[1:33] just does this work wonderful

[1:37] thank you i'm not much of a game show host or a

[1:40] microphone guy so i apologize although it sounds kind of deep right

[1:44] now

[1:51] you guys can still talk amongst yourselves i was just testing the

[1:53] microphone

[2:33] good evening everybody thank you for being here could everyone please stand

[2:36] and follow me in the pledge of allegiance

[2:41] i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the

[2:46] republic for which it stands one nation under god

[2:50] indivisible with liberty and justice for all

[2:54] thank you everybody so we're here tonight for a combined

[2:58] meeting with the uh uh mayor which i'll just stay up here real quick so i can

[3:01] announce you and then we'll announce our boards uh we have a uh a

[3:06] uh consolidation

[3:10] petition that was circulated in our community which all of you are well

[3:12] aware of and uh so the town and village boards

[3:16] are here together with our council and ben from leberg who's a expert in this

[3:21] field and we had him briefly on our previous town board meeting to give some

[3:26] insightful information to everybody and we think a meeting like this

[3:29] is going to be very very helpful moving forward

[3:33] thank you everyone for signing up and being here in the room and respecting

[3:35] the social distancing the meeting is also being broadcast live on on facebook

[3:40] on the town page for everyone else to watch as well benson to go through a lot

[3:44] of the options this evening pros and cons and then we'll take some comments

[3:48] from folks in the room as well before we get started i just want to uh

[3:53] announce our board our town board we have councilman derosa here councilwoman

[3:57] snow councilman mccarthy our town clerk kathy

[4:00] giordano and our town attorney nancy from hogan and rossi as well i'm going

[4:05] to turn it over to the mayor now mayor lifting thank you for being here with

[4:07] your boards if you could just run through them as well then we'll turn the

[4:10] show over to ben

[4:14] peters john

[4:19] john

[4:22] verweger

[4:25] pearl slocum

[4:29] you look what's that and lori

[4:35] thank you

[4:41] thank you mayor lifton we're going to turn the meeting over to ben now ben

[4:44] thank you very much for being here well thank you mr supervisor mayor boards

[4:47] both of the village and the town of those of you that were able to come out

[4:49] tonight i thank you all for coming first off this is my first and largest public

[4:54] meeting since march 12th so i thank you all for being here and also want to

[4:57] welcome those that are watching live on facebook uh this is a very important

[5:01] time in your governance it's an opportunity for us to discuss the

[5:04] consolidation process uh i'm not going to be going over the pros and cons of

[5:09] consolidation nor will i be going over the finances yet what i wanted to go

[5:13] over today was what is the process where you are in the process what the

[5:18] process means to you and what's going to happen over the next

[5:22] 10 days 30 days 90 days so we'll go the first the first slide is my name again

[5:27] is ben seiden i am the vice president of le burge

[5:30] group uh le berge group is a municipal

[5:32] consulting company that's been working with communities throughout new york

[5:35] state since 1964. one of our specialties has been and is government operations

[5:40] and efficiency we've been working with communities on

[5:43] dissolution shared services consolidations all over

[5:46] the state and we're happy to be here today with me today though is kathy

[5:50] rooney kathy is our local government specialist uh cathy is a former county

[5:54] manager and she's been working on this solution and consolidations with us for

[5:59] the for the last year one another member of our team who

[6:02] couldn't be here today is john road at john is public signals he's a former

[6:07] budget officer in the county in the state and he does a lot of the numbers

[6:10] and fiscal analysis with us so first off we'd ask you all to sign up

[6:16] to speak i'm not sure if the town clerks have a sheet for signing if not we'll

[6:20] just raise our hands and speak in turn a part of tonight's decorum is public

[6:25] speaking should be kept to three minutes and we're going to do the best we can to

[6:28] keep you all up to three minutes that everyone has the opportunity to speak

[6:31] and ask questions and move forward i am going to ask though when you do your

[6:35] questions and answers to do whatever you can to not repeat the same questions

[6:39] over and over again and ask new information so that more people have the

[6:42] opportunity to speak tonight

[6:48] uh so how do we get here we're going to go over how we got here we're going to

[6:51] go over the consolidation process we're going to talk about an interim

[6:54] consolidation report should the village in town choose to move in that direction

[6:58] and we're going to talk about a final consolidation plan and the next steps

[7:02] and then we'll ask you guys questions and answers so how do we get here

[7:08] yes we got here because there was a petition

[7:11] you all know that there is a petition it's not a secret there are two ways to

[7:15] start a consolidation or dissolution under article 17 a number one is the

[7:20] village and town board can create a board initiated process where you all

[7:24] get together and say you know it's a good idea for us to look at our

[7:27] governance and figure out if this is a gov tomorrow's government is the same as

[7:32] yesterday's government in other words the government that we inherited doesn't

[7:35] work today is it representative of our needs and is

[7:39] it the same government that we should have in five or 10 or 20 years

[7:42] and that's that's an opportunity that villager town could have done

[7:46] instead uh their petition was signed and submitted for a citizen initiated

[7:51] petition now it's i put this up here because it's important to realize

[7:55] there's a lot of people that i've heard and read on facebook

[8:00] on other social media sites that believed that they were signing a

[8:04] petition to do a study that's three steps ahead

[8:09] they signed a petition as it's read up here we the undersigned electors and

[8:14] legal voters the town of pauling new york qualified to vote in the next

[8:18] election or special election respectively petition that there be

[8:22] submitted to the electors and the legal voters the town appalling and the

[8:25] village appalling for their approval or rejection at a

[8:29] referendum held for that purpose a proposal to consolidate the town

[8:33] appalling with the village appalling this is not a petition requesting a

[8:37] study it is not a repetition requesting that

[8:41] the town of ills work together come up with shared services and better

[8:44] opportunities it is the petition to put to vote the

[8:47] sole question of whether or not the village and town should consolidate

[8:53] if that vote goes up if both the residents of the village and the town

[8:57] decide yay we want to consolidate then you are required to do a study

[9:03] it is not a petition to do a study but feel good

[9:07] you're not the first community to have the situation

[9:10] communities all over new york state when people start the petition process

[9:14] somebody has to go door-to-door somebody has to share information

[9:18] somebody has to request that you sign a petition and you had to say something to

[9:22] somebody and information gets shared i don't want to i've heard a lot of

[9:27] information a lot of comments that i've read about

[9:30] i was swindled i was bamboozled i was told

[9:35] something i don't want to get in that people signed the petition that says i'm

[9:40] going to have a vote so at some point in the next 60 to 90 days or 100 days

[9:45] you'll have a vote to consolidate both the village and the town

[9:50] so on august 10th the village and the town clerks reviewed and certified the

[9:54] petition because you have a petition you have now

[9:58] taken the ability of the town and village to set their timeline to create

[10:02] a plan and put forth a motion a state mandated

[10:06] timetable the day you serve the petition the

[10:09] clerks have 10 days to certify that petition from that day you have 30 days

[10:14] to call a meeting from which you then have to set the referendum from 60 to 90

[10:18] days that's all the boards have to do by law

[10:23] however many of the boards we work with

[10:25] throughout the state feel that's not really fair to residents to have to make

[10:29] a vote for the future of their government without having any

[10:32] information as to what that government will look like

[10:35] what the potential services will be what the potential service delivery method

[10:39] would be and what the potential cost or savings would be

[10:43] so most of our clients are now done eight nine or ten of these have done

[10:46] interim reports that will talk about the process that gives the public

[10:50] information and an opportunity to learn more before their cast their vote

[10:54] but i want to point out that nothing is required besides those three things

[11:00] nothing you have no requirement to give the public any information

[11:04] they can vote with their purse strings they can vote with their heartstrings

[11:08] they can vote on misinformation they can vote on information

[11:12] but that's all that's required however the town and village can choose

[11:16] to create a report work together come up with a framework what that governance

[11:20] could look like and run the numbers so the public has some semblance of

[11:23] understanding what's going to happen to them because

[11:27] while some people have stated that there will be a second vote

[11:30] there is no guarantee that there's going to be a second vote the only way and

[11:35] we're going to show in in two minutes or three two slides from now what that

[11:39] looks like the only way to have that second vote is a second petition where

[11:44] you need 25 you only need a 10 to start the process

[11:49] you need 25 percent to vote again so anybody that says that they're

[11:53] guaranteed will be a second vote is wrong

[11:56] there's no guarantee you are voting

[12:00] whenever the vote happens to consolidate this community

[12:03] to get rid of a layer of government in this community

[12:06] and change fundamentally how your services are delivered

[12:11] without any information unless you choose to do that interim report

[12:16] so article 17a which was hastily put together in 2010

[12:21] has a lot of gaps and a lot of missing information

[12:25] and doesn't actually fully describe this process

[12:29] sets forth two different processes for changing fundamentally how you provide

[12:33] the services number one is a village dissolution

[12:37] and number two is a village in town consolidation actually it doesn't say

[12:41] village in town it's municipal governments it could be fire districts

[12:45] water districts sewer districts that consolidate in this case it's village in

[12:49] town on a village dissolution if only the

[12:52] village petition was submitted it would be a dissolution and the town

[12:56] would have no say the town residents would have no vote

[13:00] the town board will have no formal input they can participate but most of the

[13:04] towns choose to let the village go through their first process and if the

[13:08] vote is to dissolve then step in and participate going forward

[13:12] but you didn't choose to do a village dissolution you chose to be the first

[13:16] community in new york state to do a village in town consolidation

[13:22] so you are trendsetters you will be the case study you will be the case law

[13:27] that will implement or uh defend or illustrate or change the law as you go

[13:33] forward because nobody else in the state has gone this route

[13:38] to change the government in a dissolution the village basically

[13:43] says we're done turns off the light drops off the keys it's town going

[13:47] forward in a consolidation you're working

[13:50] together to frame that the challenge in a dissolution and also

[13:54] in a consolidation is a little part of the state law that says that a

[13:57] government cannot fundamentally change or direct or impact

[14:02] the future governance in other words you can't set forth a plan that a future

[14:05] government has to follow so one of the flaws in the law is in a dissolution

[14:09] plan the town is not required to follow it

[14:13] the same with the consolidation plan you both adopt it but you're not required to

[14:17] actually follow it so that's a quirk in the law

[14:20] in a dissolution the services that the village have are done

[14:24] there's no more village in the consolidation we have a discussion as to

[14:28] whether or not there's going to be a town government taking over pieces

[14:32] whether or not you're going co-terminus what's going to if you go co-terminus

[14:35] what's a village service what's a town service that's all

[14:38] part of a consolidation plan the documents are very similar in a

[14:44] dissolution you have a dissolution plan that again only the village accepts

[14:48] town has no input on and no vote in the consolidation both people have to vote

[14:54] there's also a little issue in consolidation that if you do vote

[14:59] to consolidate and you do the state consolidate state mandated consolidation

[15:03] plan if you cannot come to an agreement

[15:06] the village board and the town board if you cannot agree to that plan and you

[15:12] cannot both accept that plan you can petition to have a mediator help

[15:17] do that because at the end you have to by law

[15:20] adopt that plan and we'll go through the timeline in a

[15:24] few minutes so prior to 2010

[15:29] only 39 villages have dissolved that fundamentally changed how they provide

[15:34] those services since 2010 21

[15:39] have dissolved there have been approximately 50 votes

[15:43] 60 votes only 21 have chosen to dissolve underneath that what happened was in

[15:49] 2010 they enacted the dissolution of consolidation local government they have

[15:53] the article 17a which gave the citizens an easier route to push for a referendum

[16:00] to change government which is the petition process that you did but it

[16:04] also gave a little bit of a carrot that carrot which we'll go over later in

[16:08] the presentation is the citizen empowerment tax credit which is equal to

[16:12] 15 of your joint tax levy follow this in the fiscal year prior to the year you

