasive disease or infested trees that property owners would like to take down.

[1:35:10] Now, with respect to professionals, a licensed professional tree care company, which

[1:35:20] employs at least one certified arborist, is required in connection with large tree

[1:35:25] removal.

[1:35:27] So, quite a bit larger than what our regulated size is.

[1:35:32] And there's an opportunity with that for homeowners to get input from the certified arborist,

[1:35:37] who might be able to explain to a homeowner,

[1:35:40] they look, we understand that you may want to remove this tree,

[1:35:43] but there are other options.

[1:35:45] You may think that it's sick.

[1:35:46] You may think that it's disease.

[1:35:48] But I'm a certified arborist.

[1:35:49] I have background in this.

[1:35:52] I go for continuing education credits.

[1:35:54] And I'm happy to discuss it with you further

[1:35:56] to identify what your options may be.

[1:35:59] So that is built into the law as well.

[1:36:03] With respect to tree protection, that was brought up.

[1:36:06] Tree protection is to be overseen by professional arborists in connection with development projects,

[1:36:13] and they will be consulted early on in the review and design process, review and design phase of the project,

[1:36:22] and can be brought on by the boards of the town to oversee provide input and make inspections.

[1:36:31] With respect to neighbor, neighbor notification.

[1:36:33] The neighbors do, we are proposing that neighbors do get notified as a courtesy and further to provide comments for the forestry officers consideration.

[1:36:46] If objections are provided or comments are received, the applicant will be made aware of those, and a discussion will ensue with the town forestry officer.

[1:36:55] With respect to appeals, we followed similar language to what is currently in the town

[1:37:03] code chapter 280, entitled Wetlands and Water Quarces, to my knowledge that law has not

[1:37:09] been deemed unconstitutional.

[1:37:14] With respect to professional landscape plans,

[1:37:21] correct?

[1:37:23] With respect to professional landscape plans, those are only required on commercial properties

[1:37:29] with respect, also with respect to large-scale residential projects, or for permits when more

[1:37:36] than 10 trees are proposed for removal. So on the bulk of homeowner tree removal applications,

[1:37:44] a professional landscape plan will not be required. With respect to the actual draft tree ordinance,

[1:37:51] To my knowledge, it's been on the Conservation Advisory Council's agendas dating back nearly

[1:37:58] one and a half years as an agenda item.

[1:38:02] So it's certainly been almost agendas which are available to the public and posted on

[1:38:07] the town website.

[1:38:09] And lastly,

[1:38:12] with respect to Ms. Priser asking for more time, I understand her comment, but I

[1:38:18] I did want to note for the board that she was present at a conservation advisory council meeting.

[1:38:27] Approximately a month ago where I provided a PowerPoint presentation outlining the draft law and seeking comment and feedback.

[1:38:38] It was provided to you immediately following is that correct?

[1:38:46] Okay.

[1:38:57] Thank you.

[1:39:04] Thank you.

[1:39:05] So, how do you want the board to handle listening?

[1:39:10] I can't hear you.

[1:39:11] I'm asking any recommendations from the board.

[1:39:15] Should we close the hearing today or do we want?

[1:39:19] I think we should give you the opportunity to have everything else.

[1:39:25] When is our next meeting?

[1:39:33] We're going to hold this over to December 11.

[1:39:36] We're hoping that in the meantime Britain comments will come into us

[1:39:40] so that they can work on it.

[1:39:42] So that we're not surprised on September 11.

[1:39:45] because we're doing time to run on this this year and not to go back to the office.

[1:39:52] What is the rush?

[1:39:53] There is.

[1:39:54] It's not so much of a rush that we are looking to make progress on a needed law.

[1:40:05] And we wish for this or any project, but we're going to wait until after the ECB

[1:40:13] we're going to wait until after the Council of Green and Turtles of the Asian

[1:40:17] needs, as you request it.

[1:40:20] But we would hope that as soon as those meetings occur, that, you know, provide us with

[1:40:26] information.

[1:40:29] What has happened here is unusual in that, after each public hearing, the similar

[1:40:34] vision based on a lot of the knowledge we're on now, if it comes to it on December 11th

[1:40:42] where all of the sudden we're hearing new comments, and it makes it very difficult for us

[1:40:48] to incorporate those new comments into the world.

[1:40:54] But at some point we have to, we have to move on to other things, and so I worked with

[1:41:02] the C&C vendor to make this best almost, and there's no doubt that parts of it are

[1:41:11] own and the need to look at people a little bit more, but those kind of things can get

[1:41:22] worked out, and I think what you have seen is that when issues were raised, they've addressed

[1:41:31] So if they have an issue with the appeal process, it turns out that that is how our life

[1:41:38] has grown, right, is that there's a deal now, that doesn't mean it's written in stone.

[1:41:45] So everything is subject to these questions, but I have found that it's not something that we

[1:41:52] I had a quick call for it.

[1:41:54] So, I was able to carry to our museum in general,

[1:41:59] where they have a bit of, well, it's a disgusting.

[1:42:02] And so, all we're asking for is to give us your ideas,

[1:42:07] sooner than they could.

[1:42:08] I was not pleased at all.

[1:42:11] Now we have a special meeting on a Tuesday evening that I will public hear.

[1:42:16] But I will be the one that will be the one that will be the one that will be the one that will not come.

[1:42:24] But we got some really good comments that night.

[1:42:29] And so we're continuing that.

[1:42:31] But please don't wait until December 11th to bring new comments to a slightly different story.

[1:42:38] And as soon as you pass me the point for an information,

[1:42:45] Mr. Gardening, publishing a new revision.

[1:42:48] Yes. Can you get a published book?

[1:42:49] Come and talk to the microphone.

[1:42:51] Can't hear you from back there.

[1:43:00] What I was asking for on behalf of the ECC

[1:43:03] is that if you're going to be putting forward a new version of this law

[1:43:09] that you do so before the ECC meets.

[1:43:13] I know that tonight's version is dated November 22nd.

[1:43:19] That means that this version was not the version that was

[1:43:22] before the group at your last public hearing last Tuesday.

[1:43:26] You've heard comments about the appeal.

[1:43:29] You heard Aaron tell you that the law with respect to

[1:43:34] what it gets taken into account and whether the applicant will hear about it

[1:43:38] is actually in the law. But it isn't. So I assume that you'll be rewriting it, and we'd

[1:43:43] like to see it before the ECC meets, to see whether that addresses the point, or whether

[1:43:49] we need to now tell you how to fix the law to make it constitutional. And we could explain

[1:43:55] to you why it's different with respect to the wetlands law and this law. Because there are

[1:44:00] certain specific things unique to the tree law as you outlined it, that require that there

[1:44:06] notice in a public hearing at the administrative level.

[1:44:11] But if you're not going to have us understand,

[1:44:13] OK, and I'm saying is, let us know what far we meet,

[1:44:17] because if we come to meet and then you change the law,

[1:44:20] well, then we'll be before you on the 11th saying,

[1:44:22] this is different from what we had before us.

[1:44:24] Thanks a lot.

[1:44:25] And I want you to add that to this different, and you know,

[1:44:30] that now, you know, please follow them, too.

[1:44:33] So, this is great.

[1:44:36] You know, I'd like to make a motion that we adjourn the hearing to December 11th.

[1:44:47] All right.

[1:44:49] Fine with that, I just wanted to make one comment.

[1:44:51] With respect to my stating that the review with the applicant was in the code,

[1:44:57] I did not say that it was in the code as a matter of administering proposed ordinance

[1:45:02] and the current ordinance, that is the practice of the Forestry Officer to meet with an applicant

[1:45:07] when and if comments are received from the public.

[1:45:10] Thank you.

[1:45:12] Well, favor.

[1:45:13] Okay.

[1:45:14] No.

[1:45:14] Excuse me.

[1:45:15] I'm raising my hand there.

[1:45:17] I just want to say one thing.

[1:45:19] I think that if you have listened to any, I mean, I need to have a good name, sorry.

[1:45:24] I just need to be close to the hearing as clocked.

[1:45:28] But I've been waving that my hand, I was told that I had to approach and I was waiting

[1:45:32] to the other speakers to finish. So my dream process is that I should be heard because I have been

[1:45:38] trying, waving, and just saying, okay, there are two issues here. After everything else is

[1:45:46] said and done, one is due process and the other one is cost. If you were just focus on those two areas,

[1:45:54] Those of us with other objections can put those aside.

[1:46:00] And I think, I think, and Hanselman, she was speaking,

[1:46:03] just occurred to me.

[1:46:05] The cost is a very big issue,

[1:46:08] especially with our population getting older,

[1:46:11] and not having, yes, I know that I'm emphasizing it.

[1:46:16] Because I would like to focus on those two issues.

[1:46:20] I know where I can't get involved with all the other things.

[1:46:22] Okay, thank you very much.

[1:46:26] Okay, so now we go on to the second hearing to consider the town of Greenberg 2020 preliminary budget.

[1:46:35] And I have, I'd like to open up that hearing.

[1:46:41] I'm on the 2,000.

[1:46:42] Well, if I have.

[1:46:43] And I have, you know, statement just to begin.

[1:46:48] prior to the November election, I announced that I would propose a budget that included

[1:46:56] a zero percent tax on Hike when I proposed a 2020 budget, I proposed a tax rate hike of

[1:47:06] zero percent. However, the levity did go up creating some confusion among some people.

[1:47:16] If the rate stays the same, which is more than what other communities in Westchester are doing,

[1:47:25] and if the leather goes up, some residents could have experienced a slight tax hike.

[1:47:30] We would not know that definitely until March when the tax bills are prepared.

[1:47:36] I feel that it's important for people to have confidence in the integrity of elected officials,

[1:47:43] And although there was some confusion by what I meant by a zero, zero percent tax like many

[1:47:51] people expected a zero percent tax led the increase as well.

