Board of Trustees Work Session
Work session for the Croton on Hudson Board of Trustees. Our first item of business will be well, we'll actually be considering authorizing the manager to award an RFP number two of 2026 to towing services to CNC Towing, doing business as Lubacello Auto Body of Cordon Hunt in New York for the period of 06/01/2026 through 05/31/2027. Do I have a motion?
Do I have a second? A motion by trustee Simon, second by trustee Nachtaler, manager for the folks that might notice that this resemble seems familiar.
Yes. Thank thank you, mayor. So I'll just read the resolution first. Sure. Yep. So whereas the village of Corton And Hudson has contracted with area tow companies to provide roadside and vehicle towing services on an as needed basis, whereas on 04/07/2026, the village of Corton And Hudson issued a request for proposals for these towing and roadside services. And whereas on 05/07/2026, four responses were received and opened. And whereas chief of police, John Nikitopoulos, has recommended awarding the contract to CNC Towing Inc doing business as Lubasello Auto Body of court in the Hudson, New York. Now therefore be it resolved that the board of trustees hereby authorizes the village manager to award the contract for roadside and vehicle towing services to CNC Towing Inc. Doing business as Lubasello Auto Body of Courtland and Hudson, New York beginning 06/01/2026 through 05/31/2027 and be it further resolved that resolution number one forty eight of 2026
is hereby rescinded. So, as the mayor was referencing, we did pass a resolution for this last Wednesday as we were getting prepared to sign the contract, came to our attention that, Lubacella Auto Body is actually their, DBA and that their official name is CNC Towing Inc. And so, since that's how the contract was going to be written, we just thought that it was cleaner to ensure that the resolution referenced the, the official name. We're good. So Thank you. Yep. Thank you.
Alright. Our next item in business is a review of a potential RFP for battery energy storage systems at or a battery energy storage system at the village on properties with, Lindsay Auden, chair of sustainability committee. Lindsay, would you like to begin?
Okay. You can hear me now. Right? Yep. Yep. Very good. Just checking. Okay. You never know. I'm here tonight to talk to you about a revenue opportunity for the village, which might also help support future sustainability efforts, and that is the use of some small parts of Croton Village property for a battery battery energy storage system. And I thank you very much for having the opportunity to tell you about this. For those who don't know me, I am the chair of your sustainability committee. Here's what we got. I want you to start thinking about battery energy storage systems or BESS for short, much easier word, as an opportunity and no longer as any kind of a risk. Here's what's been happening. Several local governments, several communities have been securing financial benefits from a BES of one form or another. And due to recent changes in federal incentives, there is now what we call a battery gold rush going on that has the developers of these systems seeking potential sites in our region.
Right now, there are, see if I got the number here. 50 different companies doing best development in the continent territory, 20 of which have shown interest in Westchester County.
Lindsay, can I just inter interrupt youfor one second? I'm sorry. Are are you sharing your screen? Because we don't see the presentation. You're not seeing things change? No. We just we just have you there's no slides on the screen.
I don't quite understand why that's not showing up. So I all you're just seeing is my face? Yes. Right. Uh-huh. Okay.
Yeah. What is that that what does that say that's coming up? Oh, is this identifying it as a village? Yeah. That we're talking. Right? The sound is coming from us.
Hold on. Let me see if there's anything else to do here. Let me try hold on a second. I think I know the problem. Let's press this button. How about that?
Okay. I pushed didn't push the button hard enough. Okay. Here we go. Once again, hello. I'm Lindsay, and I'm gonna talk to you about money. Okay. Thank you, Lindsay. Alright. Sorry about that. I thought I'd push that button. Okay. Local governments have been looking at a variety of different opportunities to do with battery energy storage systems. There are various changes have occurred in federal incentives, creating what we call a battery gold rush. This is where we have many different developers of the so called looking for potential sites in our region. As I mentioned, about 50 different firms have developed or are developing projects in the Con Edison territory, 20 of which are in Westchester County. And it's something where it's essentially a first come, first served opportunity, and that's why I want to look into it. And that's what the whole point of this is. I want some a little bit of money to find out if there are any such sites in West in our area of Westchester County, in Crotonville Croton area.
A variety of property owners are now sharing in the opportunity by utilizing what we call available sites and local power lines for commercial scale BES. Commercial scale, I'll describe in a few minutes. But suffice to say, there are facilities very nearby. There is a best in nearby Ossining at the Saint Augustine church, another one in Yorktown at a the the back lot of a automotive repair shop in Yorktown, and there are numerous others that have been developed or are being developed. In essence, what I want you to do is to start thinking about batteries as an opportunity, an avenue to revenue, a way to get to where there is financial benefit to the village. Now little bit of background. These battery energy storage systems come in several sizes. Residential, the small ones. Some people in Croton already have them in their homes. They just mount on a wall. They have batteries in them that are roughly the size of battery in a an electric vehicle, sometimes even smaller.
A number of buildings, some of them in White Plains, have what are called building scale systems that also feed into the building itself. Then there's the community scale, which is what the system is that we have down at the train station. Those are between one and five megawatts. A megawatt is a thousand kilowatts. The average home pulls about five kilowatts. And through these community scale systems, you can do a variety of things. So we are using the system down to train station to store power from or take power, store it from the photovoltaic systems, and then send it into the grid for which we get paid a nice chunk of rent, almost half $1,000,000 a year. There are the very large power plant scale or bulk systems. Those we're not gonna talk about. There's no place around here where that would fit anyway. They are systems that would connect to the transmission grid, the big over overhead towers you see.
Now all of these different systems help reduce grid stress. That means they help keep the lights on. They help contain the electric price of price of electricity. They also cut greenhouse gas emissions and a variety of other good things, including the assistance of renewable energy. The more battery storage you've got, the more capable your photovoltaic systems are on the grid. In California, they have so much and in Texas, they have so many batteries that they now use them to to fill up on excess solar power during the daytime and then use them even at night because then that power can be used when it's available even when the sun doesn't shine. So this business growth of BEST is something that's becoming a very large opportunity. Our May our governor, governor Hochle, is pushing to put in 5,000 megawatts of these systems. I'm gonna talk to you about a five megawatt system. But the idea is that the state looks these as an opportunity, and they are trying to get them cited wherever it can be done safely and acceptably to the local population.
We have, as I say, at the train station, a community scale system. It is about three and a half megawatts. Here we go. I'm gonna take some pictures for you here. That's what the system looks like from the air. It's about a 100 tons of what are called lithium iron phosphates or LFP batteries in four fifty foot long white steel cabinets. These are heavier and larger than the old lithium ion, nickel, manganese, cobalt systems that were in old batteries and which are in many, many cars because they are lighter. The old ones are lighter and smaller. But if you're gonna do a stationary installation like on the ground where it doesn't have to move, the LFPs are much better and have a much better safety fire fire safety record. Each of the cabinet holds hundreds of batteries, each of which is enclosed in a plastic housing. Together, those four large cabinets hold enough power to run about 700 average homes for twenty four hours.
Our system, as I said, is charged by the 4.2 megawatts of solar panels on top of the canopies. Now due to various changes in the incentives for BESS systems, the now the new norm is what we call stand alone installations. That is no solar power. So there's no requirement to have solar power with your battery. That used to be the rule back in 2020 when we were first developing the train station canopy system. Now we have one already. So why host another? Well, this may be a little jockey way, but I want you to start thinking about the BEST as a big ATM that dispenses wealth. It's a machine. It produces wealth. Here's how it does it. This is gonna be a little tutorial very briefly on how the things are done at the wholesale level for electricity. A BES arbitrages the value of electricity by charging up when wholesale power pricing is low and discharging when it spikes. This earns a bundle off the spread between those two prices.
At wholesale, there is a marketplace in which the price of power is reset every five minutes. And then the hundreds of different power supplies, power generators, whatever in the state, bid in every five minutes and say, next five minutes, I'll I'll charge only 7¢ a kilowatt hour. Nothing that comes along and says, I'll charge 6. Well, then his electricity, the 6¢ guy, will get bought and not the 7¢ guy. But the difference between the low power and the high power can sometimes be on the range of 50¢ to a dollar, not for a long period of time, but long enough to make sense to store it and then discharge it later on. The idea is you store it when it's cheap. You send it back when it's more expensive. Buy low, sell high, just like a stock market. These systems also get money from grid ancillary services. I'll tell you about that in a minute. And a whole raft of government incentives, both federal and state.