[16:18] dissolve or you consolidate so what that carrot is the government

[16:23] has said that if you under article 17 a dissolve or

[16:28] consolidate we will give you a grant

[16:33] every september following the fiscal year that you

[16:36] consolidated so if you were to consolidate march 31st that september in

[16:41] theory you'd be eligible to receive those funds

[16:44] the challenge you have in that is that while the law says it's in perpetuity

[16:50] it has to be reappropriated every single year much like your chips monies

[16:55] now i haven't they have always done it since

[16:58] 2010 this year the state started the fiscal

[17:02] year 16 billion dollars in debt through the changes in the budgets and

[17:08] cutbacks they're 14 billion adding in the coveted expenses they're

[17:12] coming out with numbers as high as 60 billion in debt all grants that we work

[17:16] on and we've done 240 million dollars in grants since 2000 they're all on hold

[17:22] the consolidating funding application which would have funded the shared

[17:25] services has not come out aid to localities has been cut by 30 in some

[17:30] areas schools are looking at a 20 cut there's no guarantee that there's going

[17:34] to be a release of funds so when we work with communities we want you to

[17:38] understand three parts of it it's what would your fiscals look like without the

[17:42] grant what would it look like with the grant with 70 and 100 percent

[17:47] next we i mentioned before 39 villages

[17:52] through 2009 2010 from 2010 to 2019 uh there's been 21. there's another vote

[17:59] coming up i was in the village of spencer last night in tioga county if

[18:02] you know where that is 15 miles south of ithaca

[18:05] they were petitioned in january they were supposed to have their public

[18:08] meeting in april in their vote april 30th due to covet it's been pushed back

[18:13] to september 15th so on the 15th they're going to vote yay or nay on dissolution

[18:18] they may or may not be number 22. we'll find out around 9 30 p.m on on the 15th

[18:25] so again i want to go over on on this issue you needed 10 percent of the

[18:29] electors to sign the petitions you need 25 percent for a second

[18:35] so right now i have to be brutally clear you are voting on whatever date the

[18:39] village in town set to consolidate which is effectively

[18:43] dissolving the village unless you go co-terminus

[18:48] and again it was a citizen initiated not from the boards yet the boards were

[18:52] already talking about ways to share services to be more effective and

[18:55] efficient both governments have looked at

[18:57] different opportunities and whereby they can enhance the services that are being

[19:01] provided and provide them at the lowest cost

[19:03] the petition process took away that opportunity for them to continue that

[19:06] discussion and refocused it now on getting rid of a layer of government

[19:12] the public information meaning well we're here today august 20 25th we're

[19:16] being live streamed on facebook but if you choose to do an interim report we

[19:20] will come back about two weeks prior to the election

[19:24] and give you the findings and discuss the findings the fiscal what the

[19:28] services could look like what a potential governance could look like and

[19:31] what that means to you in every dissolution and plan that we've done and

[19:35] we've done that in this in the 90 days we've met with the public and we've

[19:38] given them a pamphlet of pros and cons you know we are unbiased we give you

[19:43] both sides and you can make your decision that best suits you

[19:48] if you don't choose to do the plan you just have to vote if you choose to do

[19:52] the plan there'll be a dedicated website that the public will have access to all

[19:57] the documents associated with consolidation they'll have powerpoint

[20:00] presentations they'll have the flow charts they'll have minutes from the

[20:02] meetings they'll have the fiscal budget they'll have the petitions i'll have the

[20:06] timelines everything associated with them would be there

[20:09] i have i have other websites if you want to go

[20:12] i'll give them later on and show you what that all looks like

[20:15] so i have a slide here from on the government which details out what i said

[20:19] before but sometimes it's easier to have a picture

[20:22] than just me talking so on this you see a flow chart of a

[20:25] voter initiated process same for dissolution as it is for consolidation

[20:30] so again day one and this should be clear to everyone at home hopefully you

[20:33] can see it if not this presentation will be given to both

[20:36] the village and the town to be on their website so you guys can share that as

[20:40] well number one is you had the petition filed

[20:43] 10 days later the signatures are verified

[20:46] within 30 days of that date so by september 9th

[20:49] the village and the town have to have their meeting

[20:53] to set the referendum

[20:56] september 9th the last day you can do it if you

[21:00] if you set that date has to be no less than 60 and no more than 90 days away

[21:05] in law you can't have it prior to 60 days you can't have it more than 90 days

[21:10] so if the 60 or 90 days are on a weekend pick the friday

[21:16] you hold your referendum the referendums do not have to be simultaneous the

[21:20] referendum can be done separate but you have to have them

[21:24] within 20 days of each other that's the law

[21:27] if the consolidation vote goes down in one of the two it's dead

[21:34] you can't bring up consolidation again for four years

[21:37] you can still talk about shared services because they'll talk about better ways

[21:40] of providing services to the most effective and efficient but the

[21:43] consolidation effort is dead as a four-year moratorium

[21:48] however i have to let the village trustees know

[21:51] and the town board if it goes down there can always be a

[21:56] petition for dissolution which starts the whole process over

[22:00] again to only the village votes there i don't want you guys to be misled

[22:05] feeling that oh it's all done there's still an opportunity to do a voter

[22:09] initiative process for dissolution if your vote goes in the affirmative in

[22:15] both jurisdictions the village and the town

[22:18] then you have to meet again within 30 days and create a committee and a

[22:22] minimum of three three town and three village uh representatives you have to

[22:26] create a plan within 180 days of that meeting

[22:31] you have to accept it but not adopt it yet because then you have uh to have a

[22:35] public hearing within 60 days

[22:39] then you have 45 more days to make amendments

[22:44] and then you go forward once you adopt it this is where that tricky part is

[22:48] where the public was told that they have a second vote

[22:52] your plan that you both adopt the village in town under this consolidation

[22:56] process this plan is subject to permissive

[23:00] referendum meaning if the people are not happy with the plan

[23:06] they if they can start petitions in both jurisdictions and need 25 percent of the

[23:12] voters from the last general election have to

[23:15] be able to put it on put the name down on the petition to vote again 25

[23:21] 831 people signed before

[23:26] 25 percent have to sign for that second vote

[23:30] and timing of that six months

[23:33] from the vote if you vote in november or december puts you in may june

[23:39] is it easy to get that vote and people are away for summer vacations

[23:44] so just keep that in mind it's not guaranteed i know you've been told it's

[23:47] guaranteed it's absolutely wrong it's not guaranteed

[23:54] if you have another petition the process starts again

[23:58] with certifying it calling a meeting and calling that second referendum now

[24:04] there's another quirk in the law that will eventually end up litigated in

[24:09] court that is what are you voting on

[24:14] according to the law that second vote that permissive referendum is on the

[24:19] plan it is not on

[24:21] am i consolidating still it's on the plan for consolidation so

[24:27] it has been practiced that if you vote that down you're done

[24:30] but no one's litigated that yet because potentially if you litigate it

[24:34] you may have to keep going until the plan is approved

[24:38] so that may end up in court someday too nancy are you already thinking about

[24:42] what this actually means next

[24:46] oh i'm back okay so the referendum vote we don't know yet the town and the

[24:50] village have to meet they have to set their vote and it'll be available for

[24:54] you again no less than 16 no longer than 90. it's let me a one question ballot

[24:59] shall the incorporated village appalling and town appalling be consolidated

[25:04] notice it doesn't say should we do a study

[25:08] it doesn't say should we apply for a grant

[25:11] it says should we consolidate yes or no it's important that you in the in the

[25:17] audience and you at home recognize that and understand that because you are

[25:20] fundamentally taking a vote right now with no additional information

[25:24] as the future governance now if you vote for it you have to do a

[25:28] study if you vote against it you may do a study for future opportunities

[25:33] but you're not required to do anything but have that vote

[25:35] so what does it mean to you when you go in to vote

[25:38] well some people automatically have their decision made too many layers of

[25:42] government matter what i'm done some people vote that you know

[25:46] they assume or they internalize their identity with their village or

[25:51] their town some people want services

[25:54] some people want to know who's providing those services so when you go into your

[25:58] uh ballot box when you were ready to make that vote there are three things

[26:01] that we want to talk about fundamentally we want to know does consolidation mean

[26:06] sense or sense sense with an s or sense with a c

[26:11] does it make sense to have one government providing the services or

[26:14] does it save me money in that process you want to understand the economy of

[26:19] scale will the proposed consolidation reduce

[26:22] my costs end of the year i get tax bills will

[26:26] this reduce my cost period number two will it be more efficient

[26:30] isn't it more efficient service delivery method will this

[26:35] consolidation make services that gain that get to me or my fellow residents

[26:39] better will it be faster

[26:43] and the last isn't going to be more effective

[26:45] these are questions you can ask it to yourself as you review all the

[26:48] information available to you will it be cheaper better or faster

[26:54] or am i just doing this because it sounds like a good idea

[26:58] so these are things you want to think about as you vote

[27:00] it's what i think about when i go in the ballot box is how it affects me i'm sure

[27:04] that that's what's going to affect you as well so within that we want to look

[27:08] at the services you know every community is different

[27:11] what you value may be different than a different community throughout the state

[27:15] but one of the things you're going to be looking at internally and collectively

[27:19] is what i value as a community for my cost for cost based and services based

[27:24] will the cost go up but will services go up with that

[27:27] additional cost will the costs go down but do i get

[27:30] better services will the cost stay about the same to me

[27:33] but my services go up or go down these are questions that at some point

[27:37] you would like to know before you vote or

[27:41] maybe the town of village don't go that way and you just have to think about it

[27:44] amongst yourselves either which way you need to think about what that means to

[27:49] you as you go to vote

[27:52] so again what happens in the vote is no consolidation will not take effect four

[27:57] years but the village and town can still work

[27:59] together on shared services they can still work with the county because every

[28:04] year the county has to prepare a county-wide shared service initiative

[28:07] and at any time you all can say i think this is a good idea for us to work

[28:12] together let's put it in the county plan and get a grant for that

[28:15] so this is not the end of shared services it's only the beginning of the

[28:18] conversations or the continuation the shared service conversation but

[28:22] consolidation would be dead

[28:26] so after the referendum i mentioned it before but i want to put it here again

[28:29] this is very important for you to recognize you saw the flow chart but if

[28:33] you vote yes you meet within 30 days and set your schedule and set your committee

[28:37] you approve a consolidation plan 180 days or less you can't come to an

[28:41] agreement a mediator will be provided you have to have at least one public

[28:45] hearing then you go forward to finalize adopt it

[28:49] and that's it unless you have the underlying number

[28:52] here 25 and then the petition has to be

[28:55] submitted again in 45 days

[29:00] so there's been a lot of discussion about the grant

[29:04] you all know about the grant somebody told you there's a grant for that

[29:08] i jokingly said back in the 70s and 80s when i grew up on long island there was

[29:12] a guy big green

[29:14] outfit looked like the joker from batman but he had little dollar

[29:18] signs and he had a big book and i was on channel 11 where i grew up

[29:22] and he said there's a grant for that he was a crazy guy now he's in jail because

[29:25] he says he's a grant for everything it wasn't proper there is a grant and

[29:28] there's not a grant so pre-covert

[29:32] go back at january 1st there was a grant called the citizen reorganization grant

[29:37] that was available to you all to help you as a government do this work

[29:42] you're hit with a petition you were then automatically eligible for expedited

[29:46] assistance up to fifty thousand dollars and ninety percent

[29:50] and within that i'm sorry i keep holding this down because i don't really use

[29:53] microphones sorry jess i know you're probably back

[29:56] there saying get on the microphone so the craig grant was in the budget

[30:02] the problem is there is no application and no money

[30:06] so people that go around saying that you're eligible for a grant are

[30:10] only telling you half the story you are eligible for a grant there's no

[30:15] grant to have in december of 2019 department of state

[30:20] moved their craig grants which would do the first

[30:22] wednesday of every month from an online portal called the

[30:25] grants.grantsgateway.gov to a paper copy they then spent january

[30:31] february and march creating that paper copy

[30:35] and never released it due to covid there is no grant available for you right now