[1:47:57] So I've asked the controller to amend the 2020 proposed budget, which now would include a tax

[1:48:07] decrease, it would probably be approximately a 3% reduction in the A budget and a 2% decrease

[1:48:16] in the tax rate and unincorporated in the B budget. The tax level would remain once if

[1:48:24] the cemented budget is approved. The same as the 2019 budget and will enable us to keep

[1:48:31] promises made prior to the election.

[1:48:36] So the tax levity in the A budget would be,

[1:48:39] I believe it's 9,321,201, and the tax levity in the B budget

[1:48:46] would be 59,000, 201, 6,933.

[1:48:53] So if the town board approves a budget by December 20th

[1:48:59] with my amendments, the proposed modification would not impact any services, it would not

[1:49:07] impact our desire to proceed with the police and courthouse on, you know, move because we

[1:49:17] have still saved over $12 million on in the budget, which will reduce our borrowing

[1:49:25] us and you know I believe that again the most important thing is if we freeze the tax

[1:49:31] level, it will send a message to the community that when we say something in a prior

[1:49:37] election, we are keeping our word.

[1:49:40] And, you know, I think it's important for people to have confidence and integrity of elected officials.

[1:49:49] So now, if anybody wants to comment on the budget.

[1:49:54] Eric Singer.

[1:50:03] Well, she wanted to share this with that earlier, right?

[1:50:05] Well, I had been working with the controller on this all day. And, you know, I just wanted to make sure that we were financially able to run up right now to make the modifications.

[1:50:24] Eric E. R. I. C. Zinger. Z. I. N. G. E. R.

[1:50:29] Changes into speech.

[1:50:31] Let's quick as I can.

[1:50:36] On November 13th, the town of Greenberg held its first public hearing on the 2020 operating budget.

[1:50:41] Much of the public hearing focused on the question is the town raising property taxes.

[1:50:46] Supervisor Paul Finer had been promoting that the tax rate is staying flat and that there is no tax rate increase.

[1:50:53] He said an email on the news letter out saying, a tax payer that paid $3,166,000 in 2019 will pay 30,166 in 2020.

[1:51:04] So in order to find out if taxes and agreement were raising, I reached out to the town controller,

[1:51:09] who prepares the budget, and the answer at the time was unambiguously clear.

[1:51:13] The original budget had a proposed poverty tax living proposed poverty tax living,

[1:51:19] that would increase by 1.5 million in the town,

[1:51:22] a 2.2% increase for 2020.

[1:51:24] The supervisor was correct.

[1:51:26] The tax rate is staying flat,

[1:51:28] but the tax levy, the dollar mountain property tax

[1:51:31] is paid by homeowners is increasing.

[1:51:33] homeowners don't pay the tax rate, homeowners pay taxes,

[1:51:36] and taxes were increasing.

[1:51:38] So to suggest that the budget did not include a tax increase

[1:51:40] was deceptive,

[1:51:42] and I'm happy to hear tonight that the supervisor

[1:51:45] has amended the budget,

[1:51:46] So that way it would be a flat property tax level.

[1:51:51] In the original email, the town said that it was collecting 1.5 million more tax revenues.

[1:51:56] And I wondered, how is it possible that a tax payer who paid $3,166 in 2019 will again pay $3,166 in 2020?

[1:52:04] The math didn't add up. So Paul, I'm glad to hear that you're coming in with a flat property tax

[1:52:11] I would like to know the details of what is being changed as their proposed budget that is going to be made available on the website.

[1:52:20] I know that I have proposed a relatively simple and straightforward path to passing a budget without increasing the tax level.

[1:52:26] The budget includes 2.93 million dollars listed as a transfer to capital fund to pre-fund capital budget items.

[1:52:34] I had proposed seeing that figure at 1.5 million reducing it by 1.5 and that result in a budget that has an actual zero tax-level increase.

[1:52:45] So regardless of how we're doing this or what amount of capital projects are being funded,

[1:52:49] I would like to know if that money is not going to zero,

[1:52:53] what specific projects I asked you this at the original public hearing if we had any specific details about

[1:52:58] What specific items are being pre-funded and not bonded for?

[1:53:02] There was a specific advantage outside of the intersavings for pre-funding specific items in the budget

[1:53:07] or more details on that specific line item.

[1:53:12] Thank you.

[1:53:13] Roberter, if you want to comment, but we're going to have discussions at the work sessions on the budget.

[1:53:22] So you hear from us, I'm kind of fine.

[1:53:25] That's a good idea.

[1:53:26] That's a good idea.

[1:53:27] Anybody else want to talk to me?

[1:53:28] No.

[1:53:28] There's no further questions.

[1:53:29] Bob, for instance.

[1:53:41] Thank you.

[1:53:42] The reason I wanted to speak on the budget was precisely because I wanted to get some answers

[1:53:48] to questions I had from Roberta.

[1:53:50] And I thought the best way to do it would be to raise it here.

[1:53:54] In order to present the budget to the ECC,

[1:53:58] I want to be able to explain how the town decided to deal with the windfall it was getting

[1:54:08] from the county sales tax and also the additional revenue that it's getting from the hotel

[1:54:14] tax. Between the sales tax and the hotel tax, we're talking about additional revenue

[1:54:20] of, I think, at least four and a half or five million dollars.

[1:54:24] And so one could say, well, we're just going to take the money we got and we're going

[1:54:31] to put it toward the capital budget or reserve for the courthouse or the police station.

[1:54:36] Or you could say we're reserving a portion of it and this is where I think her answer to

[1:54:43] last question of the last hearing suggested that what you were doing was you were creating

[1:54:48] a very large contingency fund to deal with expected increases in union costs once the contracts

[1:54:56] were agreed to.

[1:54:57] So what I would like for you to do either Roberta or you is so that I can explain to the

[1:55:04] ECC how you decided to whack up that windfall in terms of where did you allocate those funds

[1:55:13] to go and why so that we can better understand what you were doing with new funds that you

[1:55:20] didn't otherwise have available since obviously we're not getting a tax reduction, but

[1:55:25] we'd like to know what your priorities were with respect to this found money. I'm not saying

[1:55:31] it's not a good thing to have. It is a good thing to have and I'm glad you got it. But by the

[1:55:37] same token when you have found money like this, there is a sense of relief sometimes in the

[1:55:43] of elected officials that they no longer have to try as hard to find savings because, after

[1:55:49] all, they got new money to work with. So what I'd like to know is, what was the discussion?

[1:55:55] Have you had that discussion? What did you decide? How did you decide it? So that I can better

[1:56:01] explain to the people of Edgemont how you came up with the numbers you came up with.

[1:56:12] And my question is, at the last meeting, I asked about Fortress Bible, and how much interest

[1:56:18] was being paid on that 6.5 million dollar loan that we have, and, of course, in the

[1:56:27] poor finder, with the triple A rating that we have, does it have anything to do with the

[1:56:37] So I was hoping to have that answer before now, but she hasn't good.

[1:56:49] Anybody else?

[1:56:54] The Wayne Tyler Gordon?

[1:57:06] I'm not exactly here to talk about the budget, but something I would like to collaborate with you.

[1:57:10] A little bit. I'm not a financial person, per se. I'm a creative person. And I've been thinking about the school

[1:57:18] fund fund that I helped to defeat, and why I helped to defeat it, and what I think we need to do. I am

[1:57:27] definitely for education, and I'm definitely for improved schools for our kids. I know that these schools are falling apart.

[1:57:34] I've taken the time to tour them and see what's wrong.

[1:57:40] I'm very interested in the Bayley School in particular.

[1:57:44] I was explained to me that the Bayley School was the oldest, maybe one of the first black

[1:57:48] schools in this area and has historic bench.

[1:57:53] But I don't think in this Bayley College that we need a black school.

[1:57:57] I think that we need good schools in safe buildings that are integrated black, white, yellow, purple, whatever color you're coming.

[1:58:08] But the daily is on a very valuable piece of property that we own in the town of Greenberg.

[1:58:16] Maybe this is something you've already thought of.

[1:58:18] So if I'm covering territory that you've already covered, I apologize, I don't have the history.

[1:58:24] What occurred to me is that you could take that piece of property, that barely school, which

[1:58:29] could be ripe for development for condos or other kinds of apartments, it's not a good

[1:58:35] place for a school. It's right in a commercial neighborhood, there's a lot of traffic.

[1:58:41] I don't think it's safe. With the money that you could raise from selling that property,

[1:58:46] You could get a state of the art school for the baby school on the campus where woodlands high school is.

[1:58:54] We don't have to answer, we don't have jurisdiction over school property.

[1:58:58] It all.

[1:58:58] It says that is there something that the bread could suggest?

[1:59:03] Is it something a creative approach that we could get involved with?

[1:59:07] I think you need to go to the school board and raise this.

[1:59:10] Well, I can do that, of course.

[1:59:12] Okay, thank you very much.

[1:59:17] Anybody else?

[1:59:20] You know, Pat, did you want to speak on the budget or have you probably commented on you did?

[1:59:26] I don't have any other requests for the budget.

[1:59:29] Where did you want to, uh?

[1:59:35] Okay, the first, Rebecca Romano, I'm sorry.

[1:59:39] The first question was about the pre-funding of the capital projects.

[1:59:43] There have already been some projects that have been identified to be funded,

[1:59:48] But there is items that we still have not specifically identified yet, but the thought process was that we could reduce the amount that we're borrowing.

[2:00:03] So in that respect we would be saving on interest costs we would be saving on bonding costs.

[2:00:08] So you're saving money by doing that.

[2:00:11] That was the thought process in setting aside money to try to pre-fund some of these capital projects rather than bonding.

[2:00:17] There's a way to use operating funds for a capital project so that we would have the funding costs or the interest.

[2:00:25] And that was the thought process behind that.