An ancillary service basically is something at the grid wherein a generator or a PV system or a battery will be able to supply something other than just power, such as a guarantee that they can turn on their power very quickly. That's called spinning reserve. If there's a blackout, an outage, they can also do what's called black start. They can supply power without having to be connected to the grid to to receive it. They can supply power to the grid and help start up other generating stations. Most power plants require some power to keep running. And if there is black start, that means it's an entity that has fuel or energy on-site that they can run and put into the grid even when the rest of the grid goes down. These systems, best systems, get paid these for these services to guarantee the frequency, to turn on very quickly, to turn on when in an outage. And they get paid that whether or not they ever get called to do it.
So what might this be worth to quote if we had another one of these on some group village land where we could rent out the land to put in a. Well, I'm professionally involved in some of these things. I I'm developing a system in The Bronx and and other elsewhere, and I've always been amazed at the numbers. Right now, to rent a site, a developer will pay you 30,000 to $40,000 per year per megawatt he installs. These are for small plots like a third to a quarter of an acre. The system down at the train station is about a third of an acre. So what would this mean to us? A five megawatt system on village property could boost village annual revenue by a 150,000 to $200,000 per year for basically citing some of these big white cabinets. That does not include the $50,000 just for the building permit if one of these was to be installed on village land. So this is serious money to consider. Part of my angle on this is that if you are able to if we're able to find a place to put one of these and you say, okay to do it, I would like some of that money to be negotiated in the future to go into the sustainability fund so that it can help fund other sustainability efforts that the village can pursue.
I point that out because it looks like the world of cheap grants that we were getting from the state is going away for a while, and we're gonna need if we're gonna continue to develop different sustainability options, we're gonna need other sources of revenue. And this is one of the ways to do it. It presently is being done right now through the rooftop solar system at the DPW. Some of that rent, because we rent out the rooftop, goes into the sustainability fund and helps create other projects we can do to further cut greenhouse gases and do a good thing for the the village. Now these installations are now being standardized for the number of years that where there were problems with fires in certain places. They were one off systems that were not designed well. As of the first of this year, New York State has a fire code adopting the National Fire Protection Association standard eight fifty five, which specifies
for best installations, very specific and rigorous designs and installations. Product specifications are now standard in the industry and are adhering to both UL, that's underwriter laboratory, and to NYSERDA standards. So you got a bunch of regulations. The the village also, I'm sure Brian can tell you this, also has its own battery law and has it for several years. This is what a battery specification would look like, and this is just one example. Tesla makes these things. Veridity makes them. There's a variety of them. But what you see here in under the specification is that the systems would be lithium ion phosphate batteries. They would be shorter, only about 29 feet long. They'd be taller, almost 10 feet long, and have a very high efficiency. Now there's a system very much like the one I'm thinking for Croton in Yorktown. If you look in the upper right hand corner where it says Yorktown five megawatt best,
that's where a system was installed basically in the rear parking lot of an automotive repair shop in the woods in in Yorktown. The upshot of this whole thing is that, in essence, following these standards, these specifications, these rules is the way to enforce fire safety. So we're no longer talking about something that's gonna catch fire and and be a hazard or whatever. Agreed that nothing is fireproof. If you take any battery, even the one in your cell phone, and put a torch to it, it will burn. So these are not fireproof systems, but they're highly fire resistant and very tightly controlled by all these new regulations. Now here's the opportunities in. I know that the village owns various plots of land that could be reviewed as potential best sites. I looked at one. You've got a big chunk of land at Pump House Road that may or may not make sense, but the idea is it's available. Nothing else is being built on it.
Each of these sites to be of any use must be near a power line with what we call hosting capacity. This is the ability to supply power to and accept power from a BES. Here's a map of power lines in Croton. That big squiggly orange line is Route 9, and the various different colors indicate various amounts of capacity that a line has to accept or give back power. The line down at the train station that's inside the little red oval, that almost vertical blue line that runs along Veterans Plaza, we've already consumed all that hosting capacity. Can't put anything else there. But there are a number of other places where the lines are fairly dark, where we have village land, which might possibly hook up to nearby hosting capacity. The reason this is important is that once you hook up to a a power line and absorb its hosting capacity, nobody else gets to do it on that power line. This is basically a first come, first served situation.
So if there are available lines like this near village property, we want to lock them up and get that revenue for the village. Now the best developers are very interested in a lot of these sites. Through a competitive bid, what we want to do is find a winner who's gonna be the one that offers the highest rent to us to use the best site. That's exactly what we did in 2020, 2021 with the train station. With that system down to train station, we sent out a request for interest to a 168 developers, and we got back 21 responses that said, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Send me the RFP, of which we got seven proposals. Company that built it, Sol Systems, was the best of the seven. That's what I want to do now to see if we have that opportunity for battery energy storage systems also near both hosting capacity and on village property. So here's what Lindsay wants from you now. To pursue these competitive opportunities requires a lot of work. I learned that from the train station job. That ends up being way more work than I could do for nothing. Way more.
We have to create a list of acceptable sites, qualify the developers, distribute an RFI and RFP, then analyze and compare and summarize their bids, propose a winner, bring it all back to you guys and say, hey. We got an idea. It's worth x dollars. Do you wanna do it or not? I want some help. I'm asking the village to pay a local consultant $2,000 to help me do it. In 2024, that consultant did a very good job managing the renewal of our silver climate smart community certification, which has helped us get grants and also greatly enhanced the position of the village in the state as being a clean energy and a highly sustainability community. I put together a detailed scope of work. I ran it past the village manager, and he has agreed that we could work with that scope of work with a consultant. So I believe that if we went ahead and put out the RFI, request for interest, and RFP, we could, by the end of summer or early fall, complete this work and find out, are any developers interested? Are any sites viable?
Are we anywhere near the right power line? Doing so would expedite finding an acceptable site and reserving the required hosting capacity before it's gone. I will tell you that there are a lot of private sites that have looked at this. I mentioned, you know, Saint Augustine's Church in Ossining. They've got one of these systems in their back lot. So there are many, many private companies and entities that are looking to do exactly this, get revenue for whatever good things they're doing, like the church or whatever, and also support what the state wants, which is more battery energy storage systems that can work with sustainability opportunities. So that's my pitch. I like $2,000 to to help me with a a a consultant so that she can help me finish all this and bring to you an opportunity by end of summer or beginning of fall. That's my story. Thank you very much for your time and attention.
Thank you. Lindsay, I think it would just be helpful for you and the manager again to kind of address you know, you've covered a lot of information here. It's all very useful. But the question and the request that's act actually being made of the board and where we are procedurally here. So can you I know it's for an RFP, but what would they actually be doing in this RFP? Is it solely just to identify a possible installer?
It's a combination of things. The first thing is to find out if we have anybody who's interested. If it turns out that we put out an RFI and nobody answers, that's pretty much the end of the process. But if we get expressions of interest, you know, and we provide them with a in that RFP, a list of sites, and they look at those sites and say, well, they got six sites. That one over there, that's okay. I'll propose to you putting in, because there's hosting capacity nearby, a best system of between two and five megawatts, and I will pay you for rent over a twenty five year period. I will propose to pay you a $100,000, 20,000, whatever it is. And that way from that point, we can come up with a winning bidder on a winning site, come back to you and say, we got a guy who wants to install one of these somewhere on such and such a site. Can we go ahead and do this and thereby create a contract with them just as we did down at the train station? It's a development of an opportunity to bring back to you.
Okay. So it is bringing back an opportunity. It's not making any commitments beyond that. Is that correct?
And, I know that, you know, you again, you provided a lot of information. But first and foremost, right, it's the sustainability committee. So could you provide a very concise summary of the kind of the environmental benefits of battery energy storage?