[30:40] so that was misinformation someday there may be

[30:44] but right now every grant in new york state is on hold

[30:47] all programs are under review there's no application to go for there's no money

[30:52] from the state coming to you to do the study

[30:55] this all falls on you individually as a village in town for

[30:59] the interim report if you do one and if they vote to consolidate the

[31:03] consolidation report there is no grant money someday you may get reimbursed

[31:08] when they reopen it this particular grant program goes back to april 1st of

[31:12] the fiscal year so there is a potential for you to get that money back 90 of it

[31:17] but as of right now there's no application available and no

[31:20] money being made available to you all to do this

[31:24] that has to be clear it is not available at this time i

[31:29] highlighted it and i made it red and we move on to the next one

[31:33] so when we talk about an interim consolidation report what does that

[31:37] actually mean we we offer this to our clients so that

[31:41] we can work with you all to come up with a framework a high level framework of

[31:45] what a potential governance could be so your voters can understand the transfer

[31:49] of services and who's going to be providing those services

[31:52] staff wise position wise budget wise program wise and what's shifting from

[31:57] the area formerly known as the village to the town

[32:00] what will the town be picking up what does that look like to me and what does

[32:04] that mean to me that's all in the interim report the

[32:07] interim report will also identify and summarize the pros and the cons of the

[32:12] consolidation again not from a uh perspective of bias you know there's not

[32:16] a leverage group or ben saying you must do this you this is why it's both pros

[32:21] and cons to be balanced you all have that information and how to go forward

[32:25] we will then also provide what the potential fiscal impact would be

[32:29] you know tax dollars what does it mean per thousand for you

[32:33] if this consolidation goes forward what will be that bottom line number for you

[32:37] and again it's a not a locked in it's not a scientific analysis it is based

[32:42] upon the information provided to us during the process of what the

[32:46] governance could look like what would that cost be where would the

[32:49] shift be and what would be the cost to you and then information be shared again

[32:53] via public meetings village meetings town meetings and on the website so the

[32:57] public will see it it's transparent it's not behind closed doors it gives you the

[33:01] opportunity to have the information you need to make the decision that's

[33:04] important to you all individually and collectively

[33:10] part of this is the third button the third and third dot up there it's the

[33:14] potential post consolidation it's hard to go into a vote on the unknown

[33:22] if there was a guaranteed second vote it would be easy

[33:26] there's not a guarantee it's hard because you don't know what my post

[33:29] consolidation is going to be you have no idea what services will be

[33:34] kept and what will be dropped you don't know how it's going to be functioning

[33:38] you don't know if it's going to be co-terminus you don't know if you're

[33:40] going to be going the village is gone it's only the town

[33:43] running the running the show so this is very important for you but it's also

[33:47] important for you to understand that in the plan you have to look at the local

[33:50] laws see in the consolidation

[33:53] there's no longer a village unless you go co-terminus

[33:57] and the laws are only on the books for up to two years so then the new

[34:01] government has to change those laws and re-adopt those laws so you have zoning

[34:07] if the village is gone the town has to now absorb

[34:11] amend their zoning to include the area formerly known as the village so i'm old

[34:16] enough to know who prince was and he was the uh formerly known as the artist for

[34:20] me known as prince so when i talk about consolidation and dissolutions i talk

[34:24] about the area formerly known as the village

[34:28] so your o your village had laws we have the town then would have to update those

[34:33] laws bring them into the town they have to do zoning they have to look at a

[34:35] water district they have to do a sewer district in this process you look at do

[34:39] i need a lighting district do i need a sidewalk district how am i going to run

[34:42] this what's going to happen to my debts you know there's a fallacy that once you

[34:47] consolidate or dissolve all your debts go away and it's absorbed by the town

[34:53] no every ounce of the debt

[34:56] that you have as a village you still pay for

[35:00] it has not spread across the town so if you have a water district debt or

[35:06] a bond or a bond on your building you're still

[35:10] paying for that on top of whatever the new town tax is going to be and it's

[35:14] important if you know what that means to you in your analysis what's also

[35:18] important to know is what does the cetc tax credit mean to you and i mentioned

[35:23] before it's 15 percent of the

[35:27] fiscal it's a tax levy the fiscal year prior to

[35:30] dissolution or consolidation so we use 2018 numbers because i don't have 19 yet

[35:35] and that means right now you're eligible doesn't mean you're going to get it but

[35:39] you're eligible for approximately 775 000

[35:43] a year forever in perpetuity if it's

[35:45] reappropriated so in the study we're going to give you three numbers

[35:49] what will the fiscal impact be to you with no cetc

[35:53] what will it be with 70 and what will it be with 100

[35:57] the reasoning is the law says by law seventy percent of that tax

[36:02] credit has to go to lower your tax levy so whatever the new governance is

[36:08] and you have a property tax levy in your budget you lop off

[36:12] a minimum of 70 percent of that cetc tax credit

[36:16] every year now you can go up to 100 percent so we

[36:20] give you that number as well in the analysis

[36:25] the difference is 30 so the 70 is required the extra 30 can be used for

[36:30] other governmental functions capital costs and improvements or it can all go

[36:35] to taxes you know tax relief communities have done both sometimes

[36:40] they start with 100 and they move it back based upon capital

[36:44] improvements that are necessary or things like that but you're required 70

[36:49] again based upon your budget 775 000 and from 2018 numbers

[36:56] and that incentive is done to promulgate some of this

[37:01] citizen initiated processes

[37:05] in the event the vote passes now you're required to do

[37:08] a full consolidation you're required to look at all of your assets and figure

[37:13] out and develop a plan for disposing of those assets

[37:16] some communities were down at village mastic beach we helped them

[37:20] it was the largest village in new york state to dissolve over 15 000 people

[37:24] they were only a village for six years they created a village they dissolved

[37:29] the village before your kid goes to kindergarten

[37:32] and they did that because they didn't feel is actually representing them and

[37:35] it wasn't fiscally responsible you know in new york state

[37:39] all you need is a petition to create a village

[37:43] then you don't need a plan to create a village

[37:46] you don't need to go to the voters and say this is what the budget would be

[37:49] just need a petition and a vote but to dissolve or consolidate you have to have

[37:52] this full consolidation plan how will i get rid of my assets what are my debts

[37:57] what are my short-term debts one of my long-term debts

[38:00] now when i say long-term debts it's not just your bonds it's what are my health

[38:04] care costs what are my union costs uh are there any outstanding liabilities

[38:08] like lawsuits does somebody fall on village property

[38:13] break their back and am i in litigation we have to know all that to figure out

[38:16] what the potential cost would be because all the costs that remain from the area

[38:21] formerly known as the village have to get paid back by you all

[38:25] so there may be an opportunity for the village to have a fire sale so to speak

[38:30] and get rid of all their assets to help pay down that debt

[38:34] that's all part of uh the consolidation plan

[38:37] and we discuss in the consolidation plan also the options and quality and level

[38:40] of services but remember you cannot bind a future

[38:44] government so whatever's in that plan is not required to be followed after the

[38:49] village is no longer a village whether you're

[38:53] now remember i don't know yet because you haven't met yet you haven't decided

[38:57] if this is going to be a consolidation or co-terminus you haven't decided in

[39:01] that plan whether there'll still be a village or not

[39:05] so you have to keep that in mind as you go to vote a lot of questions and not a

[39:09] lot of answers yet before you vote

[39:13] uh in the consolidation plan we have to have an estimate of the cost for

[39:17] consolidation because there is a cost that taxpayers have to bear

[39:22] you have to have the legal cost for closing out the books the accounting

[39:25] costs the audit costs the cost for updating the zoning to include the

[39:28] village the cost for the creation of each of the districts

[39:32] all that costs money for attorneys and consultants and fees

[39:36] whether you use an auction house that's a cost we have to give you an estimate

[39:40] of the cost for consolidation there is a grant if they fund it

[39:46] each year you were eligible last year and the year before for up to fifty

[39:49] thousand dollars each for the village and town to do that implementation but

[39:54] again there's no application right now for that there's no money for that so i

[39:59] can't say that you're guaranteed that or you have available for that

[40:02] so keep that in mind but should the money become available again

[40:06] you can each get 50 000 to offset some of those costs for the legal fees and

[40:09] the like

[40:12] so what happens what are the next steps besides uh

[40:16] getting air conditioning in your buildings

[40:19] i think the town hall was hot last time i was here as well

[40:22] so you have to by september 9th the villains in town have to set the vote

[40:27] you have to have a referendum that's it

[40:30] if you choose to do a plan well somebody will work with you whether

[40:34] it's us or somebody else will work with you all to develop a plan you have to

[40:38] have that vote does not have to be simultaneous but it has to be within 20

[40:42] days of each other that's all you have to do for the next steps

[40:46] so i want to i do want to before i turn over to questions and answers um

[40:52] i'm going to ask you what i want to just ask you all to be very civil with each

[40:55] other because i don't want to make a play on words for

[41:00] the group that started the process but you are one appalling community

[41:06] we've done so many of these community issues so many of these

[41:11] become the hath dylans and the mccoys the village versus the town

[41:15] you were a community before the petition you're going to be a community post

[41:20] referendum either which way you vote

[41:23] be careful not to get into

[41:26] battles with each other on social media not to attack each other

[41:31] and not to be at each other's throats when it comes to

[41:34] this dissolution or consolidation or co-terminus or vote it's a very personal

[41:39] issue to many village residents and town residents it's a personal issue to those

[41:43] who sign the petition but it's challenging

[41:46] it's gut-wrenching it's

[41:48] game-changing because you have an opportunity

[41:51] at the ballot box to fundamentally change the governance that doesn't

[41:55] happen every day but it's very easy to go down the drain

[41:59] and attack each other let's try to work together and get through this process

[42:03] whether we like it or not there's a vote we have to work together to figure out

[42:08] what's best for our community or your community and together we can do that

[42:12] but you're fighting each other every step of the way you're not going to be

[42:15] able to come up with the best plan of action

[42:18] and you're locked into a time frame that requires it

[42:21] so with that i want to turn over to questions that we may have for those of

[42:25] you that are on facebook live i'm first going to go to the meeting room we have

[42:30] here after the meeting room is done we're

[42:32] going to ask whoever is monitoring the facebook live to see if there are

[42:36] additional questions and then ask them out loud i'll do my best to summarize

[42:40] the question and then give an answer back

[42:44] sir

[42:47] i think you have to tell up the stenographer and the clerk your name

[42:54] live in the village um thank you ben that was really great i

[43:00] think you're going to have to steve can you bring it up yes i can i'm using

[43:03] let me use the first part of my three minutes to just say that um thank you

[43:07] for your admonition about us being civil with each other but i have to note that

[43:12] um as i look around this room one thing as i look around this room one thing

[43:16] that i've noticed is that um that

[43:20] that the civility of the community has come through through this process there

[43:24] really has been very little anger i think that a lot of the

[43:30] invective and and the ugliness has come from very very limited source and i

[43:35] think this is a community that is

[43:38] well able to manage itself but thank you for that the question i'd like to ask

[43:42] you is two-part question one part is for you and the other part is for um

[43:47] supervisor schmidt mayor lifflin part one of the question is you detailed how

[43:51] 70 of the

[43:54] cetc could be used for um residents and as we know that will

[43:59] disproportionately impact the residents who have a larger property those who are

[44:04] paying you know who have a higher property value and so that's something

[44:07] that should be taken into consideration but what i would like to do if you can

[44:12] is for you to outline for the people on the audience

[44:15] how the creation of special districts might offset any potential savings from

[44:20] the cetc now i looked at for instance forestville and saw that they had

[44:25] special districts for lighting and special dixie for water and ultimately

[44:29] the alleged 15 percent which turned into 10 because of the 30 percent 10.5 to be

[44:35] exact ended up being pushed down to only about three percent because of the

