[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