Well, the first thing is that they stabilize the grid. We have problems right now, especially in the downstate area where we are, where the electric system is very stressed. As we add more load to it, electric vehicles, heat pumps, you know, charging stations, new buildings, whatever, the grid gets more stressed. Right off the bat, that can reduce the chances of I'm sorry. That can increase the chances for either a brownout, a blackout, or or much, much higher transmission distribution costs. Remember, if you look at your electric bill, there's a delivery charge and a supply charge. The delivery charge, which is your transmission and distribution, that's two thirds of your bill. Any new transmission or distribution that has to be built or reinforced to handle the new load, it's gonna cost a lot of money. The batteries can avoid or minimize the needed to do that. That's step one. Step two is that by buying Bless you. The power
I'm sorry. Buying the power off peak and then using it on peak, you cut the emissions by about 25% because the power plants that run at night or when there's low load are much more efficient and much cleaner than the ones that run at peak load, which are much less efficient. So right off the bat, just by storing the power at night, giving it back during the day, and in Croton, that would be between four and 8PM, you cut the emissions from that power by about 25%. You also then are able to better support renewable energy on the system. What's happened in California is that they have so much power from photovoltaic systems that they now grab that excess power, and there's an excess amount of solar in in both California and Texas, and are able to then make that electricity, which would normally be intermittent because a delinquent is there when the sun is, what we call dispatchable, meaning that it can be used whenever you want, not just when it's available.
And as I say, the other thing is any revenue we can get that the sustainability community can use will bring us more, opportunities for solar, more opportunities for EVs, chargers, and other good things that will, form put forth the sustainability goals that, the village has, fostered in the past.
Okay. Thank you, Lindsay. Yeah. And, Lindsay, just wanted to thank you for, the excellent PowerPoint and for all the work that you've been doing on this concept, up to this point. I also wanted to point out that it seems like quite a while ago, but I guess it was 2022, we were one of the first, cities in the region to adopt, safety standards and an approval process, for battery energy storage systems. And I think it's we've only had to use it once, and that was with the Croton Croton Auto Park, B E S S. But should this get beyond the RFP process and we actually have a proposal, presumably, it would go to our planning board, you know, for for consideration and for ensure that it was in sync with the standards that we adopted back in 2022. Did we lose him? No. I think he's still with us. Oh, okay. Yep. I'm still here. Yeah. Yeah. He he nodded in agreement, I saw. Good.
I really appreciate your thought leadership on on this subject matter. It's new to me, and so I've had to do a lot of research around it, you know, to to learn more. But I know we're getting this your your expertise is, you have tremendous credentials. So and I applaud your commitment to cutting pollution and greenhouse effects and and all you do. So, you know, but because I'm a newbie and this again, this is something that the board collectively hasn't been discussing. I have, you know, questions. Some of them you can answer, some maybe not. But but I'll start with let me start with the first one, which is we already have a Bess, right, at the train station. Yep. And my understanding is that that is not currently operational. It's Well, we actually have oh, go ahead.
Right. In the process of being brought online. Yes. It's in the process of being brought online. Yep.
It it's not it's not storing power at the moment because the canopy the the canopies have not been turned on. Right? So then the power is not flowing it. Yeah. Okay. So that that was my understanding. So
I feel like we still have a lot to learn from that experience because it hasn't been online yet. So I'm just curious, you know, why, Lindsay, do you feel like we need to I don't wanna use the word rush, but, you know, what why do we need to move on this now as opposed to waiting for the best at the train station to turn on and just let the community experience what that is like, how it's going, you know, get learnings from that kind of as as opposed to keep scaling it up, you know, before we have the learnings in from from the big, you know, unit at the train station.
Just to clarify, the system has been tested and retested and retested. And we have you had NYSERDA testing it. You had the battery company testing it. So the the power has actually been put into the batteries to test them. So from that point, they it's been, you know, running. But what I'm suggesting here is something that's probably gonna take us three or four months just to get to the point of whether or not there are any other sites. So I expect that by fall, the system will at the train station, will have been running for at least several months. And, again, not making any commitment here. All I'm trying to find out is whether or not there's another possible site. If it turns out there aren't, we're done. That's it. We walk away. But we'll at least be in a position by fall to know whether or not there are any other opportunities. And during the time between now and then, I expect the system at the train station to be up and running because it is summer.
And the way they make the most money is to run these systems during the summer because that's when the wholesale prices go way, way up. So they got a strong incentive to get this done.
And I'll just But the basic add add to or I should say clarify. We do have a second one at the Corona Auto Park, which is it's smaller. It's
No. Correct. That's that's a private one that they put in. It's smaller than the one we have at the train station, but it is larger than the one megawatt. So it falls into the into the
the category that we're talking about here. Okay. So are there are there examples of other municipalities municipalities that have done this? Because if I just do a very cursory Google of this, there's a lot of coverage of municipalities that have are not doing this. Moratoriums. Right. Exactly. Yeah. So I guess I wanna understand that's one question I have. I would, and I think the ex all the examples you gave were of, like, private locations. Also, I guess, this is complicated. Right? Or I think it's complicated. So and I and I appreciate you making it as simple as you did, but I feel like there's a tremendous amount of information that we need to be able to make into even more digestible pieces for residents so that they understand the opportunity. Because my immediate reaction to this from just doing what I assume somebody's gonna do is Google, you know, best store you know, best in New York.
It's gonna send a million red flags for people. So I wanna think about how we're presenting this. I understand that we're just at the beginning of this, but when I look at that presentation, and I I know it's because, Lindsay is brilliant, but that presentation looks really well baked. And I feel like I wanna I wanna feel like we're going through this process, authentically to research how much sense this makes and not like, look at that I I feel like this is a foregone conclusion almost. I feel like we mentioned one site. I think there are other sites in mind. I just wanna like, I would like to be able to pump the brakes on this in a way. $2,000 is obviously not a lot to spend to do some more research, but what are we doing what are we doing how what are we gonna do with that research? How are we gonna roll this out to the public? How are we not saying to them, you know, we're engaging with the the
you know, all of these experts in this area. Already have one. We're just gonna roll it out. So I guess my questions are more process related. This feels like I I think I described it to the manager as the horse is out of the barn. And now he dis disagreed with my interpretation. I said the horse wasn't even near the door of the barn. But that doesn't change the fact that when I looked at this, that was my that was how I felt. So if that is not the case, I want to be mindful of letting the public know that there are you know, that what the process is like. You know, obviously, if you're a brilliant scientist in this area, that's probably a way too simple presentation, but I am not a brilliant scientist. So how do we how do we slow this down? Or is the answer to that we get this consultant to come in and and explain these things to Well,
I I don't think it's a question of slowing it down, but having an accurate conception of the speed that's involved here. Right? That yeah. Right. Which I Again, Lindsay's talked about three to four months in the RFP process, but manager and or the attorney, could you address this from the land use perspective, which would be kind of concurrent slash parallel let's say overlapping, but not fully parallel.
I mean, I I can just I can just say that it's, you know, the, battery energy storage systems of this size under our code are a special permit use. So it'd have to go through that whole process. And they're only Which skips the plan which skips the board of trustees.
That goes right to the planning board. It's not that it skips the board of trustees. That's how the law has been set up is that the Well, I'm just saying it Well, we we would be well, no. I mean, we would be involved as a contracting party. Right? Yeah. You would have to approve the contract. Right. In other words permitting perspective, yes, it would be the planning board. And you would determine that that municipal property
is appropriate to move forward once Yeah. Lindsay gets the information from any interested parties. Since it's municipal property, that's the public trust doctrine. So you're involved at the very start to make sure that's So before yeah. I think that we should have the discussion around
We don't we don't we don't know that at this point. Yeah. Well, we know what we own. Oh, yes. We we own we own 72 parcels. So So we own 72 parcels.
And and then Why would we want They wouldn't be allowed if I if I had been okay. I was going to say Sorry. Go ahead. Yeah. I was going to say that these are only allowed on certain, in certain zoning districts as it's set up. They're only allowed in the RA 40, the RA 60, the c two, and the LI. So we'd have to look within those parameters. Right? And then, you know, we Lindsay, through his the consultant, would be able to identify which of those parcels could potentially be near the power lines, and then we'd have to go through the process that the attorney mentioned is seeing is this a parcel we need for public use, or is it something that we can say is no longer needed? Right? Like, the example that was shown on the screen, which was solely for, you know, illustration, that's the wellfields. There's not gonna be one at the wellfields. Right? I mean, you know, we need that. So that was just that was just there as an example of a of a parcel that we own in the village. So Has there been any consideration of other sites up to this point that weren't included in the presentation?