[2:00:29] So a lot of the windfall that Mr. Verente was speaking about was a lot into that.

[2:00:36] Also, cost go up every year, operating utilities go up, cost of living goes up, cost go up, so that's part of it also.

[2:00:45] Also, as I said, we're negotiating three-cocked, three-unit contracts.

[2:00:51] That's also included in that.

[2:00:53] I went about, I didn't do a mandate from the state relating to the disclosure.

[2:00:59] We had to add additional positions.

[2:01:02] How many positions?

[2:01:04] I believe it was two police officers and a part-time lar.

[2:01:08] This is the unfunded mandate that was dictated by the state.

[2:01:14] So, that was in a nutshell, that's an overview.

[2:01:22] Ms. Williams asked about the interest that is left to be paid.

[2:01:27] The total amount paid?

[2:01:33] Okay, so the principal amount was 5.5 million.

[2:01:37] The interest on that was 900,000, 408 and 54 cents.

[2:01:43] So the total amount paid with 6 million 404, 408 and 54 cents.

[2:01:52] And I believe that's all the questions.

[2:01:55] Okay.

[2:01:56] Okay.

[2:01:57] I'd like to move that way.

[2:01:58] Turn the hearing to December 11.

[2:02:00] Second.

[2:02:01] Well, favor.

[2:02:02] All right.

[2:02:03] You can see what we're changing.

[2:02:05] You can make it a lot of public tax level.

[2:02:07] Are you wishing you a huge amount of such things?

[2:02:11] I don't

[2:02:17] want to say anything.

[2:02:20] We're taking it from fun balance, but this is a recommendation, the town board could discuss

[2:02:28] the details, but I had spoken to all the members of town board, and we're all committed

[2:02:34] to having a zero percent tax level and a zero percent tax rate, I guess, now it's a reduction.

[2:02:42] And I think that's the issue that people are concerned about in the common days as we're

[2:02:48] going through the budget, we'll provide people

[2:02:50] with more details on how we're going to implement it.

[2:02:56] But right now, the controller is recommending using

[2:02:59] fund bills, but we could always tweak that and change that

[2:03:03] when we have the discussions.

[2:03:05] And to understand that the tax lettuce

[2:03:08] determined by the school budget, which we are

[2:03:11] in dependent of the town and stating another revenues that come out.

[2:03:19] So that determines what the tax level is.

[2:03:24] I should also mention that a lot of people like to beat up by the town, it's a little

[2:03:32] bit of a sport, and I want to mention that in Westchester County, I think the county

[2:03:40] executive has reduced the taxes, and I don't think that there's a lot of communities in

[2:03:48] Westchester, I don't know if anybody knows of others, that have had a 0% tax levity

[2:03:54] and a tax rate.

[2:03:57] Most of the other tax towns did reduce the amount that their tax levity would have been

[2:04:09] had they not received the state funds from the state,

[2:04:15] from the one percent sales tax increase and benefits,

[2:04:21] but they did not.

[2:04:23] I don't recall any of the towns that any of them.

[2:04:29] They had a zero percent.

[2:04:31] Right, so we're like the best of what's happening.

[2:04:38] Now

[2:04:40] We're going to have the public comments, would you cap a budget? The rain has her hand, there is a cap of budget.

[2:04:50] I'm sorry. I forgot.

[2:04:55] Okay, so I'd like to, we'll hold on one second.

[2:04:59] Wait, we're trying to figure out where we are.

[2:05:01] So we did the preliminary budget.

[2:05:04] We have the next hearing.

[2:05:06] We have the capital budget.

[2:05:07] Which is sort of yeah, I just wanted to say

[2:05:12] Open up the hearing open up the hearing

[2:05:16] I want to make a comment about to not really

[2:05:25] Okay, so we're up to the capital budget. Did you want to make a comment on the capital budget?

[2:05:30] Well, I just know I just wanted to say that according to what do not believe New York is how to pay off the debt

[2:05:37] by local government, of course, the state. It would equal $3,916 per person.

[2:05:44] That's why I wanted to say, I'm going to do that.

[2:05:47] Okay. Anybody in the speak on the capital budget?

[2:05:52] Yeah, we don't have any of it in the question.

[2:05:54] Okay, sir.

[2:05:55] All right, so Mr. Bernstein.

[2:05:57] Does anybody else wish to speak on the capital budget?

[2:05:59] Okay, please come forward, Mr. Bernstein.

[2:06:03] So it looks like Mr. Bernstein's the only speaker.

[2:06:16] Thank you.

[2:06:17] The reason I wanted to speak tonight on the Capitol budget is that this is a very sad

[2:06:25] day for Edgmont because we had a tragedy.

[2:06:31] It is not a time for figure pointing, but it is a time for action.

[2:06:37] I have come before you for over 15 years advocating for sidewalks in Edmont.

[2:06:48] I even pulled out the minutes of the meeting of the ECC, the last time the town supervisor

[2:06:59] attended a meeting of the ECC.

[2:07:01] It was December 1, 2014, where he reported, according to our minutes, that he had a change

[2:07:09] of hard-on sidewalks and was now ready to go forward with him.

[2:07:14] Quoting the minutes, he said that the time had come for us to work together on getting

[2:07:21] sidewalks done.

[2:07:24] Quote, no gimmicks, he said, no hinder hidden agenda.

[2:07:28] We need to work together to make it happen.

[2:07:30] Maybe we could do one section at a time.

[2:07:33] That was on December 1, 2014, the very next day, unfortunately, the town board at a work

[2:07:38] session decided not to go forward.

[2:07:41] But it doesn't matter.

[2:07:43] We had a tragedy.

[2:07:45] We had a tragedy, ironically, on a sidewalk that I recommended, on April 24th at the last hearing

[2:07:50] on the Capitol budget, the funded.

[2:07:55] And we had a conversation about it.

[2:07:57] is to find a pointed out that he rides his bicycle on that street and he knows for well how dangerous

[2:08:02] it is.

[2:08:03] But now we had a tragedy.

[2:08:05] So I am asking you tonight to allocate funds immediately in the capital budget for RFP for

[2:08:16] an engineering study for a sidewalk and whatever other pedestrian enhancements are needed

[2:08:23] on further road from largely road to under-hill road.

[2:08:30] It may come in with a big number, but let's know what the number is.

[2:08:34] No more BS, this has to happen, and by the way, it's not just a sidewalk.

[2:08:41] Now, we don't have the police investigation yet, but I spoke to the doctor who first got to the victim,

[2:08:49] And as you aren't resident, who happened upon the scene, happened to be a doctor.

[2:08:56] And he said to me, you know it was really tragic, he said, the woman that was hit, lying

[2:09:04] in the road on Fort Hill,

[2:09:08] I couldn't even see her because the lighting there was so terrible.

[2:09:14] There was inadequate lighting, other pastors by had to stop, take out their cellphones,

[2:09:20] used the light on their cell phones to shine a light on the victim because they were so

[2:09:25] the inadequate seat street lighting, he couldn't even see the victim to try to treat her.

[2:09:31] To the EMS got there.

[2:09:34] This is 2019 folks.

[2:09:36] That should never be.

[2:09:38] You've had ample warning for me about this happening.

[2:09:43] And I say 15 years because I went and checked my file.

[2:09:46] It goes back 15 years.

[2:09:50] So no more politics over this.

[2:09:51] you do it. It's a matter of safety. Public health and safety. It's not about pointing

[2:09:58] the fingers and saying the scores should fund school buses. It's not about any of that.

[2:10:04] It's not about saying, Edgemont wants it. Edgemont should pay for it. This is a town

[2:10:08] responsibility. It's a matter of public health and safety. It shouldn't take a tragedy,

[2:10:14] a death, to get you to act, but now just act. Just doing. It's an RFP. It doesn't

[2:10:20] to admit you to building it, but it commits you to finding out what the cost of an pedestrian

[2:10:25] enhancements there would be. If you find out when the engineer does a study, how many

[2:10:31] shrubs might have to be moved on either side. You don't need a walk, a public walk and

[2:10:36] grandstanding to show the importance. Show the importance tonight, pass a resolution, authorizing

[2:10:43] and RFP to find out what can be done immediately to see what the experts say can enhance the

[2:10:50] pedestrian safety along that quarter. That's the worst quarter in Edgemont. That's why I

[2:10:56] sent an April 24th. There are others that are bad too. But now we know one that needs to be

[2:11:02] dressed right away. So, let us respect, I ask you to do that in the interest of decency and

[2:11:10] I would just like to mention one thing, we as a town have been building a lot of sidewalks around the town in the past

[2:11:20] in a couple of years. In the edge of mind, when the community has us, when we work with the neighborhood association,

[2:11:27] work with us. We worked with the old Edmonton Association, very hard, and we got a sidewalk

[2:11:36] built, a silly place. When the Southern Greenville Association decided to work with us,

[2:11:45] decided they wanted to work with us. We were able to get a sidewalk on Fort Hill Road,

[2:11:51] both, arguably, roads, you know, south, and that was, you know, quickly.

[2:11:58] We,

[2:12:01] about a year ago, the Deputy Commissioner of Public Works, and I met with a member of the...

[2:12:10] Mother in Edgman and she is for a sidewalk near the Greenville School and we got that bolt. We're

[2:12:21] more than happy to work with the neighborhood association, with the ECC and with the community

[2:12:27] to get sidewalks built. We have been working with a junior per whole civic association.

[2:12:38] We

[2:12:38] to build to get funding for a sidewalk on a whole side of the Avenue this whole location

[2:12:44] and all tarry town road.

[2:12:47] In the next few weeks, we're going to start construction of a sidewalk on Central Avenue.

[2:12:53] And the town is footing significant cost because it was more expensive than we had.

[2:13:01] And we basically said we're going to do it.