[44:39] creation of special districts so if you could just detail how special districts

[44:44] are placed on the village or the area formerly known as the village and how

[44:48] that mitigates this um potential tax credit

[44:53] that would be great um and and what the usual impacts are the second part of my

[44:58] question is just we all know as a community that there are in fact shared

[45:02] services so i would really just like to ask um the town supervisor and the mayor

[45:06] to detail just a few of the shared services that you do in cooperation the

[45:11] way you spend money on sand or gas and uh and and then perhaps you know you

[45:16] could all say how committed you are to doing more of this

[45:19] with or without this referendum thanks all right steve so it's sort of a

[45:23] complicated question you have there on the cetc versus special districts

[45:27] because they're not they're not the same right now you have a budget for example

[45:32] the town tax levy in 2018 is about 3.9 million dollars

[45:36] so in developing your consolidation plan and doing the cost analysis and shifting

[45:41] the services to the new government and accounting for the special districts

[45:46] that will be created for the village there will be a new budget

[45:50] the budget town wide let's just say it's a i'm making up a number because it's

[45:54] easy math five million dollars

[45:58] not a real number just a number so what happens if your budget's five

[46:03] million dollars seventy percent of the funds that you get for the cetc tax

[46:08] credit lower that tax levy from five million to four point whatever seventy

[46:12] percent is but in that budget you already would

[46:15] have calculated and accounted for the special districts so what the special

[46:19] districts are is right now you do not have a water district in the village

[46:23] your municipal boundary is a water district this is more district outside

[46:28] sewer districts are outside towns can have districts villages can't they have

[46:31] service areas but not a district so when the village goes away you and the town

[46:36] will then have to create a special district for the water in the area

[46:39] formerly known as the village or whatever the new service area is

[46:43] whether that goes to vote is subject to opinion the comptroller's

[46:47] office has said that if you put the uh if you put the district formation in the

[46:53] plan you don't have to vote again unless you're changing that district boundary

[46:57] but there'll be a water district in a sewer district

[47:00] as far as a lighting district and a sidewalk district that's up to the group

[47:03] creating the plan they can say there's going to be one and

[47:08] there may not be one long term they can say there won't be one and

[47:12] there may be one long term there has to be one for the survey

[47:15] infrastructure and the debt already for the water and sewer but when you come up

[47:21] with your analysis and you look at the shift share and the

[47:25] service movement from the village line to the town line or whatever the new

[47:28] governance may be there's a budget

[47:31] and that budget end result for the town tax levy is what will be reduced by the

[47:36] 70 percent and 100 in the analysis you'll get three numbers

[47:40] now doesn't always mean they're going to save money

[47:43] in every single dissolution plan except for the village of spencer last night

[47:49] village taxes go down town taxes go up except for

[47:54] the cetc tax credit which is meant to reduce that increase for town to make it

[47:58] equal in the village of spencer if they

[48:01] dissolved the village residents pay more and the talent taxes go down it's an

[48:06] anomaly based upon the services that are provided the village level and town

[48:10] level but that gets discussed in your report

[48:13] supervisor may you want to hit the shared service concepts

[48:24] and we do share a lot of services already

[48:28] and i like it

[48:30] we get things done i feel that we work very well together

[48:35] and my opinion would be

[48:38] not to obser this

[48:42] chair here

[48:47] thank you mayor so

[48:49] we sorry about that a little louder than uh ben was

[48:53] the town and village share a lot of services already like the mayor said um

[48:57] some of those things obviously we share an assessor position

[49:00] uh which represents a town and village uh our highway departments work together

[49:05] constantly which is probably one of our our highest spending departments uh with

[49:10] fuel fuel consumption and purchase sand and salt uh loading out that sand

[49:15] assault during storms and uh

[49:18] our cdbg grants every year on sidewalk projects and whatnot as well there's a

[49:22] there's actually a long a much longer list of shared services

[49:26] than than what has been alluded to and i'm happy to quickly announce and and

[49:32] invite up our county legislator ed houser and um legislative housing if you

[49:36] don't mind coming up just quickly to detail some of the county services we

[49:40] work on as well because it's not just town and village

[49:43] services it's town village and county services and it's all of your elected

[49:46] leaders working on a daily basis so ed thank you for being here and if you

[49:49] don't mind us running through a quick couple of things for us that'd be great

[49:53] thank you supervisor

[49:56] can you hear me okay um

[50:02] first of all i'd like to make a statement um

[50:04] i've been uh an elected official in pauling for since 1978

[50:10] and i've had an opportunity i've had an opportunity to watch

[50:15] the workings of the village and the town from the inside and

[50:20] it's been both the village and the town have evolved into real jewels they're

[50:26] unique and superb places that have character into themselves

[50:31] and i think much of the reason for that is that they have separate boards

[50:35] who have separate goals and the village board especially is all members of the

[50:40] of the village all residents of the village and they've contributed so much

[50:44] to making the village of pauling such a unique place that people come here

[50:48] just to be in that place so i hope we proceed with this process very carefully

[50:53] because we don't want to lose the value that we have

[50:57] as far as shared surfaces we the supervisor and the mayor and i sat

[51:01] down and we came up with a list of about 30 items that are shared between the

[51:06] village and the town but also at the county level

[51:08] the county uh has

[51:11] the county executive has a shared services initiative which was mentioned

[51:16] before it's part of a state mandate and the both the

[51:20] supervisor and the mayor are members of that they meet regularly to discuss uh

[51:25] ways that uh services could be shared and and expenses can be reduced

[51:30] um and you know i think one of the valuable things about that process is

[51:34] that they hear what other villages and towns and

[51:37] are doing and they get ideas from that and they've certainly implemented them

[51:42] um in 1978 there was a lot of

[51:46] animosity between the village and the town

[51:49] and that's all gone away uh i i you know i'm just so pleased with how well the

[51:54] town and the village work together and um

[51:58] you know i'm very very happy to be representing both of them

[52:03] thank you

[52:09] other questions for the audience sir in the striped shirt in the back

[52:23] hi there mike cerny i'm live in the village um

[52:27] i guess the first thing observation we're talking about these districts

[52:31] lighting water we already have a sewer district

[52:36] garbage probably it just seems that the village is handling all this now and we

[52:41] go ahead and spend the money to create these districts

[52:44] and have separate entities doing this it just kind of doesn't make sense if

[52:49] you think about it where we have a single uh village that's

[52:53] handling this now and then we would end up

[52:56] creating multiple districts to handle all these services that are in the

[53:01] village to me that sounds like a lot of money

[53:04] it sounds like going the opposite way from

[53:07] consolidation it actually sounds like more

[53:11] separation and it doesn't

[53:14] seem to make sense that's just my observation i wanted to get back to um

[53:19] the steps and the four-year moratorium that you talked about

[53:23] uh this has been initiated through

[53:26] referendum vote petition

[53:30] and the other way that this can happen is

[53:34] through board initiated correct correct

[53:38] does that moratorium from the referendum initiative apply to

[53:43] board initiate initiated consolidation um

[53:48] after after the fact that's a good question i've never been

[53:51] asked that question before so i don't have an answer on that i believe the law

[53:56] says it cannot be brought back up again which means in my opinion

[54:00] even if it's a board initiated you still have the same process you cannot bring

[54:04] up consolidation it can bring up dissolution which can't bring up

[54:07] consolidation but i'll verify that with department of state and get back to you

[54:10] yeah i'd appreciate it because my read of it was that you could still do board

[54:14] initiated after after that it was a referendum could not be um but you still

[54:19] need a referendum you see if you have you can do a study

[54:23] the board the boards can still do a consolidation study afterward but it

[54:27] still goes to vote and you can't bring it back up for referendum but again i'll

[54:30] check on that the law is very uh not clear it is not i i agree it's not very

[54:35] clear on that so i'd appreciate knowing that um talking about the interim

[54:41] you're in talking about doing an interim study yes you know obviously what's

[54:44] happening here is let's face it we have a gun to our head

[54:48] we've got a we've got a vote it's not a board-initiated

[54:53] situation where we could take a wait for a grant get a grant and have a

[54:58] nice study to make a full determination on all issues costs what's good what's

[55:05] bad pros cons we're being forced within a very short period of time to make a

[55:10] decision and

[55:13] i would guess that the type of interim study

[55:17] that you're talking about is um far less than a study that would be done in a

[55:24] more in a longer time frame correct and what what were what are some of the

[55:28] things that we because i i could tell you were talking about you you have to

[55:31] limit your analysis to particular information well in an interim report

[55:38] what we've done before uh and it's all been dissolution

[55:41] well an interim report

[55:45] okay in an interim report what we haven't done is looked at all the

[55:48] services that are provided at the village level and those at the town and

[55:52] worked with the committee to figure out what the new service delivery model

[55:56] would be so from your clerk to your dpw to your

[55:59] water to your sewer to your recreation where would that move

[56:02] in the budget line and the service delivery at a high level what would that

[56:06] cost and what would be the potential cost

[56:09] savings or or actual cost to the taxpayers and you

[56:13] were right before you know it's a little bit ironic in that the 2010 legislation

[56:18] to allow for easier referendums on dissolution and

[56:22] consolidation of a government in essence creates more governments

[56:27] because the governor has said that we have 10 000 layers of government in the

[56:31] state and that accounts for every lighting district and water district and

[56:35] sewer district an erosion district so if you get rid of the village and you

[56:39] create four more districts you're a positive three governments

[56:44] because they're three taxing entities so

[56:50] yeah turn on uh dave daniels i've been the village

[56:54] attorney for a number of years and um one of the things you were mentioning

[56:59] the study and some echoing some of the comments that were made

[57:03] i think the the difficult thing about a study like this is the inability even of

[57:07] the best in your presentation was was very good uh excellent

[57:11] but the intangibles

[57:14] and you know one of them they're both both

[57:17] from the standpoint of cost but also lost benefit

[57:20] from a cost perspective having been involved in a number of

[57:24] village projects including various districts and the like i think it's

[57:28] almost impossible to accurately gauge for some of your

[57:31] position how much work how much consultant time how much

[57:35] legal time how much trustee time is going to go into each of those

[57:40] projects one of the things i've observed over the

[57:43] years is the the amount of time and effort that i'm

[57:47] more familiar with the village i'm sure it's the same at the town the hundreds

[57:50] of hours that these folks spend taking care of all these issues

[57:56] and you know that's going to be that's going to be lost if you have a single a

[58:00] single entity the folks in the village are not going to be doing the same

[58:03] things and so you're going to have that loss

[58:06] lost benefit and any one of these things one of the

[58:10] things you mentioned about the mediator the one thing my understanding of the

[58:13] statute is that if that doesn't go through

[58:16] there's a lawsuit and that's

[58:20] having reviewed the statute we're the beta tester for new york state

[58:24] it's going to be i think a honey pot of potential

[58:27] lawsuits and i would hope that that wouldn't happen but

[58:30] given the lack of grant funding and the the ambiguity and the statute

[58:34] about who can vote where and a myriad other issues that nancy and

[58:38] i have talked about it's um you know it's going to be a lot more

[58:42] than people think and it's really you know i think it's it's unfortunate that

[58:46] it's putting us in a position where we have

[58:49] to go through this process and i just hope that you know you and can educate

[58:54] folks and people can understand what's at risk

[58:59] thank you dave

[59:02] so dave is correct you only have 90 days so the level of analysis and interim

[59:07] report is a high level analysis uh the lack would you mention the the

[59:13] cost benefit that goes into things that a consultant

[59:17] cannot understand no consultant can put a monetary value

[59:23] of having local representation no consultant can put a number on how

[59:28] many hours every villains trustee and building staff person dedicates to

[59:33] representing you all on a daily basis you have 90 days and hopefully there's

[59:38] some information provided for you to make some decisions on so you mentioned