We've been looking we the one site in particular that was looked at was, a municipal place where the, the fueling station and the truck wash is. But, again, we're not we're not sure that that is a site that necessarily works. We have to investigate it. We have to make sure that it's it would potentially be feasible with the DPW operations that are ongoing there. So it's that that's why I was saying that this is not anywhere ready at this point. This is still very early on because we don't know those we don't know the answers to those questions. And I just wanted to add, you know, and I'll I'll I'm reiterating
what I said earlier. We have an excellent battery energy storage system regulatory approach. We worked on it as a board with a lot of community input, including the the sustainability committee, but many others as well under the guidance of our engineer and and and village attorney to to regulate these for for safety. And while while others, you know, were sort of, you know, kinda turning their backs on it and saying, just don't wanna be involved. You know, we we said, no. There's a there's a right way to do this. And the way to do it is to have good standards and to have good regulatory oversight. So I think that it's worth taking a look at that. And, you know, we we think it we think it worked pretty well with Croton Auto Park. Developing the statute itself took, I'd say, about a year. The Croton Auto Park, before the planning board, probably took three to five months of them coming back and making sure that everything was properly covered. And and, you know, even
even though it's a battery energy storage system, you actually end up with a site plan for it just as it was any kind of any kind of development. So I think we should we should have some confidence
in the in the safety approach that we've previously adopted. We're not starting from scratch here, and I just wanted to kinda Yeah. And and that law came from NYSERDA. Right? It was the it was the model law that we that we, you know Yep. Melded to fit. Yeah. Mhmm.
I may, if I may, just one thing. The the horse is not about out of the barn. We haven't even found if there is a horse.
Yeah. So Right. All I'm saying is this felt like when we got this presentation, it's not this wasn't like, you know, if the if another it just feels like a very well developed concept to be this early on in the process, and that's what's causing me concern. I wanna make sure that we can I can ask all the questions that I'm gonna have along the way? I know there are a lot of, like, environmental advocates who are very much in favor of this because coming up with sustainable solutions for energy going forward is a must. But I so I think I would like to also, you know I just wanna think about how we're communicating this to the public. Not we're looking for sites to put battery storage, because that's how this feels to me right now. Instead of saying, I would like to understand what the battery storage opportunities are for the village, what that would mean financially, what are the what would the risks be, and then, like, overall, you know you know, what's
the big picture on this? You know, I think at the last meeting, we were talking about when we talk about going, you know, we non gas powered leaf blowers. Right? I think that there was I saw the mayor's eyes perk up when we were talking about battery storage sort of, I guess, like knowing that this was coming down the pike because all those things are gonna be related. So how do we have those conversations, you know, in a way that makes it so we can get buy in from the public instead of, you know, like lots the other communities that I see,
having protests and pushing for a moratorium. I would also just note the actual history in our village, right, which is, you know, I was there for the public hearing on our best law. It was not an incredibly contentious affair. We have two best systems in the village that have basically been you know, nothing's not contra without controversy. But of all the topics, you know, that we deal with as a board, you know, just talking about tonight's agenda, I didn't receive any emails about best. I've received emails about some other things, and I'm sure you did too. And, you know, we have a highly savvy, you know, community. People read our agendas. People are not shy about letting us know when they have an opinion. I mean, so the history to date, and anything can change, has been that people are, I think, at least open minded on this topic and don't have a knee jerk reaction to them. And, you know,
as Lindsay was saying is, though, we don't even know if there's a horse yet. Right? And so that's what he is looking for the opportunity to do is have the authorization to determine if there's a horse. And, I mean, I would also say to the I think it makes a lot of sense that if if we are to appropriate that money that we take it out of our dedicated, you know, energy conservation account. I mean, I think, you know, which we capitalize out of our solar funds anyway, and we
I'm not worried about the $2,000. Yeah. I'm just The least of my worries about any of this is the $2,000 spend.
So what specific benefits accrue directly to Croton residents and taxpayers? And how do those benefits compare to, like, the risks of of doing this? Are we are we is this solving a, you know, like, a bigger grid issue for people all throughout the county, or or can can this directly benefit Croton residents and taxpayers?
Well, to begin with, if you get, another couple $100,000 to go into the revenue of the village, that does help avoid future tax rate increases. It does help fund just like the money that comes from the, the train station system that goes into wherever taxpayer money would normally go. So from that standpoint, as a taxpayer and resident for over twenty years in Croton, I'm always happy to see the village get money from someplace other than from me. So from that standpoint, I see the village as being benefiting even regardless of anything else. But one system alone is not going to solve the problems of all the entire transmission grid, but it does participate in the opportunity to improve and reduce problems that occur with transmission. I'll give you an example. If we don't do things with BES in the state, what's gonna have to happen is that more transmission and distribution lines are gonna have to be installed. Roads are gonna have to get dug up. Backyards are gonna have to get crossed. All the things that have when you have development and demand for electricity.
So we have a chance here to participate in what the governor is pushing, which is to try to eliminate or reduce the need to build much more transmission and distribution, which then goes into your electric bill. Next time you open your electric bill, look at the delivery charge. You see that's double what it is for the supply charge. So best systems work with the transmission and distribution to reduce the amount of cost of delivery going forward. I can't say it's gonna cut the bill. I'll say it will help contain the bill. But as long as we continue using more and more electricity for whatever reason, we need to be able to transmit it and distribute it. And that means more transmission and distribution systems unless you have things like the battery energy storage systems that can circumvent those problems. And, again, these do help reduce the amount of greenhouse gases. Now the power plants are not in Croton. They're in further Upstate New York. But we all breathe the same atmosphere,
and the less pollution that goes into it, the better. And a battery energy storage system is one of the ways to reduce that pollution just like using an electric car, just like using any other cleaner system to move our our our process and and lifetime forward.
Right. Thank you. I guess if I take a step back, what I would have loved is a discussion. I don't know if it's an advice of council meeting or a different work session meeting where the topic is we have 72 parcels of village land, x amount are usable. What are some ideas and priorities that we might have as a village to think about how we might use that land? Maybe this is the best solution, but there might be other ways or other things as well. And and that was just I'll be honest. That was one thing that just I felt like we've already made up our mind how we're gonna use, you know, village land and, you know, maybe maybe collectively and with input from the community, you know, there are just there are other uses that could could be should be considered. Again, maybe we'd all end up here that, nope. You know, hands down, this is the number one pick, but I just feel like, you know, we we haven't had that discussion.
I mean, I'll I'll I'll just say this is coming from your sustainability committee. They're coming to the board with an idea. Mhmm. I I personally don't view it any differently than the CAC coming to you with a leaf blower proposal or the heart committee coming to you with their ideas, you know, you don't have to you don't have to do anything with it, but you have you're encouraging your advisory committees to come to you with ideas. Right? That's what we put in the guidelines. So that's what is going on here.
I mean If I could, Dan, I'm that again, I I I don't think that these are necessarily rival topics, right, or mutually exclusive. Mhmm. I mean, you can, in parallel, have this exploration, under the guidance of Lindsay and, you know, Lindsay working with this consultant, and we can have a work session on the village parcels. Now I think that Mhmm. You know, 72 sounds like a big number, but a lot of them are Parks. Parks. Yep. And, like, we we know Parkland delineation or the, basically the impossibility there. And then a lot of them are current, like, this is a parcel. And I don't think we really have a lot of great alternative uses for There's real I mean, we've we have either
have our parcels into you know, they're being used. There's not that many that are. So, yeah, I think it's fine if we wanna have a works of future work session where the manager kind of filters the 72 into the things that could conceivably have some actual flexibility. I think it would it would probably be very interesting Yeah. For people, even the right even the public too. Really. Yeah. It it is something that's periodically happened. But when I say periodically, I mean, in my time on the board, which means it could have been ten years ago and may have been.
But so I think it's worth revisiting. Sure. Thank you. Yep. One other suggestion is that we're talking here for these systems about a quarter of an acre. So we're not talking a big parcel by any means. Like I say, a lot of these have been tucked into rear yards and places like that. So I'm sure that among those 72, there's something way bigger than a quarter of an acre. But all we're talking about would be something that would occupy about a quarter of an acre so long as it's flat. That's about the other major condition. And does that include any setback requirements?
And, you know, I imagine you don't wanna probably have some restrictions restrictions for what can you can't put landscaping around this thing, I'm sure, to make it look beautiful. I'm guessing, but
because Actually fire Actually, you do. Unless it's made of metal. I don't I don't know. Don't know. We do have we have we have landscaping. Yep. We'd like we have the, arborvitaes around the one down at the train station. So you could you can have them landscaped. Attorney, I think it would would probably be the same setbacks as an accessory structure. Yes. It would be. Yeah. So it would be it under the current law, that's a five foot setback.