[2:13:03] Councilman Cheyenne have been working very hard on implementing safety improvements in front of the sacred hard church and we're going to add that to the budget

[2:13:14] We schedule a meeting for a week from Saturday on December 7th at 11 a.m. a walk we walk with residents just like we did on north Washington

[2:13:26] because we had a walk there, you know, a few weeks, you know, a few weeks ago.

[2:13:32] You know, because we want to have the town engineers, the public works,

[2:13:35] you know, commissioner, representatives of the police, you know, there.

[2:13:39] So we could show people exactly what it takes to get aside walk, you know, both.

[2:13:45] You know, I've been reading all the next door, you know, comments, you know, many of them are, you know,

[2:13:50] I think I'm fair and a little nasty.

[2:13:52] And you know some people said build the sidewalk in three months, you know, build the temporary sidewalk.

[2:13:59] We have to comply with ADA requirements.

[2:14:02] There's bidding requirements that we have to comply with.

[2:14:05] We have to make sure that there's great that that we're now messing up drainage.

[2:14:09] There's a lot of issues that go into sidewalk and we have to do this correctly.

[2:14:13] I would support issuing an RAP and support increasing funding for a sidewalk at this location

[2:14:20] because I think there's nothing more important than public safety, and although it's not clear

[2:14:27] whether this action could have been prevented, because we haven't gotten the investigation,

[2:14:34] the investigation is not concluded, if there was a sidewalk or not, anytime there's a sidewalk

[2:14:39] it reduces the possibility of a tragedy. So to me, this sidewalk is essential and totally committed

[2:14:47] for it, I'm determined to make it happen, but I also want people to know that when you're

[2:14:55] talking about sidewalks, you know, the reason why I suggest it belonged to you to under

[2:15:01] hell because there's not a lot of homes there with obstructions. And I feel that that's

[2:15:06] something that is durable, that the community basically will support. And instead of everybody

[2:15:11] saying, oh, we want to sidewalk and nothing happening because everybody's going to fight it.

[2:15:15] I think that's something we could do very, very, we could do that pretty quickly.

[2:15:20] The other part, South of Longview, there's a lot of people have trees, a lot of people have

[2:15:27] fences, gates, their driveways are fancy. There's going to be a lot of things that people are

[2:15:36] going to have to remove together sidewalk at that location. And I don't want to jeopardize

[2:15:41] the entire sidewalk, you know, I've got to get some of it done, you know, with a lot of,

[2:15:47] if the community supports it, rather than just talk about it and everybody yelling and

[2:15:52] fighting each other for the next year and nothing, nothing happening.

[2:15:56] So I would be willing to support an R.K., you know, we could discuss this during our budget discussions

[2:16:02] on, we would like to, you know, support, in fact, I did speak to the commissioner earlier

[2:16:08] today. I said, is there usually we do these sidewalks in house?

[2:16:12] So I said, you know, because of the urgency of this, I would be willing to even see if we

[2:16:18] could hire an engine, you know, I'm speaking for myself, I'd be going to say, this is really

[2:16:24] important. This is, you know, essential. If we could expedite it by having a private engineering

[2:16:31] from come up with the design and the cross and move this cooker, I think it would be great.

[2:16:38] But again, I do think it's important to have the community meeting, to not grandstanding

[2:16:42] basically all I want to do is I want to show people exactly what has to be done.

[2:16:49] I want to answer questions, get ideas from the community, because for example, on next

[2:16:54] store, you could say, even though everybody's yelling and screaming on it, I do read it.

[2:17:00] somebody said, maybe we should also improve the sidewalk on underhold.

[2:17:04] It's not only for it held, there may be other sidewalks in that area that, you know,

[2:17:09] to make it truly safe.

[2:17:11] And, you know, when you talk to a lot of people, we may get more and more ideas.

[2:17:16] Well, Mr. Bernstein, you had your five minutes, correct?

[2:17:18] Can I have two minutes?

[2:17:19] Well, listen, I get for Councilman Shandard, you want to respond.

[2:17:22] I thought you were about to say something on this topic or no.

[2:17:28] Well, during the meeting I actually got a notice that the child who was hit by a car on Central Avenue by Lawton Avenue and Central Park Avenue where the Sacred Heart Church in Seoul is the child who was going to basketball practice at night.

[2:17:51] He was 14 years old and walked in the crosswalk.

[2:17:56] The tape by a car was an induced coma initially

[2:17:59] and had been an hospital for five weeks,

[2:18:02] but he came home today.

[2:18:10] Unfortunately, that wasn't the result of our four-held room.

[2:18:16] And we have a serious issue throughout the town.

[2:18:21] And it's a multi-dimensional issue.

[2:18:24] it's not just sidewalks, it's also education, it's also speed enforcement,

[2:18:31] you know,

[2:18:31] we need a very broad based approach to address this, and I am fully aware from when people

[2:18:41] ask for speed and speed enforcement, it's usually the local residents, and when they get

[2:18:46] pulled over they said, oh, I know I asked for speed enforcement, but I didn't mean me,

[2:18:53] but

[2:18:53] I hope everyone's on notice that we're going to be asking, and we have asked the police department to do increased enforcement, not punitive, but real speeding to address these issues.

[2:19:09] There are no easy answers.

[2:19:12] We will address these issues as they come up, frankly, the number of pedestrians hit in many parts of the town.

[2:19:20] I've never heard of the frequency that I hear recently.

[2:19:24] I mean, it makes no sense why all of a sudden,

[2:19:30] I know daylight savings time doesn't help,

[2:19:35] but we need to address this and I don't think.

[2:19:40] I walk as a panacea, it's a helpful, of course, but we need to do more than that. And so we're committed to that.

[2:19:51] But let's be clear, at the same time, everyone's asking for a 0% levy increase. There are costs that are associated with doing all of these things.

[2:20:01] And there is no free right, right? If we're going to be making these improvements, they cost a lot of money.

[2:20:09] The puts sidewalks like we're talking about millions of dollars and somebody's got to pay that.

[2:20:16] We either get it from grants, but that takes time or it comes from taxpayer funds.

[2:20:23] And so, you know, there's some kind of a balance that we have to do.

[2:20:28] And of course, everyone wants to cut what they don't use.

[2:20:33] But we have the job of looking at a bigger picture and figuring out, you know,

[2:20:38] what is it that we need and sometimes things are in popular and it's easy to give an immediate

[2:20:46] reaction and say yes we'll do this or yes we'll do that but it's just unacceptable

[2:20:54] that you can't cross a road particularly in a crosswalk without getting hurt.

[2:21:01] And I just want to mention one other follow-up action that I've taken and we've gotten a lot of

[2:21:07] across around the town for sidewalks.

[2:21:10] Eric is here and we had a walk on North Washington Avenue,

[2:21:15] which I think needs a sidewalk.

[2:21:18] Joe Han, Snag's a new member of the planning board.

[2:21:22] We've talked less week about extending the sidewalk

[2:21:27] from fear street to June of for help.

[2:21:30] And we also want to do outreach to the community.

[2:21:36] I've met with people on Mount Choy in Edgman and they would like a sidewalk near the school

[2:21:46] and we could go on and on.

[2:21:48] What I sort of thought, and this was a suggestion that has been made in the past, is I think that

[2:21:55] I personally believe the Fort Hill sidewalk is very, very important.

[2:22:01] And I think that all of the three sidewalks that I just mentioned, no ones are important.

[2:22:08] But I think that what we should do may be a little differently than we did in the past

[2:22:14] is we should come up with a five-year plan for sidewalks.

[2:22:19] I'm going to be asking the police community advisory board, I'm contacting all the members

[2:22:23] of the police community advisory board to review sidewalk proposals as they're made.

[2:22:29] And then to help us identify a plan of action for the sidewalks, because the police community advisory board consists of members of the community who are aware of safety issues.

[2:22:45] And this way, you know, every time, this way, if we have a plan and this priorities, and we help identifying the most important sidewalks to be built.

[2:22:55] You know, if somebody is for a side walk and it's important, but it may not be as important they could help determine the priority and when it's going to happen.

[2:23:10] So I'm hoping to meet with them and hope they'll, I'm pretty sure I'll work with us and I'm also inviting the police advisory board to the walk next week on Fort Hill.

[2:23:22] You don't even need to do that.

[2:23:25] I'm sorry.

[2:23:26] Yes.

[2:23:27] We've talked about sidewalks.

[2:23:29] We've talked about police enforcement.

[2:23:32] But it's also our responsibility as drivers.

[2:23:37] And, you know, current, there are more cars on the road.

[2:23:40] Cars are faster, quieter.

[2:23:43] And, you have zero to 16 and another second.

[2:23:47] And, you know, I'm guilty too, speeding.

[2:23:49] But wait,

[2:23:53] that she is here.

[2:23:55] Yes, yes.

[2:23:56] Yes, yes.

[2:23:57] Yes, yes.

[2:23:58] Yeah, you'll reach about time.

[2:24:00] Have you ever heard of Miranda?

[2:24:03] But driving responsibility is very important too.

[2:24:07] And we have to be cognizant that there's this snow community.

[2:24:12] And we didn't have this kind of vehicular traffic.

[2:24:19] So, sidewalks were not necessary, and little by little we understand the importance for

[2:24:25] so many reasons. Safety, walkability. But I do ask, I am poor, that drivers exercise much

[2:24:36] more care.

[2:24:37] You were involved in the bicycle related into the world?

[2:24:41] Well, yes, both men has been done.

[2:24:43] My husband was hit by a truck and the doctor was counted after 650 stitches to his

[2:24:50] face and head.

[2:24:52] He was very lucky.

[2:24:55] I just simply lost my sense of smell, but I was hospitalized for a week, so yeah, we will

[2:25:02] lost.

[2:25:03] So I just want to mention it's now about 10 PM and we have two more public hearings at

[2:25:08] which people can speak five minutes each.