[59:43] i was glad you mentioned the law is very

[59:47] vague you will be the test case i mentioned it

[59:50] earlier there has not been a village town

[59:52] referendum you will be the test case you mentioned three specific

[59:57] topics in your in your in your discussion

[1:00:01] that have not yet been determined by the state

[1:00:04] where you vote when you vote

[1:00:08] how you vote

[1:00:11] you only have to have a vote the town and village have to decide when

[1:00:17] that vote's going to occur there's a lot of propaganda

[1:00:22] a lot of information yelling at requesting for pushing for a

[1:00:27] november third saying that you can do it anyway

[1:00:31] if this petition was done two weeks earlier a lot of that issue would have

[1:00:36] been taken away two weeks earlier it would have been on

[1:00:41] the county official ballot it would have been on the early voting ballot it would

[1:00:45] have been on this the county absentee ballot

[1:00:48] it would have been done by the county board of elections with county

[1:00:51] inspectors with county poll with public poll

[1:00:54] watchers it wasn't done that way maybe it was done purposely maybe not

[1:01:00] but now you have to have an additional cost of an election potentially see

[1:01:04] according the board of elections they cannot put it on their ballots it's done

[1:01:08] you miss that boat you can have an election on november 3rd but there are

[1:01:13] so many logistical challenges to that that it may not be the best choice for

[1:01:18] the residents one is early voting

[1:01:22] what do you do with early voting people said online hey this is the most

[1:01:24] convenient time possible everyone's coming out to vote well

[1:01:29] not everyone's coming out to vote that day some are absentee balloting if

[1:01:33] you're absentee balloting now you have to get two absentee ballots

[1:01:37] one for the village or the town and one for the normal election that

[1:01:41] you're having on november third and if you're early voting not absentee

[1:01:45] voting you've got to show back up again for the actual vote

[1:01:49] so it's not a oh you're going to save time oh it's going to save cove it

[1:01:52] always going to save everything you're shortening the time that the town and

[1:01:56] village have to provide information if you do it that day

[1:02:00] and you're not hitting the early voting or the absentee issue the third issue is

[1:02:04] you have to have if you do it on november 3rd you have to have a separate

[1:02:08] ballot which means you have to coordinate with

[1:02:11] the dutchess county board of elections to see if they can even do it and if

[1:02:14] they can train their inspectors who are already going to be overburdened

[1:02:18] with covet and people coming in keeping socially distance using different pens

[1:02:22] identifying who they are with masks on and their signature you're going to ask

[1:02:26] the inspectors to also decide if you're a village voter or a town voter and give

[1:02:30] a second ballot to put in a separate box village and town you have the

[1:02:36] opportunity to have the vote and make it easier or harder but that's a logistical

[1:02:40] issue the second issue have is coveted where do you vote will there be enough

[1:02:44] room to separate the ballots and go twice so there are a lot of issues with

[1:02:49] that can you fundamentally do it sure are

[1:02:52] there logistical issues sure our towns and villages have done these

[1:02:57] and had separate days and has worked very effectively

[1:03:00] so that's up to you all how you move that then you mentioned the who will

[1:03:04] vote well the law is not clear and i'm not an

[1:03:08] attorney we have two very knowledgeable attorneys both for the village and the

[1:03:11] town and they went to law school not me

[1:03:15] and they've read the law but agree with me that it's ambiguous it's vague it's

[1:03:19] missing gaps as to can the village residents vote twice

[1:03:25] nikom council of mayors an association that

[1:03:28] represents villagers says yes you can vote twice because you're a

[1:03:32] village resident and town resident however department of state who runs the

[1:03:35] dissolution consolidation has offered and proffered a legal opinion saying no

[1:03:40] it's against the u.s constitution it's one person one vote and while you can

[1:03:45] vote as a village resident in a town issue you cannot vote twice and you

[1:03:49] cannot have a village dictate what the town's going to be so you get one vote

[1:03:54] that's the department of state regulation or sorry public their opinion

[1:03:57] that came out it came out in 2018 and it was verified in 2020

[1:04:02] council has spoken to their council and the department of state has said you get

[1:04:07] one vote as a village resident which also lends itself to the challenge at

[1:04:11] the ballot box if you do it november 3rd versus another day because you have to

[1:04:14] verify they haven't voted twice so you mentioned litigation

[1:04:21] there may be litigation i'm sure somebody is going to sue on voter

[1:04:24] suppression or on double votes some there's always going to be you will

[1:04:28] be the case study so my best advice is to take as much

[1:04:32] time as you can to properly vet the process

[1:04:36] carefully pick the date of your referendum giving people the most

[1:04:38] opportunity to vote carefully select that opportunity to provide them

[1:04:43] as much information as you can because eventually there may be

[1:04:47] a lawsuit on it because you are the test there has not been a village town

[1:04:51] and it will incur cost anybody that says that it's not going to

[1:04:55] incur cost is trying to sell things to you

[1:05:00] you know uh can i just finish off um i so

[1:05:04] in terms of what you just said that's great i mean thank you so much for i was

[1:05:08] going to say the word clarifying but it's not clarifying because it becomes

[1:05:11] very murky but all of these issues all of these issues with a gun to our head

[1:05:17] having to put together an interim uh some type of interim study to give some

[1:05:21] level of information i mean i i want to throw out to folks

[1:05:25] here that a vote i think a vote for no

[1:05:28] is a vote for a study that's right a vote for no is a vote for

[1:05:33] a study and the reason for that is that it will give the town and the village

[1:05:38] the chance to apply for the grant that ben's talking about they can go out and

[1:05:42] get that grant they can do it in a more uh in a time

[1:05:46] frame that doesn't sap our public officials all of their time

[1:05:52] i mean they're going to be working on this endlessly if we go through with

[1:05:56] this over the next 18 months to two years

[1:05:59] you know and there's a lot to be done so i'm telling you the way i see it is

[1:06:04] that a vote for no is a vote for a study it's a vote for a

[1:06:08] reasoned analysis of whether this is the right thing to do

[1:06:12] for a village that's existed for i don't know 100 years

[1:06:16] not doing it with a gun to our head making a decision without the right

[1:06:22] information within 90 days

[1:06:25] thank you thank you and i know that there were some questions they were

[1:06:28] given to us prior and those were two questions that came up dave so thank you

[1:06:32] sir you had a question and then we'll go to the former mayor

[1:06:39] yeah earl slocum of the village trustee and i'm just sorry that we're going

[1:06:44] through this exercise again because um back

[1:06:48] in the early 90s when i was mayor we went through this then

[1:06:52] and it didn't work the people voted against it they didn't want to they

[1:06:56] didn't want to consolidate so i'm just sorry that we're going through this

[1:07:00] whole exercise all again and spending all this money when

[1:07:04] back then they decided that it wasn't a good thing

[1:07:08] thank you well thank you earl you know sometimes in the darkest at times the

[1:07:12] light shines through and you have an opportunity through this process to work

[1:07:16] together for enhanced sharing of services and governance going forward

[1:07:20] unfortunately the law allows it to happen every four years so if it goes

[1:07:23] down it may happen again every four years so let's do what we can to provide

[1:07:27] as much light and information as we can to residents and see how we can continue

[1:07:32] to provide better services with the highest level of services that we can

[1:07:35] sir

[1:07:38] so we have one just we have two foreign mayors and a mayor we have more than

[1:07:41] winners how many of you were all mayors

[1:07:45] a few in here uh glenn kerry and um i appreciate your

[1:07:50] comments on the election i'd actually like to expand on them a little bit i

[1:07:54] did some research uh these past days about the election

[1:07:58] because and and i know

[1:08:01] you talked about um trying to keep things on a positive level and i'm going

[1:08:06] to do that to the extent that i can but i'm also going to acknowledge that

[1:08:10] there's been a misinformation campaign that's been taking place

[1:08:13] that's put us in the position that we're in right now

[1:08:16] we've had a small group of people who in the cloak of darkness went around

[1:08:21] and collected signatures quietly and quickly

[1:08:25] in order to push this initiative forward and they've misinformed people they

[1:08:30] misinformed people when they asked them for their signatures

[1:08:33] those people came forward that gave signatures i had a number of people call

[1:08:36] me and say glenn how can i remove my signature that wasn't what i was told i

[1:08:40] said unfortunately once it's been filed you can't

[1:08:44] so it's proven that they've been given

[1:08:47] misinformation and then yesterday

[1:08:50] this group called one polling also called pauline tax cut

[1:08:55] under the the leadership of kevin gardner who doesn't identify himself on

[1:08:59] either of these sites um but has also created multiple

[1:09:03] personas online lin tufail mark rossi

[1:09:07] uh pong libertarians duchess tax cut numerous other personas he's created and

[1:09:14] he creates communications between these personas to try and lead

[1:09:18] public um impressions and and and influence people's thought processes

[1:09:24] which frankly is a little demented um

[1:09:28] you know why can't you own what you own you stand up for it and you put your

[1:09:32] name behind it but he can't do that and

[1:09:36] he'll create conversations and then when he doesn't like what's said when the

[1:09:40] facts are out there he'll delete them i mean

[1:09:44] that's crazy this is what's going on right now and

[1:09:48] yesterday there's this one pauling letter that went to the town and village

[1:09:51] boards that talks about

[1:09:56] demanding that we ask our village and town board to have the vote on november

[1:10:00] 3rd and he cites it's the most convenient day

[1:10:04] well it would have been the most convenient

[1:10:07] day if this group had their act together and

[1:10:10] filed two weeks prior to when they filed with the village and the town clerk

[1:10:15] because august 3rd was the deadline so they would add to gone back two weeks

[1:10:19] prior to that august 3rd deadline to give the clerks enough time to certify

[1:10:22] the results then

[1:10:25] it would have been on the general election ballot there'd be no question

[1:10:28] about it we wouldn't be incurring any additional cost

[1:10:32] but as you pointed out what they've created right now is a situation where

[1:10:36] the county has made it clear the county is not going to allow this

[1:10:41] ballot to be given out at the general election it's not happening

[1:10:46] both the democrat and the election uh republican election commissioner said no

[1:10:50] to it so yeah we can have a vote on november

[1:10:54] 3rd but what that means

[1:10:56] is the town clerk and the village clerk have to initiate this whole vote on

[1:11:02] their own this is on them the villa the dutchess county board of

[1:11:06] elections does not handle this vote whether it's handled on november 3rd now

[1:11:10] or any other day it falls under the auspices of the clerks the amount of

[1:11:15] work that the village and the town clerk are going to have to do to coordinate

[1:11:18] this is

[1:11:19] unbelievable totally has been discounted and nobody's

[1:11:23] taken that into account the safest day

[1:11:26] well i don't necessarily know that it's the safest day um any day in this coven

[1:11:31] environment is really not a safe day and

[1:11:34] and i would say it probably really wasn't very safe to go and do this

[1:11:38] initiative door-to-door collecting signatures i don't know how safe that

[1:11:41] was either it's interesting to say that because during the election a petition

[1:11:45] process for elected officials for the petition process in march the

[1:11:51] governor stopped it it's a special executive order that reduced the amount

[1:11:54] of signatures necessary for elected office to stop going door-to-door so you

[1:11:58] were correct correct and the most cost-effective day

[1:12:04] well we now know that's not true

[1:12:06] because whether or not this is held on november 3rd or any other day between

[1:12:11] the 60 and 90 days that this has to happen the cost to the taxpayers is

[1:12:16] exactly the same because

[1:12:19] the village and the town clerks they now have to get ballots they have to get

[1:12:24] special printing ballots to go into these electronic machines each one of

[1:12:28] those ballots costs about a dollar per ballot we have 8 000 residents

[1:12:33] they're going to have to make sure we have a ballot for each resident because

[1:12:37] every resident has to be able to have the opportunity to vote only those that

[1:12:40] are registered to vote right well i mean there are thousands of those i'm just so

[1:12:44] yeah um they have to rent the machines

[1:12:48] and the machines are going to be a problem right now the machines are going