But but but again, managers, as I think you've you've you've said earlier, the these are not going in dense ly populated
residential areas. Correct. It it can't go, you know, it can't go in an RA 25, RA nine, RA five. It's not permitted in those in those zones. Right. And I would just I would just add. So, you know, this goes back a little bit to
the beginning of Lindsay's slides, but this is this is an emerging, sort of intersection of state policy, which is encouraging, these kinds of, systems because new transmission is almost impossible, to get certainly in this area. Plus the, the interest of the of the private sector, which wants to do these. And and for the village, it would be about $200,000 a year Mhmm. For for a long time. And and then Lindsay's initiative, I think, in in being aware of this and and working it working it through the sustainability committee and and then bringing it to us today. So I think that's that's really what we want. Innovative and
so many benefits for doing it. I think, you know, you know, I I have a lot of questions, which we'd be here for forever. But and part of it is because I I must I don't know all the details of the solar panel project. So you've probably been through all of that, you know, previously, but things like liability for the village, like, who owns these batteries, who operates them, who's responsible for accidents, who carries the insurance
on them. So the yeah. So it's whoever is leasing the The tenant. Yeah. Mean, we get we're we're we're listed as an additional insured, right, so that if something, you know, were to happen, they have the they have the liability on them. So there's, you know, there's certain insurance requirements that they have to Yeah. They have to meet. Yeah. And very similar to the solar array and, of course, the
the BES system and the ESS system at the train station were not directly in the energy business. They were more you know, I'll use the word landlords Mhmm. You know, there because we're we're, in effect, renting renting them for a very favorable fee. Mhmm.
Were all the questions that were raised by the attorneys after the April meeting, I guess, all of the were all those addressed were the were all those answered and or addressed in the presentation, or were there additional questions from the attorneys that were still outstanding? The the questions so from April I'm just referring back to what it said in the minute. After you shared the minutes with me, why I'm asking the question. Yes. So what happened what what we were originally
what was originally proposed was a professional services agreement with I'll I'll use the word developer. I don't know if if that's the right word. A consultant. Yeah. So the attorney and I, after reviewing it, had concerns that it did not, you know, just immediately moving forward with some sort of consultant would not be in alignment with the adopted procurement policy of the board. So
that's why we've, you know, after reviewing that and discussing it, we've decided to look at this. Cast a broader net. Correct. Okay. Yeah. I mean, it it wasn't specific in the minutes talking about what the questions were. The other thing I just wanna say is, I don't mean to be negative about this. I think that there's a tremendous amount of benefit to doing this. Lots of environmental advocates who I know and respect are in favor of this. But I'm not on the lee I'm not a liaison to the sustainability committee. So all of this and and I know that, the mayor and deputy mayor are. So you guys probably well, you're a little ahead of us in the process. So I don't wanna sound not enthusiastic about this potential, but it's been, you know, seven days of getting used to this idea. It seems large scale. It seems like an incredible opportunity, but I just feel like I need to get more comfortable with the idea of something that
does have a reputation for being potentially dangerous as well as being potentially an environmental home run as well as a financial one. But I think that I like, a little more runway makes this more makes this something that I can get more not that I'm not on board with it, but more Comfortable. Enthusiastically on board with. So I just think that there there is a little bit of a timeline. It seems to me like what makes sense is investing a little money and getting a few more answers, which will inevitably lead to a few more questions. But
I'm I'm not I'm not sure though. I I wanna better understand the process though. Because if the process, how does it go? It's let's say there is a company that makes a ton of sense. Lindsay rec the sustainability committee recommends company x.
Then what happens? There's It a comes here, and you have to determine whether it's inappropriate use of this particular public property. I mean, you you don't it's an RFP. It's not a solicitation of bids that binds you to a contract. It's it's to to gauge interest and then as a result of that to to obtain proposals. And you're not obligated to award anything based upon a proposal. You review them. You look at the, you know, the the terms and conditions and and determine if they're satisfactory. Yeah. And and to ask those questions. Yes.
I mean, it would there would be opportunity for public comment as part of the regular public comment? And, you know, going back to the land use process, this being both a special permit and also site plan, I mean, I don't know the specific statutory requirements, but I know it's the practice of the planning board to basically take comment on all these things. Yeah. And, you know, if we wanna consider past to be prologue here, I'm just not saying it's a beat for beat repetition, but if you look at, say, the project page, for the Carport Solar Array, you have the RFP going out in July 2020. And, I think the site the site plan I mean, were different amendments over different times, but to to pick one, you have the public hearing, by the planning board on the, site plan application in September 2021. I mean, so it's a year long process, basically, from the if you say roughly a year long process.
And that's, you know, again, year long process to get to the public hearing. Right. It is not it is, you know, what was it, an additional two years, basically, before we got shovels in the ground on that?
Yeah. Just Yeah. Just about. Yeah. Wanna make sure that the board of trustees
Has that opportunity with the public. Because once it goes to the planning board under special permit Mhmm. Our zoning code and our laws allow for this, I imagine. So,
And if you if you were just observing Proton Auto Park, it's indistinguishable from any other kind of their BESS approval at the at the planning board. It was indistinguishable from any other development project, public hearings, public comment. Mhmm. I don't like that. Come back in two weeks. We wanna see a better version of that. And that's why, you know, completely open. And that's why that probably took about six months. And under the law, you've already preapproved
the use because a special permit is a specially permitted use. So you've gone through the regulatory process and that legislative effort that you took to determine where it was most appropriate, which which zones. Right. And the special use permit for BES has a list of criteria that it must meet or it doesn't qualify for the special permit.
Yeah. And the list the list is quite is quite lengthy. Mhmm. You know, there's a lot of
That's why I just wanna make sure there's enough time in the process before it gets to a special permit, before it goes to the planning board to allow for public comment on this. Mhmm. Because I just there's a good chance once it already passes an application with an approved, goes to the planning board, it's Yeah. Likely gonna happen. You know what mean? With certain requirements. But
Well, I think the fact that it's on public property gives us greater control. I think that's a point worth emphasizing here as well. I think that's I good one. I would have As Lindsay kind of alluded to, there are, you know, some basically, some what's the technical term of art here? Not trunk lines, but Lindsay?
lines. Distribution lines that run through the village. They pass a number of private properties. Some of them owned by utility companies, not to speak that into existence. Right? But, like, anyone in there's already a private best on North Riverside. So, you know, hypothetically, anyone in one of those zones who's on one of those distribution lines could say, oh, this would be a great opportunity for us. Right. And, I mean, maybe that's good for the grid and the environment and for them, which is wonderful. But it means that we lose that opportunity, for the benefit the benefits that they would get as a property owner could be going to the community Right. And, benefiting the public in the form of lower taxes or better services. And and, again, we'd have a higher level of control because it's on our land. Right. Mhmm. And as the attorney was saying, right, like, a real power comes as a lessor
in going back to the RFP process. Right? So, again, not not a past performance, no guarantee of future results, but I think that there's some value in in the experience, right, is, you know, again, the RFP went out in July, the version one of the lease because it had to be revised a few times and amended as the project developed. But I think the first version of the lease was approved in February 2021. So it was about a six month period there, And we're not at time zero. We're at time negative two or three months. Right? As again, we we don't know if there is a horse. Mhmm. Right? So this is the consultant's first job is the RFI. Correct? And that's a prelim to the RFP.
So I don't know if you wanna make a decision tonight or if you would feel more comfortable if we put this as a resolution on next week's agenda.
Is the consultant going to prepare a contract? Or how do how do you deal with the consultant? Thousand dollars. Are we gonna are we gonna sorry. Go ahead, Lindsay.
As a vendor so the consultant would get paid. Yeah. The the village has some standard consulting contracts for these small things. I would just take whatever contract the village wanted to use for small consulting services and, you know, change the name on it, whatever, and put this consultant person in and just set it up. We've already got the scope of work. So any standard contract would be pretty much easy to do. Consultant in mind to do this that you've worked with before? Yes. She's the one who, did our, renewal for our climate smart community certification,
which is a long process Yes. While the huge amount of work or something? It's was it mentioned in the minutes? No. No? No. That was that was the this is an individual. So this Got it. Okay. Yeah. They're already, necessarily in the system as a vendor. So Yeah. It it it So it's somebody we've worked with previously? Okay. Yeah. Okay. That's right. Alright. Alright. So going back to what I said, do do people feel comfortable I personally think that if just for this research phase, I I that's I don't for $2,000, I don't I feel like that's something we could I would be comfortable voting yes for that tonight, not making it formal if there's no, you know Attorney reason not to do that. Attorney is not permissible.