[2:25:09] Do you want to go for a second round on this public hearing, the Capitol budget?

[2:25:14] I wanted to speak two minutes on this issue.

[2:25:18] So we're having a second round of public comment.

[2:25:21] The reason I wanted to speak again is that we've seen this movie.

[2:25:28] All these pledges you've made before, they have record of them.

[2:25:32] In fact, with respect to the Edge Month's sidewalks, you had a study done for two other sidewalks

[2:25:37] took priority over this one, even on Fort Hill.

[2:25:40] Fort Hill was the one that come next after that,

[2:25:41] and you didn't do those sidewalks.

[2:25:44] That's why I ask you to do an RFP,

[2:25:48] authorize it now.

[2:25:49] Let's find out how much it would cost,

[2:25:51] and it's not just sidewalk.

[2:25:54] And yes, it also should look at underhill,

[2:25:56] because we have people walking down underhill,

[2:25:58] and they have no safe place to walk.

[2:26:00] And when you do take your walk, you'll notice

[2:26:03] that when you're walking down underhill,

[2:26:06] as many people do, people who are employed,

[2:26:09] going to the bus on Central Avenue with a bus stop is

[2:26:12] at the bottom of underhill, at the intersection,

[2:26:15] towards the Accuure dealership, they walk down there.

[2:26:18] There's no safe place for them to walk as they get to Ford Hill.

[2:26:22] Not only is there no safe place for them to walk,

[2:26:24] when they get to the corner, there's no safe place for them

[2:26:27] to stand because there's a telephone pole there,

[2:26:30] which is another challenge.

[2:26:32] But what I suggest that you do is look not just for sidewalk,

[2:26:36] Look for crosswalk. There was no crosswalk. There is no crosswalk on

[2:26:42] Fort Hill Road where that woman tried to cross and there's no adequate

[2:26:47] lighting as I try to explain. You need to do this and you, unfortunately, you

[2:26:52] need to do it now. And if you put it off again, all we can say is we'll be

[2:26:57] back again, but it will be a life lesson for each of us and each of you. And this

[2:27:04] a matter of life and death. I am totally supportive of that. So make a motion. I actually spoke.

[2:27:10] To predict about having a private firm take a look at this earlier today, I basically agree with you that we have to expedite it.

[2:27:21] And I've failed that for something like this, we're doing a lot of sidewalks in the house, but I don't want to see us wait unnecessarily.

[2:27:31] And I'd like to see us figure out a way of expediting, just like we're doing with the Sacred Heart.

[2:27:36] There was an accident there, and the town is being proactive, we're not wasting time, and I think on this.

[2:27:45] This is not politics, this is basically, this is safety, and we have to make sure that residents of the edge run are safe and residents of the entire town are safe.

[2:27:56] And, you know, I'm going to recommend to the town board that we do in RFP, we do it right

[2:28:06] and we try expediting the implementation of this sidewalk, you know, and Victor, maybe,

[2:28:16] you know, we could discuss, you know, this tomorrow, because, you know, there's nothing more

[2:28:20] important than safety of pedestrians, children, and residents, people who visit people in the

[2:28:30] community, there's nothing that I could think of that even comes close and important.

[2:28:38] And you know what?

[2:28:38] There's a woman who loves to life and we have to make sure that we do everything possible

[2:28:42] so nobody else loses their life at this location or any place else, but we also have to

[2:28:48] realize that there's a lot of other locations in the town that needs sidewalks and I think

[2:28:54] one of the, and you know, one of the things that the town is, I feel like we've shown

[2:28:58] a commitment, we're doing more new sidewalks probably than any other community, anywhere in

[2:29:04] Westchester.

[2:29:04] We're going to continue to do that and we're going to spend millions of dollars on this and

[2:29:09] we're going to spend more.

[2:29:10] But I would just like to say I don't think that we should pass the resolution right now because

[2:29:14] we don't have anything prepared.

[2:29:17] And in order to do a proper argument,

[2:29:18] we need to look at it, but we will do one.

[2:29:21] OK, we will watch a way, I hope you go forward with that,

[2:29:25] and with each of the others that have been proposed.

[2:29:28] You know, every year, you generate a list,

[2:29:30] and it goes nowhere.

[2:29:32] We've been doing this list annually for years.

[2:29:35] That's not true, because we will bring this report.

[2:29:37] We'll give you some of the questions.

[2:29:38] OK, that's it.

[2:29:43] I have a lot of objection and second you, okay, I have no objection to anything that anyone

[2:29:52] here has said about sidewalks. I think we all agree. I would like to just call your attention

[2:29:58] in addition to North Washington, which I agree, is desperate when we need a sidewalk. There

[2:30:04] is Hillcrest Avenue, which is the same kind of conduit coming from the west side of Heart

[2:30:11] Steel, down to central Avenue, as you have with Fort Hill. And I feel that it's an accident

[2:30:16] waiting to happen. There was no sidewalk, and on the, um, there was a sidewalk here,

[2:30:22] because I remember, uh, I'm building the sidewalk. In fact, they built it, and then Khan

[2:30:27] had did some work and then I think con had unbolted and then they re-bolted, it's an asphalt

[2:30:33] sidewalk because I bicycle, I bicycle on it.

[2:30:38] I take someone who works for me down there by car all the time because she's afraid to walk

[2:30:45] there and it's very dangerous in the winter, it's very slippery and it's very poorly lit.

[2:30:53] Unfortunately, because, especially in Haxia, because it's so old, and there are a lot of

[2:30:59] areas that have no lights at all.

[2:31:01] For instance, I live on Crosshill, there isn't a single street light.

[2:31:05] There are three neighbors, and myself, who have LED lighting, and we keep it on all night,

[2:31:12] because we're afraid that someone's going to get hit walking in the dark.

[2:31:16] So, we don't need to take a tour to these places.

[2:31:19] Next year is really an excellent opportunity to find out what's going on.

[2:31:25] People who are very vocal they like to vent and I don't think this is a bad thing.

[2:31:29] People need to vent, they need to express themselves and there are a lot of good suggestions.

[2:31:35] And I know that you're on next year, I can't sell them in China.

[2:31:39] So you should really start taking some notes, somebody should, of this suggestion that

[2:31:44] mentioned by these neighbors because we're really respect and they good ideas and then maybe you can come up with an RFD that will include a few of them that are very dangerous

[2:31:55] That's all I really have to say. Thank you very much.

[2:32:03] Hello again. I am my name is Johann Snines. I said HGGS.

[2:32:08] I've only been a resident of Greenberg for the past five years during pre-Hillin particular.

[2:32:15] And I just want to make a public statement to commend Mr. Finer for the work that he's done

[2:32:23] in the short and minor time that I've been here. Part of the civic association responsibility is really bringing

[2:32:30] our issues to the forefront of town leadership, and you've listened.

[2:32:36] We've asked for traffic calming devices on Juniper Health within that community, and as a result,

[2:32:43] we've received the sidewalk on fair street, and we have a commitment to get, I think, about half of

[2:32:48] Juniper Health completed over the next year or so. One of the approaches that we've taken since

[2:32:57] Since I've been part of the community, I'm sure it is just continuing a tradition, is bringing

[2:33:03] these suggestions instead of just actually pointing out the problems.

[2:33:08] We brought a few different recommendations to how we think the town can mitigate traffic

[2:33:13] and safety concerns, and as a result, that was actually how we got introduced and considered

[2:33:20] to be part of the planning committee.

[2:33:22] So I would recommend that not saying that the other communities haven't, but it's been, I think it's been a successful collaboration between Juniper Hill community at large and the leadership for the town to actually get those

[2:33:42] traffic, calming and mitigation measures implemented on behalf of the town.

[2:33:50] Now as a result, we have a sidewalk of fair street that the students use in a regular

[2:33:55] basis as they get to Woodland's high school, and we look forward to the rest of it being

[2:33:59] completed.

[2:34:00] That's all.

[2:34:01] Thank you.

[2:34:02] I just want to say one other thing in the Mr. Bernstein said, this time I spoke at

[2:34:07] as my community council was in 2014, but the last time I was invited to speak was in 2014.

[2:34:14] And I just want to mention that I have never rejected an invitation from any civic association,

[2:34:20] no matter where the civic association is, whether you write me or not to speak.

[2:34:26] I, although you and I and the ECC and I may differ on the incorporation issues, although we differ

[2:34:36] on things, I want you to realize, and I want the people in...

[2:34:40] And who are active in the ECC to realize that we are totally committed to making sure that the

[2:34:48] concern that we're responsive to the concerns of people and edge one, that we want to work with

[2:34:55] the people in edge one. You could fight on some issues, but we don't have to fight on everything.

[2:35:01] And the thing is, if we were successful in getting this sidewalk on silly, because there are old edge

[2:35:08] association, yes, work with us. We were successful in getting the sidewalk on

[2:35:15] Izzley Road from South of Izzley Road, you know, about the front, forward

[2:35:19] whole world. You're repeating yourself. No, I'm just saying, we want to say this.

[2:35:22] Okay, good bad. It's noted for the record. I move and we close this here.

[2:35:27] Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

[2:35:28] I'm saying, but we have a Patricia Williams. Patricia Williams wanted to be.

[2:35:33] Yes. I did. I did. But they recognize it is late. But I wanted to say we do have a

[2:35:38] I did not have a comprehensive plan.

[2:35:43] As far as I know, no African Americans, anybody of color

[2:35:46] was invited to be on that committee.

[2:35:48] And that you had all commissioners run.

[2:35:51] But obviously we don't have any black commissioners

[2:35:53] because they've got to start.

[2:35:56] You're right.

[2:35:57] We do have a no way, but they weren't, I was saying,

[2:36:00] they were not invited to participate in that 25 year

[2:36:03] comprehensive plan, which I tried.

[2:36:05] That's not true.