[1:12:51] to be a problem because the general election is november 3rd

[1:12:54] the machines then become impounded

[1:12:58] and they could be impounded for weeks which is going to make it nearly

[1:13:02] impossible probably for the town and the village to try and find machines

[1:13:07] because the machines they're impounded after a general election

[1:13:10] because if somebody wants to contest the general election

[1:13:15] anybody who's running for office has the ability to go back and and check those

[1:13:19] machines and make sure that they were calculated the ballots correctly so

[1:13:24] my understanding in duchess county alone is maybe december 13th we'd have access

[1:13:28] to the machines which would be past the 90 days or a paper ballot that gets hand

[1:13:34] voted right can you imagine the logistics of that and count it hand

[1:13:37] counted don't forget the absentee ballot has to be a separate absentee ballot

[1:13:41] request so your seniors or those that are voting at home now have to have two

[1:13:45] absentee ballots exactly they criss-cross which ones they have yep so

[1:13:49] you have voter disenfranchisement you have to have that's not a real word poll

[1:13:52] workers the cost of the poll workers and again

[1:13:56] if you want i'm making this clear about the november third deadline because this

[1:14:00] one pauling pauling tax cut keeps insisting that it can be done that day

[1:14:05] getting poll workers that day will be nearly impossible the county is having

[1:14:10] difficulty getting poll workers already because most of the poll workers are

[1:14:14] elderly correct and they do not want to work the polls right now in a coveted

[1:14:19] environment so there's so many challenges to the november third right

[1:14:22] so you would be getting you would be getting unfortunately you would not be

[1:14:25] getting well trained poll workers to be running this this

[1:14:30] vote and you also have to get the poll books

[1:14:33] you have to get the poll books you got to buy from the county i know i'm over

[1:14:36] i'm going to ask the the mayor and the supervisor to give me a little extra

[1:14:40] time here because of how important it's gonna be this is now i i appreciate that

[1:14:44] um you know in the general election as you

[1:14:48] pointed out there's early voting and there's absentee voting

[1:14:51] and and people don't understand what happens now if if somebody's out and we

[1:14:56] go up and we vote in millbrook which is our early voting

[1:14:59] every day they've got to go take those people that

[1:15:02] voted go back to the county and mark them as already having voted

[1:15:08] so that the next day i can't go there and vote again so that's what's

[1:15:11] happening simultaneously and then when you come back here to vote in your town

[1:15:16] on general election day they know whether or not i've already voted early

[1:15:19] voting so if i went voted early voting then i

[1:15:22] come in and i want to vote this ballot for

[1:15:26] the uh consolidation i mean there's mass confusion

[1:15:30] because the county's not tracking that and they're not going to give up they're

[1:15:33] not going to give the ballot anyway and it's not going to be on this whole thing

[1:15:35] could have been solved if this was done two weeks prior so yes

[1:15:39] you highlighted a number of the issues that have not yet been shared with the

[1:15:42] general public um i don't want to speak to the

[1:15:47] misinformation or how or why social media is aware is a place now where

[1:15:51] people hide behind the website the page

[1:15:55] what have you information gets shared bits of information gets shared you know

[1:16:00] communication is an interesting thing it's not only what you say

[1:16:05] it's also what is heard and that what is heard is brought

[1:16:08] through their own internal filters and responded back to you through a filter

[1:16:12] so i don't want to say from my perspective that anything was done

[1:16:16] maliciously i do want to say that from what i'm hearing when i'm reading and

[1:16:20] what i'm seeing the information isn't correct that's being provided to the

[1:16:24] public well listen you don't have to say it i will

[1:16:28] and i'm happy to say it because if you anybody i'm watching the meeting on

[1:16:32] facebook right now i'm pauling tax cut all they're doing is

[1:16:35] is criticizing you and telling you you don't know what you're talking about no

[1:16:38] i know but this is the misinformation campaign that i'm talking about rather

[1:16:42] than come here i don't see mr kevin gardner here he's the one that's led

[1:16:46] this whole initiative he's not sitting in the room tonight

[1:16:48] um the other thing is i want to ask you

[1:16:52] said which was interesting if the consolidation fails with one of

[1:16:56] the votes it fails it fails so my question is this

[1:17:01] if the village goes first you don't hold them on the same day

[1:17:04] the village does theirs and it fails

[1:17:08] you the second vote doesn't have to happen you have to have it you still

[1:17:11] have to we're locked in by law for the votes so you still have to have it

[1:17:16] it doesn't matter how many people show up it's already failed

[1:17:19] but you have to hold the vote anyway you still have to hold the town vote correct

[1:17:22] okay so you know my my early numbers i could you know i could be wrong but i i

[1:17:27] i feel pretty good about the the cost that i've come up with it's probably

[1:17:30] going to cost about 15 000 if not a little bit more probably to do

[1:17:35] a special election so that cost is to the taxpayers no matter what correct no

[1:17:39] matter what now as far as the name calling i got broad shoulders been doing

[1:17:43] this 25 years it's okay if balling tax cut or one

[1:17:46] polling or whoever those people are want to say that i'm a hack or used car

[1:17:51] salesman i think they called me last time

[1:17:54] it's okay thank you for that that means i'm getting your attention but the

[1:17:57] reality is there are real facts and real solutions and real information has to be

[1:18:02] given out i'm just going to wrap up i i appreciate

[1:18:05] that you're absolutely right that's why this is i mean the unfortunate part is

[1:18:10] we're here doing this because the facts weren't obtained first

[1:18:15] and and now it's become the taxpayers mess and the board's mess to clean up

[1:18:21] correct and that's that's that's so unfortunate and i'm just going to end

[1:18:24] with some comments because because i feel like i need to well well

[1:18:28] thank you are there other comments no i know you find one more few more yeah

[1:18:32] uh the issue before the town of village was not one of their making

[1:18:36] it was created by mr gardner and helen grosso and others who circulated

[1:18:40] petitions on their behalf to push this initiative without knowing

[1:18:44] and understanding the implications of their actions

[1:18:48] the cost to the taxpayers for this vote is at

[1:18:52] their feet they can continue to stomp their feet and say that the village in

[1:18:56] the town should allow voters to vote when they do on election day but the

[1:19:00] reality is that it can't be done a separate vote will have to be

[1:19:04] conducted all at taxpayers expense thank you

[1:19:11] hey hey ben just before we go to the next comment could you just since since

[1:19:15] your experience is being is being called into question could you just let us all

[1:19:19] know how many years you've been working on these type of studies and how many

[1:19:22] town villages consolidations and and things along the same process you've

[1:19:26] worked on in your career sure i've done over about 15 different

[1:19:30] actually with consolidations and shared services over 40 different studies uh

[1:19:35] eight dissolution plans we also authored the award-winning town of brookhaven

[1:19:40] municipal consolidation and efficiency plan that the state granted one

[1:19:44] community to get 20 million dollars to reinvent their government we did that

[1:19:49] plan uh we're currently working in spencer uh

[1:19:52] but since my qualifications are being called in by you know this guy or one

[1:19:57] polling or tax credit uh tax cut i've been doing this 25 years i've been

[1:20:01] working with governments from the senate to the assembly to county government

[1:20:04] i've been a consultant to town of villages for over 21 years

[1:20:08] i'm a certified planner and i'm an educator facilitator at the association

[1:20:12] of towns and for nikon so they come to us to author uh to author articles in

[1:20:18] their newspapers and their magazines that they share to educate mayors and

[1:20:21] boards and supervisors and boards uh annually for the last uh 20 of the last

[1:20:26] 21 years i've been at the association of towns presenting for about 16 of those

[1:20:30] years on shared services on planning with us is kathy rooney who has 30 years

[1:20:36] of municipal management our other colleague has been a fiscal

[1:20:42] wonk or a watchdog as he calls it for data as a foreign budget officer

[1:20:46] i'm going to be nice and say he's been doing it for 30 years he's probably

[1:20:49] watching it's probably closer to 35 but if he's not watching no harm no foul

[1:20:55] but we have been working as a company since 1964 way before shared services

[1:21:00] and quality communities came to be you know sharing services is not novel

[1:21:05] it's not new it's things that the towns and villages have been doing since the

[1:21:10] beginning of time sharing equipment sharing people working

[1:21:13] together to serve the residents that are both the village in town

[1:21:17] this is not a new process it's one it's thrust upon you since 2010's change

[1:21:23] so i hope that responds to some of the requirements and some of the background

[1:21:27] that we provide but over 40 different studies that we've done some of our

[1:21:32] studies have been groundbreaking like the shimon county

[1:21:35] shared highway services study and the town of brookhaven municipal

[1:21:38] consolidation and efficiency study now putting in context

[1:21:42] town of brookhaven is 496 000 people

[1:21:47] it's different world it's long island it's where i'm from which is why i talk

[1:21:51] quickly 496

[1:21:54] 000 people nine villagers one dissolve eight villages

[1:21:59] they reinvented their government with a plan that we authored and won the twenty

[1:22:04] million dollars that doesn't come from reading something

[1:22:07] online and prime and developing propaganda that comes from understanding

[1:22:12] how government fundamentally works that it's not a business

[1:22:16] people like to go door to door and knock on doors and say that i want to run my

[1:22:20] village or run my town like a business it's not a business

[1:22:24] it's a public entity looking out for the day-to-day needs of their residents

[1:22:29] and figuring out the best way to provide those services the most effective way to

[1:22:33] provide those services the most efficient way of providing those

[1:22:36] services and anybody that calls into question these leaders around the room

[1:22:40] and says that they have not been doing this on a day-to-day basis is lying to

[1:22:43] themselves because it's what they do they have been entrusted by the public

[1:22:48] with your money to look out for you and provide these

[1:22:52] services at the highest level they can in an economy and in a situation where

[1:22:57] we have a tax cap where we have a lack of federal and state resources but they

[1:23:01] cannot go back to you because you're all hurting due to covid and other

[1:23:04] environmental and economic issues they put themselves out day on day in

[1:23:08] and day out to provide these services for you and for anybody to say that

[1:23:12] they're not doing their job let's have a vote without it let's just vote anyway

[1:23:16] is wrong for them and it's not fair to them so i want to thank you all for

[1:23:20] doing what you do every single day defending what you do online and to the

[1:23:24] public you do you actually provide a huge public service and you should be

[1:23:28] recognized for that this process demands a short time frame

[1:23:34] this process forces you to take what you could have done together

[1:23:39] in a year to give information within 90 days

[1:23:43] it forces the public to vote without proper information

[1:23:48] and it's not fair to you all but that's the situation you're in

[1:23:51] so if anyone that questions my background it's online go read it you

[1:23:54] want to look at our studies they're online go see it

[1:23:58] if you have questions for us we'll be happy to answer them

[1:24:02] any i think these two have questions gentlemen the white shirt and then the

[1:24:05] green shirt

[1:24:11] jerry if i have to use one you have to i guess so yeah

[1:24:14] i want to say what a nice job you've done uh gerry lacassie i live in the

[1:24:17] village been here for many years i think uh both village and town

[1:24:21] officials do a great job my question is and your resume is

[1:24:25] certainly very impressive you've done a great job so far

[1:24:28] can i ask what the cost is for your presentation for this evening or your

[1:24:32] firms is that something that's i'm just curious what we're laying out

[1:24:36] it's it's great that you're doing it i'm curious what this is going to cost us uh

[1:24:39] prior today was about 12 hours of consultant time with today it's about

[1:24:44] another five hours of consulting time for a total of 17. and uh if i

[1:24:47] understand the village in the town have the option to use your services to do

[1:24:51] the interim study yes what does something like that go for

[1:24:54] roughly any idea um yes

[1:24:57] we have traditionally done the dissolution or the consolidation interim

[1:25:01] report in the range of uh 25 to 30 thousand dollars

[1:25:05] and thank you period that's so 15

[1:25:08] and added you know 15 for the voting okay so we're about 50 now right

[1:25:12] okay thank you gentlemen in the green shirt

[1:25:33] is it on okay i'm good uh my name is alfred grieve um president of holmes new

[1:25:38] york and i'm a petition gatherer with one pauling so

[1:25:44] i'm kind of a endangered endangered species around here i think but anyway

[1:25:50] a couple of points i'd like to make um first of all there was no malicious

[1:25:55] intent in the fact that we missed the november third deadline

[1:26:00] for the vote we were held up by covert 19.