To certainly to appropriate $2,000, it certainly would meet your Yeah. Procurement, and it's a a professional services. It's an a vendor that's in your system. So certainly, you could vote to appropriate, $2,000.
No problem. I'm personally comfortable with that. Alright. Do I have a motion then to appropriate 2,000 and direct the manager to, what was the term?
I don't even remember what I said. What did you say? To to draft the contract. Yeah. For yeah.
Yes. I know. Alright, Lindsay. Take care. Alright. Th Our consolidated funding application.
Yes. Bring up the agenda, please. So, manager, will you be presenting? Yes. I will. Okay. As soon as I Yeah. Get my screen up here.
Please. Yep. It's a monthly grant monthly grant. There. Okay. So I'm presenting this for, Valerie Monastra who was not able to be here this evening. So as the board is probably aware, the state has released the consolidated funding application for this year. The village has applied for these grants in the past with limited success, but we're hopeful this year with our new firm on board that we will have some better results. And so Valerie has looked at the different pro programs that are available through the grant and has identified a few that we would like to potentially consider. So the first is climate smart communities. You know, there's $17,000,000 available. The village would have to match 50% up to 2,000,000, and the eligible projects would be side sidewalks. Right? And, they have to include the addition of trees, stormwater plantings, or other green infrastructure enhancements to reduce climate impacts.
Oh, so what? Sorry. So forget it. Yeah. So do we wanna talk about each one individually or should we go should I go through the list and then we just talk about things like go through the list and then discuss the Okay. So the next one is New York State Water Infrastructure Improvement or what is referred to as WIA. There's 425,000,000 available, 30% match up to $5,000,000. This is for new water mains or relining projects, and, we have quite a bit of those that need to be done. The one that we're specifically targeting, would be Harrison Street and Sunset Trail. The environmental protection fund, there's 28 point, $75,000,000 available, 50% match up to $675,000. This would be for design and engineering services, for Gueva Park, for the house at Gueva Park. And then lastly, the water quality improvement grant, there's $75,000,000 available at 25% match up to $600,000, for the relocation and cons the relocation of the existing salt shed and the construction of a new salt shed.
Yeah. Valerie then continues on, you know, saying that these were the projects that we looked at, and, you know, we were able to find matches for some of them. And then there's just a outline of what we've gotten so far this year, which was the county the county grant for complete streets and, what's still outstanding, which is the, DOT, the TAP program for the sidewalks along Cleveland Drive, stormwater grant for the engineering design of the, parking lot for the floodwall, and New York plays for the Harrison's Park playground.
you know, I think in terms of the grant applications, I think the sidewalk one is is somewhat difficult to to do under those under those terms, I'll call them. You know, a lot of it a lot of it has to do a lot of our sidewalk issues have to do as the result of trees. Right? So we generally when we put in new sidewalks, we try not to include the planting of of trees with them because it's just ultimately going to lead to the same problem. And we're already we're already funding a significant sidewalk project in this year's capital budget, which is the sidewalks on Municipal Place and South Riverside.
be like other green infrastructure? That's a that's a good question. I don't know if they mean things like, you know, Valerie says permeable pavers here. They have porous concrete, you know, things things like that. You know, the use of the use of those, types of materials, which is great. It's also much more expensive, right, to use those types of things.
rain gardens, ways to reduce the flush of storms into your existing storm water system.
Well, so we don't so, I mean, we don't have a project identified for number one. That's that's what I'm saying. We already have we have a sidewalk project that is in the works. It's already been awarded a grant, and the design is being done through the county. Mhmm. So
count toward this or no? No. The overpass. Yeah. No. I I know I know what we're talking about, but I don't think that that would necessarily fall into this because I don't really know what I mean, we're obviously, we wouldn't be able to put trees there or any sort of storm water plantings. Yeah. So I don't know if that would I don't think that that would fall in there. So that's also not that's not on our capital plan at this point.
So you have sidewalks in the capital plan for municipal place in South Riverside? Correct. Yep. So those wouldn't qualify
for I I don't think I don't think so because the design is being funded through the county for that project. So I don't think that we could necessarily go to them and say, you know, we want to do x y z. Because they're gonna say, that's fine. You have to pay for the for the difference.
Well, I guess, is there some way to is there some way to we must have a comprehensive idea of what are the other areas what are the other sidewalk areas or potential sidewalk areas in the village that we wanna be tackling.
I don't No. We we do. But I mean, you know, the thing I'm not saying that it's not a project to do ever. I'm just saying for the in this year's focus with all the other projects that we have going on. There are other things to focus on, then I think that Yeah. That's answer to our question. Yeah. That is That's what I'm trying to that's what I'm trying to say. Sorry. I didn't mean to stop. We have I mean, we have four options here. Right? I think the other three are good things that we should try to do. Right? We've already the the project along Harrison Street and Sunset Trail. Right? Frank has already prepared the engineering report because we've been trying to get funding for that project for a couple of years now. You know, the Kuevaia Park design and engineering, we have that stuff prepared because we've been trying to get grant money for that. So, you know, that's not that's not a particularly difficult one to to do. And then,
the relocation of the salt shed in last year's capital budget, we allocated money, for that, you know, to start studying that. So we have some money available that we could leverage towards, towards this, grant opportunity.
So I think I mean, I think you giving us feedback on what makes sense put together with what recommendations Valerie can give us, I I don't Yeah. That Is there something else we should No. That's Should we be asking something else? No. I mean, that's what we're do that's what we're doing here. Right? So mean, my questions are
if for example, if number two, we have Harrison Street, Sunset Trail as potential opportunities, and we have to pay 30% of whatever we're getting or match it Yep. Do we have that in our budget, in our capital budget right now? I don't see it. No. We don't. It would come out of the something in,
and we don't have it flagged in the budget, how would we come up with the third Well, most most likely, this would not be funded in this year because by the time by the time we get the grant hopefully, by the time we get the grant award, it's the end of the calendar year. And then by the time the paperwork and everything is done, we'd be into the next fiscal year. Okay. So but in Okay. The the water fund has funding available through its unallocated fund balance, right, that we can hypothetically type tap into if we needed to.
And I'm oh, sorry. No. I was just gonna say, you know, these are all annual grant programs. And so once we once we get through the, municipal and Maple and Riverside project and find out if we've gotten the funding for the for the Cleveland sidewalk projects. I I think if we're looking at number one next year, there's probably a matchup that from from the bike pit master plan or someplace else. Yeah. I mean, listen, there's there's
lots of sidewalks that we I would love I I said this last week, I would love to have sidewalks everywhere in the village, you know, I mean, it's great. Absolutely. And and, you know, guess We can only do so much Right. With our staff at a time. Right? Exactly. And and a year from now, would you know, given what you were saying about our our unique problem with sidewalks and trees,
I would ask you know, we we can ask Valerie, say, a year from now. If we if we did most of these but didn't do trees Yeah. How bad would that be in terms of the of the decision makers on the grants? And we do include Sanasqua Park flood improvements
Of what? Under the water infrastructure improvement? Yeah. Or no. No. I mean, that that's also a very small number, so it's not necessarily worthwhile applying for a grant for you know, that, you know, that's only approximately $40,000. So the the water main extension is, like, 1,200,000.
Oh, okay. Yeah. So it's all because it's only a study. Right? So it's just a study of what we need to do. So the big the big I was thinking the big No. The big number comes after we know what we need to do. Yeah. And that's when you look for grants. That's when you That's when we would look for the grant. Yeah. If I did. So it's too early to. Yeah. And and just honestly, most grants don't fund studies. That's right. They wanna they wanna see yeah. They wanna see that you've done it on your yeah. That you've put in the effort and that you're ready to do the work. Okay. Yeah. Skin of the game. And I don't think that we Would not fund that anyway. Would not fund a,
storm water upgrade or improvement. I think it's specifically for drinking water and
that kind of thing. Yes. Yep. And the Gueva, so that has the maximum request of $6.75. So if we were to get that, I guess, what what is design and engineering of the community center? It's basically don't have the full house.