[2:36:06] Who got on a name name?

[2:36:08] By all of them.

[2:36:10] That's what a name is.

[2:36:11] You said nobody.

[2:36:12] No, but when I was going to go there, I was going to go there.

[2:36:15] No, I was going to go there.

[2:36:16] I was going to go there.

[2:36:17] That's right.

[2:36:18] Let me finish you.

[2:36:19] Thank you.

[2:36:21] And there will be a that person coming on board.

[2:36:24] We're not doing well.

[2:36:26] We're not doing well.

[2:36:29] Okay.

[2:36:29] Can I have something else something to do with this?

[2:36:30] Yes.

[2:36:31] We have a problem because you can't do health-to-scalter.

[2:36:35] without a plan. If you're going to build and do sidewalks, you have to have a progressive plan.

[2:36:42] You can't go to the edge of my today, and then flip over and go to Central Agnotes tomorrow,

[2:36:47] then flip over and go to Central Agnotes tomorrow. What you need to do is figure out what the plan is going to be,

[2:36:53] that everybody knows how it is, because the plan is, anybody that gets hit and killed,

[2:36:58] then that's what we put the sidewalk. And that's not a good plan. So select a method of operation,

[2:37:04] and follow through.

[2:37:08] Okay.

[2:37:09] So it's next.

[2:37:10] Would you close the public hearing?

[2:37:11] No, we have a vote of the motion.

[2:37:14] We have a vote of the motion.

[2:37:15] I may say that.

[2:37:16] I'll be sitting down in the back.

[2:37:18] All in favour?

[2:37:19] I'll be sitting down in the back.

[2:37:21] I'll be sitting down in the back.

[2:37:22] I'll be sitting down in the back.

[2:37:23] I'll be sitting down in the back.

[2:37:24] I'll be sitting down in the back.

[2:37:25] Can we close the hearing?

[2:37:30] Yes.

[2:37:31] We're leaving the record open.

[2:37:32] until the summer, until the summer of the 70s.

[2:37:36] How long?

[2:37:38] 70s.

[2:37:38] Okay.

[2:37:39] Okay.

[2:37:40] Okay.

[2:37:41] About seven days.

[2:37:44] Okay.

[2:37:44] And who's seconding?

[2:37:47] Okay.

[2:37:48] Continue.

[2:37:50] From 925.

[2:37:51] Town Board meeting adjourned.

[2:37:52] From 1023.

[2:37:54] Town Board meeting.

[2:37:54] To consider eliminating the current hybrid rental charges imposed by the Greenberg.

[2:37:58] consolidated what a district on the Fairview Fire District,

[2:38:01] Green Wolf Fire District, and Hard Self Fire District,

[2:38:04] as well as villages providing fire protection

[2:38:06] district services to areas served by the G.C.

[2:38:09] W.D. in the adding of fire or hydrant charge to G.C. W.D.

[2:38:14] What did usage bills, and if so,

[2:38:16] the preferred method for doing solid like to move out?

[2:38:19] It's not open to hearing.

[2:38:20] I'd like to open the hearing, if I were on fire.

[2:38:28] Anybody like to speak?

[2:38:31] We do not have any requests at the moment to speak on the hearing.

[2:38:38] I would like to make opening.

[2:38:50] Hey, good evening.

[2:38:51] Good evening for the record Victor Carrosi.

[2:38:53] Commissioner of Public Works for the Town of Greenberg.

[2:38:55] And it's a continuation of a public hearing for the action

[2:38:59] at Town Board is considering of eliminating the high parental charge,

[2:39:04] assessed by the Town of Greenberg.

[2:39:05] And we're at the point now where we're actually looking into alternatives for the water

[2:39:10] district to recoup the fees that would normally have been charged with fire districts.

[2:39:14] At a previous town board meeting the town did move in cooperation with the fire districts

[2:39:21] to eliminate the fee.

[2:39:23] The hearing has been held open for us to continue discussions on methodology that would be appropriate

[2:39:32] to allow the district to charge its customers a fee that would be reasonable that unfair across

[2:39:41] our different customer basis.

[2:39:44] The matter is still open and I think at this point, if I wouldn't want to open it to

[2:39:48] any comments of the public and I have to talk a little bit further on this matter.

[2:39:55] And the prizeer, and then the digital wings.

[2:40:17] And the prizeer.

[2:40:19] This will be brief.

[2:40:21] Victor, I have a question though.

[2:40:23] I finally went online and read this,

[2:40:26] which is not an easy document to read.

[2:40:31] But I do understand that the board is being asked to consider alternative number four,

[2:40:38] which means we as residents are going to pay

[2:40:42] 39 cents for every thousand gallons of water we use, and the businesses, and I presume

[2:40:53] does that include things like churches and schools, and what have you, do they pay the

[2:41:00] flat rate of 4441 in 98 cents or are they under the residential, I'm not sure how that works.

[2:41:11] But the other thing that concern me is there are comments at the beginning and also at the end of this document that a total amount of money is not being recovered under the current system.

[2:41:29] And can you please explain to those of us who found this not a difficult, a rather difficult read what this means?

[2:41:41] And does that mean our water rates are going to go up to cover these uncovered costs?

[2:41:50] Thank you.

[2:41:52] Miss Weems, right she's ex?

[2:42:01] Anybody else want to speak before Mr. Corrosi responds?

[2:42:11] First of all, thanks for reading that. Yes, it's a very difficult document to go through. There's a lot of details, because this decision to change the fees from a admiral arm, part of your taxes that one would pay to your fire district, based upon the value of your home.

[2:42:32] And instead taking that net dollar value that would be received by the consolidated water

[2:42:39] district and finding another way to distribute those funds across our customer base

[2:42:44] does present certain challenges.

[2:42:47] But first question was regarding the schools and churches.

[2:42:53] That's still actually an open matter with respect to the schools.

[2:42:56] Churches and in most cases, in other areas, in some of the places of worship,

[2:43:00] tend to very low water use and are normally not associated with a commercial base, but are

[2:43:06] built usually quarterly. So most likely that would continue for them. The schools are

[2:43:14] built on a, usually generally higher consumption and are built on a monthly basis.

[2:43:20] We're looking at the differences, the break points, if you will, for a school that might

[2:43:27] have a large water consumption and making the comparisons

[2:43:31] between the volumetric fee that you did directly mention,

[2:43:35] 39 cents per thousand gallons, as compared to the fixed fee

[2:43:41] and trying to understand where those break points are

[2:43:44] and what would be the appropriate manner in which to assess that fee.

[2:43:50] It's not an exact science.

[2:43:52] In terms of what we're trying to do is to apply general accepted methodology

[2:43:56] the two finding the right way to be as far as possible to everybody.

[2:44:03] That's really what this entire action began with is trying to bring a little bit more

[2:44:10] fairness.

[2:44:11] It was perceived that the costs, certain parcels or certain properties within fire districts

[2:44:17] were tax exempt, that it was perceived that they were not paying a fair share of the

[2:44:24] and possibly associated with the fire hydrant.

[2:44:28] So that was a belief the initial concept behind the passing

[2:44:32] of the state law back in 2013 and ultimately where we are today.

[2:44:39] If there's some clarification that I'm happy to hear otherwise.

[2:44:45] With respect to the concern about the idea that the town has additional fees

[2:44:53] to collect for fire charges. That is not actually correct with respect to the concept that

[2:45:06] was floated by our consultant, Rath Tellis. What they were trying to explain is in general

[2:45:14] So what this idea in a water utility is relating to fire hydrant charges, it's the tradition

[2:45:24] of most water utilities to charge separately for fire hydrants as a way of recouping

[2:45:34] the additional size of their district, if you will, from a distribution perspective, the

[2:45:41] That's necessary in water tanks, the additional size of the piping necessary to provide that flow in the event of a fire.

[2:45:54] And the concept is, there's certain maintenance also going to the fire hydrants where there's a simple painting, lubricating and testing of them to replacing with the fire hydrants.

[2:46:06] So, what our consultant board forward was an accepted practice in the general industry for trying

[2:46:16] to develop what the expected up increase in cost to a water district is if it had to,

[2:46:24] if it versus if it did not have to provide the larger water mains or larger storage tanks

[2:46:28] for fire purposes.

[2:46:31] So, it's just an industry way of dealing it.

[2:46:34] And the conclusion from our consultant was that if we wanted to apply that model, they would

[2:46:39] recommend raising our hydrant rental fees to adjust for what these calculations shows

[2:46:47] would be the accepted portion of our budget that would be paying for the increased size

[2:46:53] of our distribution system for fire purposes.

[2:46:57] It's not that we're looking to raise more revenue.

[2:47:01] It's just a theoretical approach to fire hydrants trying to justify the fire hydrant rental

[2:47:07] charge to begin with, and it just shows that the town historically was undercharging

[2:47:15] what it could potentially could have been for fire hydrant fees, and instead the theoretical

[2:47:22] difference in cost were being spread to our ratepayers.

[2:47:26] So, it's a theoretical approach to it, it's not a reality as far as that it's going to cost

[2:47:32] as X number of dollars.

[2:47:35] It's just an exercise that they thought was appropriate to try to explain the idea of

[2:47:39] hydrant rental charges, and I hope I helped translate that.

[2:47:43] I know it's still a little hard,

[2:47:47] but it's really, it's still cost as X number of dollars

[2:47:51] to operate the district.

[2:47:52] It's, they felt that part of that X number, if you had charge it one way and split the

[2:47:58] cost up differently, but it's still the same.

[2:48:01] But the bottom line is it's still the same amount of money it cost us to operate to district.

[2:48:04] And it was just saying that if you wanted to split the part in a different way, you could do it that way.

[2:48:10] So that's really what all it's talking about.

[2:48:12] It isn't really not the charge to operate the district in this domain.

[2:48:16] It's a charge to maintain the hydrants.