[1:26:06] so we we regret that we're sorry about that

[1:26:09] but we did the best we could um

[1:26:15] another point uh i think important point is that uh pauling or i should say one

[1:26:21] polling is dedicated to the second referendum

[1:26:25] it was always our feeling that the the way the process is

[1:26:29] set up we we need a full discovery

[1:26:33] of our situation in the village in the town of pauling and uh that means

[1:26:39] having the first referendum with a affirmative vote

[1:26:43] followed by a period of discovery

[1:26:48] of our situation from all angles which i'm sure

[1:26:52] you'll do very well at

[1:26:55] uh and i'd like to make sure that you have that chance so that means a

[1:26:59] positive vote in the first referendum and one pauling

[1:27:04] will be out there with everyone who's interested and we will gather the 1500

[1:27:09] signatures to have the second referendum so we have

[1:27:12] a measured

[1:27:15] carefully conducted process to evaluate our

[1:27:19] situation here in pauling thank you and i thank you and i don't

[1:27:24] want to be the one saying that you maliciously or intently did that it was

[1:27:27] implied it was the issue of what people heard i

[1:27:32] mentioned earlier communication is not only what you say

[1:27:36] it's the filter that comes as you say it's what you hear in the filter as you

[1:27:39] hear so many of the people online and many people have spoken to the village

[1:27:43] residents and many born and many uh people who spoke to the town board have

[1:27:47] said that they thought there's going to be a second vote there's no guarantee

[1:27:51] now i'm very happy and thankful that you're interested in doing that second

[1:27:55] petition to give people the opportunity for that second bite but as the

[1:27:59] consultant who has done this before it is extremely difficult to get

[1:28:05] that second petition so

[1:28:08] as well could you explain that sure 25

[1:28:12] of them

[1:28:16] okay we gathered about 800 with for the first referendum and some

[1:28:21] of that was done with people thinking was a different petition don't worry

[1:28:24] it's not just you i've it's happened all over the state it's a common thread

[1:28:28] people read information they internalize it they speak it they say it people hear

[1:28:34] it differently they don't always read what they're signing it just happened to

[1:28:37] spencer at the same exact problem so it's not new it's not meant to be

[1:28:41] malicious but i'm encouraged that you want to have that but i cannot tell the

[1:28:44] public that there's going to be a guaranteed second vote okay here's a

[1:28:48] point on the second referendum and the gathering of petitions you will have

[1:28:52] people who are pro change and against change

[1:28:57] working to get signatures to have the second referendum so there's a there's a

[1:29:02] bigger impetus and on the second round thankful that

[1:29:05] you're strong in your conviction that there

[1:29:07] would be one i cannot guarantee it so i have to tell people the unbiased opinion

[1:29:12] of i cannot guarantee a second vote i'm glad you brought it up that you think

[1:29:16] there would be i have to con i have to say that there's no guarantee of it

[1:29:20] nothing's guaranteed but you know what that taxes you got it

[1:29:25] mr grief yes real quickly before you shut that microphone off um if if one

[1:29:30] pauling was was so was so ready to work on this issue and a

[1:29:34] study and you're going to support it why did no one from your organization

[1:29:38] reach out to myself this mayor anyone on my board or anyone on that board

[1:29:44] because you didn't and if you go back to the june meeting which was live on

[1:29:46] social media we had you know over a thousand followers as we always do i

[1:29:52] spoke in length about shared services the budget budget process starting and

[1:29:56] how important it was at this time for the town and village to be working

[1:29:58] together on shared service projects and no less than four or five days later

[1:30:03] your group popped up no one's ever heard of him one polling popped up and yes you

[1:30:07] collected 831 signatures so far i have not had one person reach

[1:30:12] out to my office or my board or this mayor and his board to say we're happy

[1:30:17] we signed a petition we have had hundreds of people call up saying how do

[1:30:20] we get off this petition we were misled at this petition so if you didn't miss

[1:30:25] lead people thank you i i'm happy to hear that but most of the people in your

[1:30:29] group misled people on every single door we have people with signed affidavits

[1:30:34] who said that you people continue to push them at their door to sign

[1:30:37] and and you misled them on what you were looking to do you even had folks

[1:30:41] carrying this petition who aren't registered voters in the town of polling

[1:30:45] how does that sit with everyone in this room someone knocked on your door and

[1:30:48] asked for a signature to consolidate your village and your town with no plan

[1:30:52] in place and they don't even cast a vote in the town of pauling how is that fair

[1:30:57] to the residents appalling that's not misleading that's the most misleading

[1:31:00] thing i've ever heard of mr schmidt you have to uh be more specific about who

[1:31:04] these uh transgressors were um the people i know who were involved are

[1:31:09] hardcore appalling residents who are interested in making our town and

[1:31:14] village better place to live uh we should all be uh reminded that the the

[1:31:19] uh this the whole northeast uh region is not being competitive with the sun belt

[1:31:25] uh we have to make our uh government systems here more efficient and this is

[1:31:30] the the the

[1:31:34] reason that new york state has

[1:31:38] enacted this law so we we have to strive to make ourselves

[1:31:44] uh again the best community we we can possibly be

[1:31:48] and that and i think involves examining our government structure here uh as to

[1:31:54] uh uh people gathering petitions

[1:31:56] unethically uh i have no knowledge of that i when i uh went to uh people's

[1:32:01] door um i i told them that uh this was the first

[1:32:06] step and that we would have the second petition and this is always the the

[1:32:09] thought process that uh motivated uh

[1:32:14] one polling uh the the fact that the there's there's this um

[1:32:19] possibility that uh the the first uh

[1:32:25] referendum leads to an automatic dissolution

[1:32:28] that's not the way we want this to go how come no one knocked on my door for a

[1:32:32] signature

[1:32:35] uh we went and got gathered signatures well first of all i i

[1:32:40] i'm a democrat so i had a list of democrats so i'm bringing some

[1:32:44] democratic doorbells well thank you there's a question or the gentleman

[1:32:48] oh

[1:32:54] and jess can you grab the microphone to give the gentleman the yankee shirt for

[1:32:57] after the mayor excuse me

[1:33:02] okay can everybody hear me

[1:33:09] gotta get it closer how's that better

[1:33:14] well kevin gardner called me i don't know when it was but it was

[1:33:18] not too long ago and i said to him

[1:33:23] that he was lying to the people and he said he wasn't lying to the

[1:33:28] people and i said well if you're not lying to

[1:33:31] the people why don't you come to the village board

[1:33:34] meeting and express your

[1:33:38] concerns and he said i'm not going to do that and

[1:33:41] i said well you should do that if you don't do that i think that you're

[1:33:46] you're lying to me and that's how i feel thank you

[1:33:53] uh good evening my name is gregory bernard i live in the village

[1:33:57] i'm not a former mayor but i was an elected official for 10 years

[1:34:01] i'd like to get back to the monetary you did say that you'd have to come up with

[1:34:04] a cost analysis of of what the consolidation would cost

[1:34:08] um number one if you reduce the taxes by roughly 500 000 which would be the 70 of

[1:34:14] the of the of the grant from the state if you don't get it the next year

[1:34:19] you have to raise taxes by that amount if it's not appropriated by the state

[1:34:22] legislature your taxes are going to be raised by the same amount

[1:34:25] number two with the state tax cap if you don't get it the second year

[1:34:30] you're what you can raise your taxes by on your tax cap is going to be so uh

[1:34:35] you're going to you're going to have to go above your tax cap and you're

[1:34:37] penalized for that so the the the proponent his whole basis is telling

[1:34:42] everybody that in perpetuity we're going to get to 700 000

[1:34:46] and it's going to be we're going to be able to reduce taxes by it

[1:34:50] also thirdly you mentioned your fees which aren't

[1:34:54] astronomical at the point but to go through a codification of the

[1:34:58] zoning code to bring all of the codes from the village and the town into the

[1:35:02] same same code and to adopt them to have all those laws drafted to go through the

[1:35:08] the uh legal to do the lawyer did bring up some of

[1:35:11] that the cost of doing all of that analysis you're not going to save money

[1:35:16] at least in the first year beyond that you know is a possibility if

[1:35:20] that if those funds do still get appropriated by the state

[1:35:24] legislature so it's a fallacy to say that right off the bat you're going to

[1:35:28] save money the rest of it you have to study and obviously there could be cost

[1:35:32] savings it could be cost savings more with with the highway departments

[1:35:35] possibly could be cost savings we're doing a

[1:35:37] garbage district in the village which would could possibly save town residents

[1:35:41] from having to pay a private contractor if you consolidated the whole thing and

[1:35:45] made the town one garbage uh contract bid bid out and

[1:35:51] the whole town and village would would uh use the same contractor you can save

[1:35:55] money that way so there's plenty of opportunities to look at how you can do

[1:35:58] those things and i just from my perspective i also would put a no on it

[1:36:03] so that we could have the time to look at those issues whether doing garbage

[1:36:07] for the whole town in village is a good idea consolidating the highway

[1:36:10] departments is a good idea any of those other things to have the time to look at

[1:36:14] that and and really do a study that gives you

[1:36:17] the numbers that it's you got to look at the numbers right that's what it's all

[1:36:20] about so that's my perspective thank you well thank you sir

[1:36:26] any other questions from this audience first gentlemen in the blue

[1:36:34] and for those of you that are worried about the microphone you'll notice that

[1:36:36] jess is wiping them down in between speakers so feel comfortable and

[1:36:40] confident hi my name is mike shustak i'm a member of the village um

[1:36:45] kind of have i would recommend everybody vote no also on this but also to the

[1:36:50] point that mike cerny made before it's really important to find out that if we

[1:36:54] do vote no we can still have the board agree on some sort of a

[1:36:58] consolidation um second part is what happens if

[1:37:04] the referendum occurs after 90 days or can the boards ask for because of

[1:37:10] covet ask for an extension of that 90 days

[1:37:15] there's no nothing in the law that allows for an

[1:37:18] appeal process for the date of the referendum uh it's clear in a law no

[1:37:23] less than 16 no more than 90. the villager spencer had a reprieve because

[1:37:27] the governor canceled all village elections from march until september

[1:37:32] 15th as far as the planning process should

[1:37:36] you vote to consolidate and you have that 180 days

[1:37:40] it has not yet been challenged in court but it's been told to us anecdotally

[1:37:44] that you know if you hit the 180 but you're making progress a judge may give

[1:37:49] you a little more time but if you're not doing anything

[1:37:52] you have that 180 days you have to have to meet with um this is unchartered

[1:37:56] territory i would leave that to council to decide

[1:38:00] if they're going if there's a way to appeal to somebody in a court to extend

[1:38:05] the reality is we're now allowed to have elections

[1:38:09] there's not a coveted answer as to why you can't have an election

[1:38:13] we now have absentee ballots that in the absentee ballot it says i'm away from

[1:38:17] home away from the county i'm working outside i am sick

[1:38:21] or it's a pandemic safety measure and this is an actual

[1:38:25] word for that i read the other day but basically check the box that due to the

[1:38:28] pandemic you were requesting an absentee ballot so there's no legal reason why

[1:38:34] you have to delay the vote passed in 90 days

[1:38:37] you are locked in by law article 17a to 60 to 90 days

[1:38:43] if you vote it down does not preclude the town and village

[1:38:47] to continue to talk about sharing services should there be a consolidated