Yeah. So it's basically it would basically be the design of and the engineering, not to use the same words you just did, but Yeah. It would be the professional services needed to draw the construction plans and And do the bid specifications. Correct. Yeah. So because we've tried last year, right, we tried through two different grants to get the full amount, right, and both of them were denied Mhmm. Or not awarded, I should say. This is breaking it up. This yeah. So Valerie Valerie seems to think we'll have a better chance if we just go for the smaller amount at this point. Mhmm. And then, again, it's kind of like what we were just saying. You're showing the state that you're putting in that you're ready to that you have the shovels ready to go in and that hopefully they'll award the the remaining amount. When you call when you say the community center, does is that the real space? Yes. Correct. I just I just was wondering if that was a portion of the real space No. It's a or whole that meant the whole thing. Obviously, calling it the community center in this makes it
It it's it's it's the house. It's the real space. Yeah. Alright. Thank you. Yeah.
And certainly, if the grant will fund your design and engineering, the soft costs that other grants don't fund, that might be a good way for you to accomplish something so it becomes shovel ready for the next round of grants. Yes.
I think it's super helpful. I mean, is not the really the way I can't remember exactly when Valerie came on board, but this is a much I feel like this is a much better way to be, you know, taking the grants on in bite sized pieces, being able to have conversations about what makes sense, and then being able to have her really focus her efforts in ways that make sense for greater success because it like, we weren't doing it this strategically. Strategically. No. We were kind of just we were doing fire drills whenever Grant would come out and just trying Right. To So I'm I'm encouraged to see this. Up and apply. Right. Exactly. The question the other question I did have though was this. She she listed out the the project projects identified for funding. So are those listed in order of what's the how are the what's the order that they're in? From one to nine? I I I think it's just I think she went just went kinda went through our capital budget. I was just wondering if I should be reading into the the No. They're not in any sort of priority quarter. That was what I curious. This list and went out to see what was available
Yeah. We went that these were your capital Okay. I was just wondering if that was if that I should be reading more into the number one is number one, number nine is number nine. Okay. No. We went we went through the capital budget. Okay. Perfect. Yeah. Because, like, number four on the list here, right, the senior vehicle, right, we've already we've already gotten that funded through. Right. Yeah. We've Yeah.
can you just give me some context? Why are we So the Salt Shed is currently in a flood zone right down at the train station. And so, it's identified in our LWRP as a goal that we should move that out of the flood zone. So, unfortunately, it can't go to DPW because that's in the reservoir, protected area. Mhmm. So, we're we are trying to identify a potential Maybe there's
there is not. We've looked at them all, you know, unless unless we wanna get the state to alienate some park lands. Don't That would be awesome. Don't think so. Well, there's there is another entity that we're looking at, but it's too pre Yeah. We don't wanna do this. So okay. So if nobody has any other comments on that, I'll I'll Thank you. Tell Valerie to go forward with two, three, and four there.
I mean, know you said she had a conflict, but I do think that it's super helpful to have her here when we're having this conversation. Not that you didn't quarterback well for her, but I would like to be having that conversation with her about the memo that you prepared for us Yeah. If at all possible. But I'm glad to keep Yeah. Moving it. Yep. No. It's just that there's
you know, they're due next month, so we have to Yeah. Of course. Yeah. Where are you in your New York Forward process? I
we're Committee, like Well, we're not we don't have one. We we weren't awarded New York Forward, so we don't have a No. But I was wondering. It says an initial meeting took place to discuss the boundary area project. So Yeah. The reason I bring it up is that that might be looking down the line for the next round of New York forward. Yep. That pedestrian bridge.
Us towards the part of the village. I was just gonna say, usually, this has to relate to the sort of the downtown area. So Yeah. Sometimes you can bend we just went through this process in lengthy detail in Dobbs Ferry, and you sometimes you can bend to include a single property. You can't skip properties in between, so that makes it difficult. Yeah.
But, yes. No. We're we're moving forward with it. Great. You know, Valerie is looking to set up a meeting with some potential stakeholders in the near future. Perfect. So
Alright. Alright. We proceed to perhaps the hottest topic of the evening, a discussion of the village code as it relates to animals and fowls. Manager, you've prepared a memo. Would you like to summarize for Sure. So there's a there's a bunch of stuff here, actually. So
I guess I'll I'll start with my memo first. So I did some research based on our last work session. So Cornell University is one of the preeminent environmental and agricultural and animal universities. And so they have through their small farms program, no. That's sorry. Go back. Yeah. It's the one on memo on fall and poultry number 4. Number 4. Nope. The fourth one down there. Number 4 under four. There you go. And so they've they've provided some recommendations for urban farming. You know, they recommend that coops be secured and that all areas where fowl can roam be properly penned and fenced. Feed should be stored securely in sealed metal containers to avoid attracting rodents. Coops should be well ventilated to remove ammonia generated by manure, and they should be cleaned regularly. And then animal waste should be used or composted promptly and properly. Penn State University through their extension program
also gives some specific measurements on coops and and the square footage, so they should have a minimum of one square foot per pound of body weight for permanent indoor confinement areas, three cubic feet of air per pound of body weight for the same, and a minimum of two square feet per pound of body weight for permanent outdoor fenced areas. And, you know, Penn State also recommends that there be setbacks of 25 feet from the property line in urban settings. The USDA, Department of Agriculture, has information available on raising pigeons in small and backyard flocks. USDA notes that pigeons can be raised for meat production, exhibition, or sporting. Regarding housing, they recommend that you have 27 cubic feet of space for every pair of pigeons. They further note that any pigeon coop needs to account for squabs, baby pigeons, which I learned Mhmm. During the breeding season. And finally,
the New York City Department of Health advises that diseases so there's a number of diseases associated with pigeon droppings, but they further note that the risk of contracting a pigeon related disease is rare. And then the Centers for Disease Control also addresses the disease risk from backyard poultry, which would include chickens and ducks. You know, these types of diseases include bird flu and others, which are very long and complicated to say. And then the CDC has detailed guidance for those who wanna keep backyard poultry to ensure they remain healthy while doing so. In addition to all of this, I also spoke with our local, Cornell Cooperative Extension office, which advised me that, you know, they did not have any specific concerns about pigeons or any related, diseases. You know, they did point me to, the information that was available from the Centers for Disease Control. They said that that that's a resource that they normally give out to people who call for, guidance.
And I also checked with our our our local department of health, Westchester County Department of Health, and, you know, they said that they don't have anything in the sanitary code for the county that deals specifically with pigeons. They do they do have code that deals with parrots, because parrots apparently, can can carry some sort of disease, but they don't have anything related to pigeons. And, the public health sanitarium that I spoke with, you know, said that, at least based on her knowledge, there's there haven't been any reported illnesses or or concerns with pigeons. So that was the information that
Thank you for Yep. Yep. Well, I too wished that, Valerie was here mostly so I could tell her what a good job I think she did in in drafting, this, this proposed, code.
Do you wanna look at the third? The proposed language on farm animals in May 2026.
No. Not May, June? No. It's it's the June. It's the June 1. Yeah. Default. Mhmm. No. I think I think she did a I think she did a good job. I like that approach. There's, you know, a couple of things I'd, you know, probably think about enhancing it with just for for discussion purposes. You know, one is, you know, I think just based on, you know, recent experience over the last year or so, I I think we probably need some language unless it's implicit on enforcement on on how does this, you know, properly get enforced and get enforced in a in a timely manner. And then secondly, you know, I'd yield to the to the attorney on this. But if if we adopt Valerie's approach, which, again, I think is a is a good one, does that cover grandfathering so that so that nothing nothing is grandfathered? And and then, you know, the third thing, which is just, you know, something that's come up in communication with me is about, you know, the question of storage
in the home. If if the if if the my understanding is that if a particular species is not permitted based on the statute, then then it's it's not permitted in the home either. But but I would would yield on that. I think that's logical, but Sure.
Yeah. It would be like, if if, you know, the code doesn't allow, you know, lions and tigers and bears. Right? You can't you can't keep in your basement. Right. Yeah. Stuff you know, it doesn't matter if it's outside or inside. If it's prohibited, it's prohibited. Right. So but, yeah, why don't we why don't we pull up Valerie's unless anyone want anyone else wants to comment specifically on the code, I'd like to go to Valerie's memo because she has a couple questions to ask the board. Yes.