[2:48:20] It's a charge to maintain the charge.

[2:48:22] hydrants, and in the theoretical approach to it, it's also the charges to have a slightly

[2:48:28] larger diameter, water mains, slightly larger water storage tanks, pumps, and things like

[2:48:36] that.

[2:48:36] Again, it's a theoretical, and that's what it talks about how different water refilits

[2:48:40] got together and try to understand what these approach to the extra need for fire protection

[2:48:48] services.

[2:48:48] And that's simply from the water perspective,

[2:48:50] it's got nothing to do with obviously fired

[2:48:52] departments themselves.

[2:48:55] I'd be given any thought.

[2:48:56] I would be into the discussion about

[2:48:58] breaking out the ad below prior

[2:49:01] ablory of method commercial versus residential

[2:49:05] to see what that ratio was.

[2:49:07] And then see if we can come up with a number

[2:49:10] as where would be representative of that ratio.

[2:49:15] Currently, for example,

[2:49:18] So, you know, of course, these, you know, quite a bit of water with their sprinkler system,

[2:49:25] but I don't believe they would be on a volumetric method, right?

[2:49:30] They would be on a fixed, fixed, at the residential homeowner would be on the volumetric method.

[2:49:39] And again, just to be clear, we...

[2:49:40] We're talking about a very small portion of the bill, everybody pays, whether it's the golf course, the sanitary, the commercial establishment,

[2:49:56] Coca-Cola, got the Lawrence, they will pay for the water that they use, and do so at the sanitary fence.

[2:50:06] There are a couple of different ways we're still trying to go forward with.

[2:50:12] Definitely that's one approach.

[2:50:14] I've also been reaching out to my colleagues at Suez Water to understand a little bit

[2:50:20] more about how they've been recouping the feet.

[2:50:23] I understand that they've been doing it traditionally on the size of the water meter going

[2:50:27] into a home, but interestingly enough they also bring in another factor, and that's what

[2:50:34] going to explore further is based upon the number of hydrants in a particular billing district.

[2:50:41] We, in our analysis, chose to look at the entire Greenberg consolidated water district

[2:50:48] as one, and perhaps there might be some ways that we could adjust the fairness quotient

[2:50:56] by balancing it across by districts.

[2:50:59] It's a certain difficult we have currently and that's trying to resolve is our database

[2:51:04] from our water perspective, our water customers does not have a key to sort based upon our

[2:51:12] customers and what fire district they reside as opposed to our assessment and tax data

[2:51:17] which has that key.

[2:51:19] So we're internally working with trying to find the way to match those up and to be able

[2:51:24] to allow us to provide some more what if scenario.

[2:51:27] So I'd like to, one of the concern, and I think why we've been continuing to have this open

[2:51:35] public hearing for probably, I guess, two months or so now, a month and a half, is

[2:51:40] because we're struggling to try to make this as fair as we can to our all-of-hour water

[2:51:45] customers.

[2:51:47] We definitely don't want to favor one class over another class of customers.

[2:51:52] We don't want to, we want to make sure that we're balancing these fees out as reasonable as possible.

[2:51:59] We don't want to find a low consumption individual paying very high value.

[2:52:07] At the same time, we also don't want to have one of our larger customers subsidizing the fire services for many, many of our regular customers.

[2:52:16] So that's the still that challenge.

[2:52:19] And to this day, I respectfully have not

[2:52:23] been able to come up with a better solution than we had,

[2:52:26] which is the two-step process by-fricated process

[2:52:30] of our quarterly customers for the most part,

[2:52:35] using the volumetric rate.

[2:52:37] And our larger users, our customer base,

[2:52:40] paying the flat fee, it seemed to be a way

[2:52:43] had balanced it across most of the scenarios that we worked.

[2:52:49] But I think that the not everybody is completely comfortable with that approach.

[2:52:56] And with all the challenges we have in our department for many items, we're still working

[2:52:59] on trying to resolve these calculations.

[2:53:02] And it's fair to say that since January 1st is approaching, we need to come up with some

[2:53:07] solution, even if it's not the ideal solution.

[2:53:12] Yes, that would be definitely a fair statement, because otherwise we have a potential of

[2:53:19] starting the year theoretically at a deficit situation, and it would be better for us financially

[2:53:27] if we could resolve this ahead of that time.

[2:53:29] And my office does understand the needs for that.

[2:53:32] Again, we're trying to work as best we can to come up with there, and I would like to be able to have a good

[2:53:36] solution that I explained to public and say it's a fair and reasonable.

[2:53:41] We felt that the two-step process of a rate to the quarterly customers in the spot fee

[2:53:51] to our commercial base would be a approach that would be fair, and there are some nuances

[2:53:56] and I think we continue to work those out.

[2:54:01] I would move that way, homes over to December 11th, hopefully, resolve it.

[2:54:07] Many people came out in support of removing this from the fire district bills, and people

[2:54:15] who speak certainly, but many people came out in support of removing this off of the fire

[2:54:24] district bills and putting it on to the water bills, which is why we took that action.

[2:54:30] this is a tougher call and so and he was done met anyone might have been

[2:54:37] how best to do that. These are the entertainer comments these

[2:54:43] public hearings. Second. No favor.

[2:54:46] Hi. Thank you.

[2:55:00] Okay. The last one is hearing. It's a

[2:55:03] concern amendments to chapter 140 of the code of the 10th Greenberg

[2:55:06] entitled Exposes and Blessing. I'd like to move on.

[2:55:13] Good evening, Supervisor Feiner and Members of the Town Board.

[2:55:17] For the record, Garrett Ducane, Commissioner of the Department of Community, Development and Conservation.

[2:55:22] The public hearing this evening pertains to the Town of Greenberg's Regulation of Blasting and Potential Chipping Regulation.

[2:55:29] Presently chapter 140 entitled Explosives and Blasting,

[2:55:33] comprehensively regulates blasting by a permit process.

[2:55:37] The town's blasting law was approved in 1995

[2:55:40] and was last amended in 1997.

[2:55:44] The present blasting law contains pre-blast survey requirements

[2:55:48] of surrounding homes and areas,

[2:55:51] noticing requirements, permitted hours of operation,

[2:55:55] extensive blast logging requirements,

[2:55:57] for vibration standards and limits and penalties for offenses.

[2:56:03] A major component of the proposed amendment to the law is the incorporation of specific regulations pertaining to shipping.

[2:56:10] Accordingly, the proposed laws proposed to be amended from the title of explosives and blasting to explosives blasting and shipping.

[2:56:19] The land use boards of the town primarily the town board and the planning board, as well as the building inspector,

[2:56:25] presently utilize best management practices with respect to chipping in the town.

[2:56:31] The best management practices are presently enforced in connections with conditions

[2:56:36] of approval by the town board and the planning board, or enforced by the building inspector

[2:56:41] as part of chipping protocol associated with the building permit.

[2:56:46] The proposed local law seeks to place these chipping-related best management practices

[2:56:50] into Chapter 140 of the Code of the Town of Greenberg by essentially codifying them.

[2:56:57] Similar to the blasting protocol of Chapter 140,

[2:57:00] the proposed shipping local law language specifies a process that includes

[2:57:05] a requirement for a seismic refraction survey and related report.

[2:57:10] Protocol, if the report...

[2:57:10] Four indicates that chipping is not advisable as a practical means of excavation, hours of operation, dust control measures, noise, thresholds, etc.

[2:57:23] In addition to updating the law with chipping provisions, the amendment also would do the following, create a single blast not to exceed threshold,

[2:57:33] Modify the vibration standards to replace existing parameters with criteria consistent with the US Bureau of Mind's safe vibration criteria.

[2:57:44] Double the present fines for penalties and retain restrictions of operating on Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays.

[2:57:52] The local wall was prepared in consultation with the town's building inspector, the legal department, and the town's independent and expert blasting chipping consultant.

[2:58:01] Mr. Dominic Carrot-Tazolo. Mr. Carrot-Tazolo is a licensed New York State Blaster who has worked

[2:58:08] in his present capacity as consultant for the town for close to 27 years and has conducted

[2:58:13] blast inspections for 12 municipalities in Westchester. In conferring with each of the professionals

[2:58:19] that contributed to this amendment, I have confidence that the town's regulations in this

[2:58:24] respect and, as proposed, strike a good balance between allowing for responsible development

[2:58:29] in the town, and the duty to protect the health and safety of the town's residents, businesses,

[2:58:34] and property owners.

[2:58:35] Lastly, chapter 380 entitled Noise in Section 387.

[2:58:41] I'm sorry, 380-7G is proposed to have the word blasting deleted as this section's hours

[2:58:47] of operations do not pertain to blasting.

[2:58:52] Thank you.

[2:58:57] Anyone want to speak?

[2:58:58] I'm not

[2:59:18] going to ask any technical question because I spoke with Dominic before the meeting

[2:59:23] started.

[2:59:24] So he explained something.

[2:59:26] But I do have one question.

[2:59:30] Was this properly noticed about changing the noise ordinance too?

[2:59:36] There is nothing listed on the agenda and when I looked it up,

[2:59:41] I was very surprised when I read through the document and I saw that the noise ordinance was also, and I know it's very minor.

[2:59:51] It's deleting a word.

[2:59:54] But don't you have to properly notice a law when you change it?

[3:00:00] My only question.

[3:00:01] I

[3:00:05] noticed the same thing,

[3:00:09] I don't know what the actual note is said, but it's a local

[3:00:11] law and ending chapter 140 of the Code of the Town of Greenburg and Tidal Blasting.

[3:00:16] It's both as a blasting, but then when you look at the actual list of amendments it includes

[3:00:23] noise.

[3:00:25] Will it best to get help?

[3:00:27] Will it go?

[3:00:33] Will it go?

[3:00:33] Anybody?

[3:00:34] So we're going to close the hearing?