[1:38:51] funding application next july you can apply for a grant to do a study

[1:38:55] on shared services it's a 50-50 uh grant between the state and you

[1:39:01] it doesn't stop you every day from working together and i said it earlier

[1:39:05] every day these folks are working together to figure out the best way to

[1:39:09] provide services to each of the villains in the town that's not going to stop

[1:39:14] because there's a vote they're going to continue to dedicate their their free

[1:39:17] time and their working time to the betterment of the residents they're

[1:39:20] going to continue looking out for you and the services that you provide and

[1:39:24] they'll continue before and after the referendum doing that

[1:39:28] any additional questions in the audience before i turn it over to facebook

[1:39:32] ma'am

[1:39:38] hi i'm marilyn joyce cerny i'm a village resident thank you for your presentation

[1:39:43] um i'm just wondering in your experience how many governments have skipped the

[1:39:51] interim study

[1:39:53] uh report and just gone right to referendum

[1:39:59] none of the client none of the people i worked with skipped the interim report

[1:40:02] there was a village in

[1:40:04] [Music] sullivan county or delaware county

[1:40:07] fallsburg oh no sorry fleischmann's they did not

[1:40:12] do a new study they had a study from four or six years ago so they just

[1:40:16] refreshed the numbers but they still provided information you know as i said

[1:40:21] before i've been working with governments for 25 years

[1:40:24] i believe personally that each member here wants

[1:40:27] to work with the public to give them as much information as possible um i have

[1:40:32] not yet had a village or a town say nope we're only doing the three things that's

[1:40:36] it there may have been them there may be

[1:40:39] communities i told you there's been 50 or 60 votes

[1:40:42] i'm not personally aware of them there are other firms that provide this

[1:40:46] service with the two leading ones you know is uh

[1:40:50] center for governmental research out of rochester and us out of albany there are

[1:40:54] a few others around the state but the lion's share are the two of us so there

[1:40:58] may be some that they know of i don't know of anybody that said no

[1:41:02] thank you very much

[1:41:14] yes uh i'd like to give the board the opportunity to speak if there's any

[1:41:17] questions or comments or the village trustees want to share and then we'll go

[1:41:21] to the town trustees the town board members

[1:41:28] well i don't need to but um

[1:41:32] i liked what mike cyrus said uh and also david uh sort of reiterated that

[1:41:38] um we are currently already providing all

[1:41:42] of these services that would then have to be re-evaluated

[1:41:46] and new districts set up if we do

[1:41:49] consolidate um in my own opinion i just think it's an

[1:41:53] awful waste of time money and energy

[1:42:06] ben i have a question for you have you done any actually where new villages

[1:42:11] have been formed in recent times

[1:42:14] i have not created a new village but i think in new york state there have been

[1:42:18] some there have been recreated there have been two new villages created in

[1:42:22] the outskirts of the village of curious joel in orange county uh village of

[1:42:26] south blooming grove and

[1:42:30] somewhere around woodbury uh they created new villages six years ago the

[1:42:34] mastic beach eight years ago now they created a village and then dissolved

[1:42:39] all right thank you

[1:42:49] i just wanted to make sure that everyone um

[1:42:52] votes understanding the facts of all of this

[1:42:56] and i know that there's the perception that this is

[1:42:59] going to be a savings and from what i'm understanding i'm not seeing that

[1:43:03] savings i'm just seeing a lot of cost to our residents at a time when this is

[1:43:10] a very difficult time for everybody financially so i'm

[1:43:14] just sorry that it has come to this at this time

[1:43:20] i'm just wondering uh maybe with kevin and his group are so concerned about the

[1:43:26] taxpayers and their money maybe they're going to step up and in front this money

[1:43:30] that it's going to cost to run this election

[1:43:33] just a thought thank you uh

[1:43:37] mayor you have any more comments or turn over the town

[1:43:40] mr supervisor town board

[1:43:45] there you go yeah no this is a shame this has all

[1:43:49] come to to this point and and so fast with this

[1:43:53] information but i i believe that the town board

[1:43:57] and the village board is committed to give

[1:44:01] the best information we can out to the public

[1:44:04] before they have this vote because uh that's the best thing we

[1:44:08] could do is get the honors information and thank

[1:44:12] you very much for you for your presentation there's a

[1:44:16] lot of very good information for people to digest

[1:44:25] i just wanted to echo a little bit of you know even what

[1:44:29] the supervisor had said that you know in one of our

[1:44:33] last i think maybe two town board meetings

[1:44:36] ago you know we were our town board was

[1:44:39] talking about the shared services we were talking about ideas of trying to

[1:44:43] have meetings together with the town board we you know i've been reaching out

[1:44:47] to laurie taylor like we were just trying to start initiating those

[1:44:51] discussions and then i think again what seems to be the most upsetting and

[1:44:55] i've heard from a lot of community members is is the tactics

[1:45:00] i i think again you know i don't want to just go over everything all over again

[1:45:04] but i think had had some members come to the boards and said listen we found out

[1:45:08] about this you know study we found out about this empowerment act

[1:45:13] would you guys be willing to even meet with us i mean i i don't want to speak

[1:45:17] for everybody but i would like to say that i think we would have met with the

[1:45:20] group and said you know what let's meet and let's let's learn a little bit more

[1:45:23] about it and then again as ben has said as a supervisor and the mayor have said

[1:45:28] it would have been board initiated and again i'm going to say that again

[1:45:32] because board initiated if it had gone that way and it wasn't this rushed

[1:45:38] you know vote

[1:45:40] we could have been doing it the right way in my own opinion i'm just speaking

[1:45:44] for myself that we would have had the study there would have been an

[1:45:47] explanation and it would have been clear to everybody and we're not voting kind

[1:45:51] of in the dark so i just wanted to say that again i i'm sorry it didn't happen

[1:45:56] that way i do want to acknowledge alfred i appreciate you putting the name you

[1:46:01] know your name out there i think that was very brave so i do want to say that

[1:46:05] because again i think what we've seen is there's

[1:46:08] a lot of different names um going around on social media but you're here so i i

[1:46:12] did want to at least acknowledge that but but because you know i do want to be

[1:46:16] clear that um i don't believe you yourself

[1:46:22] were malicious but i think i need to set the record straight that i was told by

[1:46:26] the um democratic um commissioner at the board

[1:46:30] of elections that the petitioners were told before this was even started that

[1:46:35] it would never make the november third election so i think that's really really

[1:46:39] important for everybody to know that this this was not going to happen before

[1:46:44] it even started and i think what we're looking for here tonight is facts

[1:46:49] so so that is a fact and i think that again

[1:46:54] i feel like others have said i think we're just we're we're wasting time

[1:46:58] we're wasting money we're wasting energy um i think the work between all of these

[1:47:02] boards behind the scenes for these past two weeks um has been extensive and it's

[1:47:07] our job but our job right now for the town anyway is to work on our budget

[1:47:12] something that's going to affect everybody here we talked about a

[1:47:15] community garden that the community members are really excited with you know

[1:47:19] it's so unfair that we have to put these things on hold right now

[1:47:23] you know so again i'm really hoping that

[1:47:27] we can continue to stay together and work together i think what's happened is

[1:47:32] it's been very divisive i think sometimes it's been very nasty

[1:47:36] some of the comments that have been said to

[1:47:38] town board members village board members people in the community and my hope is

[1:47:42] that we can just stay strong and just really work together um and those are my

[1:47:47] comments thank you jim

[1:47:51] well first ben thank you very much the second being a new board member i'm

[1:47:55] basically an infant and looking around this room

[1:47:58] but my family has lived here for 50 years

[1:48:02] and i believe everybody in this room whether you're pro or against

[1:48:06] uh people that are listening will make their own decisions and i do

[1:48:10] believe residents appalling will make the right decision there's a lot of

[1:48:14] unanswered questions we don't know what this is going to cost us at the end of

[1:48:17] the day james and i are new

[1:48:20] we talk most two or three times a day i've worked with the highway

[1:48:24] superintendent who's worked with the village superintendent for the

[1:48:27] superintendent with the highway so we do do shared service on a regular

[1:48:31] basis um

[1:48:34] i just want everybody to to remember the old days in pauling before people hid

[1:48:38] behind facebook before people hood behind

[1:48:41] emails and that's what made this town great and i can look around this room

[1:48:46] and many of them are here so just remember that and remember one

[1:48:50] thing we all do live in pauling and i believe polly will make the right

[1:48:55] decision and thank you again ben well thank you

[1:48:58] before i turn over to jess to ask any questions on facebook i need to give a

[1:49:01] shout out to our stenographer writing all these notes from the greatest speech

[1:49:06] that i give that's kudos to you

[1:49:12] and just any questions on there there no there is not oh okay

[1:49:17] i'll turn it back over to supervisory mayor

[1:49:23] so i just want to thank everybody for coming out tonight and uh taking part in

[1:49:26] this meeting and taking the time to sign up for it to being here

[1:49:30] um you know our buildings and ground crew worked hard just setting his room

[1:49:33] up to make sure we were all properly socially distancing and we can get as

[1:49:36] many residents here in person as possible uh jessica in our office and

[1:49:40] and our and kathy jo dynamo our clerk worked really hard to get this meeting

[1:49:43] set up uh so thank you for that ben i know it's not an easy commute if

[1:49:47] you're getting down here or easy

[1:49:51] well hopefully there's no rain going back

[1:49:55] i was on vacation last week and there's rain every single day by saturday

[1:50:00] our mayor rob blifflin and the village trustees thank you so much for being

[1:50:03] here it's it's great doing these meetings

[1:50:06] together and like councilwoman snow said you know we've been talking about this

[1:50:09] just recently meetings and we were hoping to transition more into town

[1:50:13] meetings where there was village trustees presence and and village

[1:50:17] meetings where there was town board people's presence so that we were able

[1:50:19] to work more fluidly and work towards these things and we could constantly be

[1:50:22] there to speak with dave daniels and you folks could be there to speak with nancy

[1:50:26] and uh that's all for the for the the greater good of the community and that's

[1:50:30] what these two boards have been doing for a long time it's a shame we are

[1:50:33] wasting time on this but here we are so we're gonna we're gonna power through it

[1:50:36] um i think there's a lot of great information out there today from this

[1:50:39] presentation it's available on the social media on our town appalling

[1:50:43] facebook page so please show it to your friends and tell them to listen and if

[1:50:47] you have any questions they can reach out to our board myself the mayor that

[1:50:50] board as well if we have any questions that we can't answer we'll get them to

[1:50:53] ben right away he'll answer them and uh you know i'm not gonna i'm not gonna ask

[1:50:57] you how to vote or ask to tell you how to vote but

[1:51:00] i believe uh in equine with council mccarthy said i believe poland will make

[1:51:04] the right decision and um you know study's a great idea and working

[1:51:09] together to be better every single day is a great idea

[1:51:12] but misleading people door-to-door and and getting names on a petition is

[1:51:16] is not a great idea so i believe we'll come through this and

[1:51:21] i think paul will be a lot better moving forward because of this so thank you

[1:51:24] everyone for being here uh give it to the mayor quickly if he has a few words

[1:51:28] to say in closing and uh that's it for me thank you folks

[1:51:33] [Applause] again i

[1:51:40] thank everybody for coming out tonight it's a shame that we have to do it this

[1:51:45] way and um

[1:51:48] it's just wrong again just thank you everyone

[1:51:54] [Applause] thank you and mayor supervisor we're

[1:52:00] going to email jess the powerpoint presentation if you can

[1:52:04] share it with the village uh you can get them both on your

[1:52:07] websites uh if there's a village uh contact you want me to email too if not

[1:52:11] just give it the gesture to share with you guys and you can both put it on your

[1:52:14] website that way anyone that couldn't be here or couldn't see it because of the

[1:52:17] distance on facebook live we'll have an opportunity

[1:52:20] to read it

[1:52:24] thank you all

[1:52:30] you

Town and Village of Pawling Proposed Consolidation Joint Meeting

Transcript