[3:00:37] Well, we can't close the hearing.

[3:00:38] We can't close the hearing.

[3:00:39] So we should be holding this over.

[3:00:42] Because we're holding it over.

[3:00:45] Gary, does this a time sensitive amendment?

[3:00:49] Given that check we have the several public hearings that have already been adjourned for December 11.

[3:00:56] The important local law, not urgent.

[3:00:57] on a time sense. I think what will happen is the local law will reformat it to be very clear

[3:01:05] up front about the change to the minor change to chapter 380 and we'll take another look at the

[3:01:13] notice that went out in the newspaper. Why is table 1 and table 2 coming out?

[3:01:41] I would like to

[3:01:41] OZZ, OLO.

[3:01:45] Table 1 and 2 were formally as that were developed by the U.S. Bureau of Minds for what would

[3:01:51] be safe criteria in terms of explosives based upon the distance.

[3:01:57] It's not really applicable anymore because we require size of grass for each and every

[3:02:01] blast, so the size of grass will pick up the readings from those blasts.

[3:02:07] Are there many people that have the qualifications necessary to inspect these?

[3:02:14] And many of the organizations,

[3:02:19] how does that work is looking for an inspector?

[3:02:22] I know that you do inspections for the town, but how do somebody find somebody like you or somebody else?

[3:02:32] Well, to my knowledge, I'm the only one who's doing it in Westchester County on behalf of municipalities.

[3:02:40] You have some seismograph companies that do it.

[3:02:44] They call a third party monitoring, but there's.

[3:02:49] I feel a little problem with that in that they're often hired either by the developer or the blast in company,

[3:02:55] whereas I'm the only person who represents the government and the people.

[3:02:58] So, you know, but there are other people who have, you know, licensed New York State blasting

[3:03:05] licenses and whatnot, but nobody else just works exclusively on behalf of the government.

[3:03:12] So, how are fees determined?

[3:03:14] I mean, just like any other consultant, if you hired an engineering firm or attorneys, you

[3:03:21] know, they have their fee structures, I have mine, so, you know, I don't think I've changed

[3:03:26] in five years, like I give it some consideration, but that's basically it, you know, I guess

[3:03:34] my point.

[3:03:35] My fees are not the citizens don't pay for me at all.

[3:03:39] My fees are paid for by the developer, goes into an escrow fund, controlled by the town,

[3:03:44] so I received my check from the town.

[3:03:47] So is there some kind of a industry standard for glass or whatever you want to charge?

[3:03:53] Now, there's no industry standard, don't.

[3:03:57] What do you call applications to be a blasting inspector?

[3:04:00] Well, I'm a licensed near blaster.

[3:04:04] I also have a degree in public safety from Mercy College.

[3:04:08] I served with a fire department for 20 years.

[3:04:11] So basically, the background is one of safety.

[3:04:18] But when I would do one time to see a blast,

[3:04:20] and I was all excited about seeing this blast anyway.

[3:04:25] That's what's there.

[3:04:26] That's what's there.

[3:04:27] Well, that's exactly the...

[3:04:31] What's that?

[3:04:33] Yeah, we don't want trauma.

[3:04:35] That's what it's called.

[3:04:37] Yeah, we don't want trauma.

[3:04:39] Exactly.

[3:04:40] Exactly.

[3:04:40] So the match barely moved. That's what we want. People don't want their property disparate by it.

[3:04:47] Now, in one part of this, it talks about, it's headed on that, if I could just get that section.

[3:05:03] Chipping and blasting of rock. And it really doesn't, that section 15 really doesn't deal too much.

[3:05:09] last day, it's more about chipping and hammering. So that heading be changed or far.

[3:05:18] I'd have to take a look at it. If it just deals with chipping, then it's fine to take

[3:05:23] out the word blasting from it. If it just deals with hammering, it starts off by stating,

[3:05:27] if you intend to do it by means other than blasting and the rest of it is all about your

[3:05:32] chipping.

[3:05:34] Is that in reference to the size of a fraction survey?

[3:05:38] Okay. So, what that is, is size of a fraction survey was a tool that I was introduced

[3:05:46] about 20 years ago on 1119 and it comes out of the oil exploration industry.

[3:05:52] It's been around for decades.

[3:05:54] So what they do is they put energy into the ground, either by detonating a very, very small

[3:06:00] last on this job on 19, it was a two-part explosive that was kept in a 35-millimeter film

[3:06:06] canister.

[3:06:08] Earlier, you could do it with a hammer from excavator, and what happens is geophones are

[3:06:14] set up throughout the ground, and the energy goes into the ground, and it bounces back.

[3:06:21] It's kind of like a sonar, and it goes into a computer program, which then tells

[3:06:30] tells them where the rock is, the density of the rock.

[3:06:35] And so it was the first time I ever was exposed to it,

[3:06:38] I asked the job super, I said, you know, how accurate was this thing?

[3:06:42] And he said it was hyper accurate.

[3:06:45] So it's a great tool to utilize and the times that since that job with the

[3:06:50] time Greenberg has asked for it to be done for a person to determine

[3:06:54] if the rock is too hard to hammer.

[3:06:57] They might say, you know, do this test and it's always proved out.

[3:07:02] It's been used several times since that job on 1119.

[3:07:06] So that's why that section starts out like that probably.

[3:07:10] I would just have to refresh myself to read it.

[3:07:13] But I think that that's why it starts out like that.

[3:07:16] All right.

[3:07:17] Now I asked this only because I was the photographer.

[3:07:18] Hasn't done it off the TV.

[3:07:23] And one of the major projects that are being proposed in the town, the nearby houses are actually built on slabs, as opposed to having a foundation.

[3:07:34] The slabs obviously are covered with flooring.

[3:07:39] If you had a foundation, you could go out and do photographs and, you know,

[3:07:45] And, you know, visually see whether or not there's a damage prior to the blast.

[3:07:53] How do you deal with a slab situation, particularly a slab situation may even have radiant

[3:07:59] heating in the slab?

[3:08:01] How would you know whether or not there was a damage to a blast if it was a rate that's covered

[3:08:06] over what's finished blowing away?

[3:08:08] Well, I don't conduct the pre-blast inspections, but a company would go in and look for

[3:08:15] pre-existing conditions such as cracking on the outside or on the inside if it's visible.

[3:08:20] And you would go from there, I mean, I've been on jobs where there has been existing

[3:08:24] cracks prior to and they put up with the vice on the crack to see if that increases during

[3:08:30] the course of the blasting in terms of foundation, right, that wouldn't be a slam.

[3:08:36] Well, but, you know, in terms of the, to crack a foundation, when the U.S. Bureau of

[3:08:44] lines did these testing, it was for the inside of the house a sheet rock and what not.

[3:08:51] So if you crack a foundation or actual port foundation, you know, you're talking about

[3:08:57] significant numbers, you'd have to have a blast far higher than what we would allow.

[3:09:03] So the idea that the foundation could crack and there would be no damage inside the house,

[3:09:10] it's just not going to happen, you know.

[3:09:11] So that's why what the proposal calls for is actually even lowering the standards down to 1.25

[3:09:19] peak park of losses.

[3:09:21] So actually, you know, it just wouldn't happen in real life situation where a foundation

[3:09:25] could crack and there would be no damage in the house.

[3:09:30] Just not going to happen.

[3:09:36] You're in this hearing, perhaps, too.

[3:09:38] I just wanted to answer one question that you had briefly.

[3:09:41] you had indicated or opposed the question on the methodology for deriving the fee to be

[3:09:48] accepted by the applicant and that is codified presently and it's a function of the

[3:09:52] application which spells out the scope of work and then a pre-blast survey ultimately

[3:09:57] the building inspector derives at cost estimate furnishes that to the applicant and that's

[3:10:02] how the fee for the services to be rendered as a taint.

[3:10:06] but what's the basis for that?

[3:10:08] I mean, the building is back there in determines

[3:10:09] of the, how is that determined?

[3:10:12] I mean, I'm sure there's prior history in estimates

[3:10:15] on, on, on, on, on, on, and ultimately all the independent

[3:10:20] consultants, invoices are, you know, it's very transparent.

[3:10:24] That's all sent to the, uh, as well.

[3:10:33] Prize in?

[3:10:35] Mr. Shien, thank you for bringing it up.

[3:10:38] He is talking about my house and those of my

[3:10:42] neighbors who live on Beaver Hill and back up to the multiplex property, my heating pipes are

[3:10:51] in the floor. If you vibrate that rock and you break my heating system,

[3:11:00] there's no way

[3:11:00] you can fix it other than to jackhammer up the whole floor. How do you determine or do I just

[3:11:07] to the last minute and see if the heat no longer circulates and what we I don't know if

[3:11:15] there's blasting and what we could do is one of the things that I do is a building

[3:11:23] inspector sends me out to a project prior to its starting and issues that I see potential issues

[3:11:31] we address in the permitting process so one of the things that could be done to protect

[3:11:36] housing is, we could call for line drilling in front, which means that the drill holes, like

[3:11:46] three rows, staggered patterns, about a foot distance in between. So what'll happen is when

[3:11:52] the energy hits those holes, it gets significantly dissipated. So that would even go further

[3:11:58] to that on their property on the nearest property. That would depend on if they allow it on their

[3:12:04] property. If not, you go to the edge of the property that's going to be excavated.

[3:12:11] I've done them at both, so that dissipates the energy. Significantly.

[3:12:23] So, what's the first meeting in January?

[3:12:25] It's January 8th.

[3:12:27] I moved that week, closed the hearing.

[3:12:29] No, no, I'm sorry. I'm free adjourned hearing for all purposes to January 8th.

[3:12:35] Move there.

[3:12:36] Aye.

[3:12:37] Good. Okay.

[3:12:39] So.

Nov 25, 2019 Town Board- Regular

Transcript