So Valerie put together, as we just looked at the language, there's still a few remaining questions about the edits this section that the code needs to address before we can sorry, that the board needs to address before we can conclude this work. They are as follows. We would like the village board to confirm that foul permitted on a property will be limited to chickens and ducks.
I I've done some research on this. I know there are there are villages that allow hens and ducks, chickens and ducks, and there are also villages like I believe it might be Tarrytown that only allows hens. No ducks. And, yeah, it's the village of Tarrytown. And so one question that I've had is I've gleaned is that hens are generally easier to confine to residential properties and produce fewer off-site impacts than other poultry species. Ducks and other waterfowl may require additional water resources, create wetter conditions, and are more likely to travel beyond the owner's property, creating potential enforcement and nuisance concerns in residential neighborhoods. So, my feeling is I personally, I'm you know, and I'd love to hear what other folks feel, but I'm leaning more toward just hens, particularly in acres in in less than one acre or I don't know if it's half an acre or less, but,
you know, just having hens. Hens are generally quieter. Bless you. Some ducks, especially certain breeds, can be more vocal and carry sound further. Ducks can you know, as as I mentioned, there are other things. Some of them fly much longer distances than hens. You know? So that's, you know, just just I know that wasn't in Valerie's recommendation, and I appreciate the work that Valerie did. But I was just giving it some thought. Ducks are very different, you know, from hens. I
ones that I certainly see are Well, they're definitely they're definitely flighted birds, right, when when hens are usually not. So, I mean, the ducks the ducks will fly to go to
that's I think that's you know, I'm looking at Valerie's language, chickens and ducks must be kept in an enclosure or fenced area at all times, which is But it doesn't mean a fenced area doesn't necessarily mean it has a roof. What what is an enclosure then?
Well, I think that would be the I think that would be the coupe. Right? So, like, it would they'd either be in the coupe or they'd be in a pen. Yeah. So in theory I mean, in theory, they could fly.
That's what I was thinking. Yeah. That the duck could end up in your neighbor's Right. Pond. With the dog. Yeah. But the neighbors
mean, you but it then if you You know, I guess the The flip side would be if you had a pond, a duck could end up in it regardless. Right? Yeah. You know?
If it's a wild duck. Think if you live in an RA 5, you probably don't have a pond. Right? Correct. Yeah. I I I would say I have no idea. I mean, he said he does. I don't I live in RA 5. It would be kinda tight with a pond. The the ducks I'm familiar with are those white ducks that people keep as pets.
I don't know that I've ever seen one fly. So maybe that's because they get Oh, maybe yeah. Maybe they do. That could be. Yeah. I don't know. I I'm thinking of, like, mallards. I don't know if people keep mallards I don't know if they do. Yeah. They're awfully pretty, though.
You know, I offered to take the dogs home the last time, so I probably could take the mallets home this time if you'd like.
you know, I I know there are different duck species and some Yeah. Don't fly as high as others, but that gets very technical and complicated for an enforcer to say, is that a mallard or a Peking duck or what you know, I I I absolutely agree. Duck all arranged.
So you would go chickens only. But Hens. Particularly right. Yeah. No. Roo I mean, roosters are not part of the equation. Right. Because when I think when we say chickens, we mean hens, really. Yeah. Yeah. They're fine. Right. That was exactly What the right way is to to
what yeah. Lean toward chickens only in the smaller lots. So would you so would you say I didn't want it to be a new a duck to be potent has potential to be more of a nuisance.
So No offense. So you would be saying for for r a five, r a nine, a 25. Right? So those those are the ones less than an acre, would just be hens. And then into the properties so the r a 40, r a 60 could be hens and ducks.
I don't know how others feel. I was just thinking at it from a Yeah. Nuisance lens and ability of I'm not wearing
I think that, I know that she's not asking this specifically, but, like, I am I feel conflicted about this on the smaller parcels in general. I realize that's not what the question is and I don't mean to be like going down an avenue that we're not talking about. But just thinking about what the different parcels like, just because a parcel is an RA five does not mean that it is appropriate for, you know, for having a coupe like this based on what the shape of the parcel is and where the home is on the parcel and where the driveway is. So, like, that's So you're gonna have setbacks. Right? You know, so you're gonna Right. But so I I don't I feel like I am because it's we don't live in a place where every They're not a cookie cutter. Yeah. By by making a decision about by making any decision, it's hard to make a a broad decision about a bunch of parcels that are are different for a variety of different reasons. And it's not even I don't even know if we could put them into broad categories. Like, some of them are square, some of them are pie shaped, some them are I mean, unfortunately is that right? You have to you have to do that with zoning. Right? Because that's where you have zoning districts. And then you have setbacks, and there's gonna be some that qualify.
And for those that don't and they wanna do it, then they can go to the zoning board. Right? They still need to meet,
for accessory buildings. They can't be placed in certain yards. They can't like, there's all of that. But building a a hen coop is different than building, like, a deck. Right? You know, I just think that
Yeah. And then but we're proposing Right. We're proposing more or or stricter, I guess, is the correct word, setbacks. Right? Because Right. Normally, an accessory building only requires a five foot setback.
For the coops in the R A 5, we're doing five times that. We're saying it has to have a 25 foot. So depending on what the shape of your property is or the layout of your property is, you may be precluded from having a coupe based on
Based on based on the your property, the the size of your line. Okay. And if you and if you were in that situation and you wanted to have one, then you could appeal to the zoning board. Okay. So and that would and your neighbors would get noticed, and they would be able to come to the public hearing and share their thoughts. And It's an area of variance. Yeah. Would be required. If it's easier
at all because I know this is very difficult topic just to break it down. So the first question is the type of bird. What type of bird, you know, and where? And then the next is the setbacks.
I don't think that was a Valerie specific question, but I know we did wanna make sure we Yeah. We can I mean, we can that? We can talk about whatever you want. You know, Valerie had her questions, but Right.
well, I I thought her I mean, you want, we can just go through these and then Yeah. I just feel like and also, I I mean, I I guess, we have a specific situation that has brought this to light. And so I think that you know, and there was at the last it was at the zoning board meeting. Right? There so I mean, I feel like that's a little bit like the 800 pound gorilla in the room right now. Like, we're having this conversation around a sit a current situation that's happening and we're trying to make a decision based on, you know, good best practice for all, but also like a current situation that we have. So that is what I'm personally struggling with because I know that we have a situation that we're getting feedback on both sides about. We wanna make the right decision, but we don't wanna make a broad stroke decision that's gonna make you know, because we have a current situation. So I guess the question is, and maybe it's for the attorney, how do we address that? How do we talk about that? Because to pretend that we don't have that situation
is impossible for me as we have this conversation. So I don't know what to with that. I'll let the gonna if gonna define
if you're gonna define and limit to ducks and chickens, that will exclude pigeons and geese and roosters. Yeah. Roosters are already prohibited. Yeah. Right. Exactly. But I mean, like So that I'll take care of it and and surveillance. As to as to your discussion, it you you don't get grandfathered in Right. To harbor animals that are no longer permitted. So there's no grandfathering in that way. Right. No grandfathering. And I just I just wanna say So that if you wanna turn an accessory structure into a coop, and we'll be defining a coop as we'll have other other provisions subject to it's not just an accessory building. It's an accessory building that will harbor one of these permitted animals. You know, that if you wanna turn your your utility shed, which is here, into a chicken coop, you're gonna have to move your utility utility shed. Okay. Absolutely.
For chicken. And I just I just wanna say reason. That, you know, we were looking at this section of the code prior to any I mean, right? Remember, this was
Right. We're not we're not doing this just because of one particular. We had been looking at this for months and we ended up taking it out of a law in March so that we could have further discussion And on
and that's why she's asking the question two and question three is, do you wanna just move on this or do you wanna do the the livestock questions and and do it as a one fell swoop? It's
really I think. What you're druthers. Yeah. I I I We haven't even gotten to question two yet. I
I I like it Are we gonna get the question? I hope so. I I like it the way we that Valerie has it. I like the the no grandfathering clarification that the the attorney gave. And I I would just what I what I would suggest is, in general, is that the manager when this comes back to us, that the manager and the attorney give us some language we we could look at on enforcement. In other words, how does Yeah. How does one
if if you're a particular homeowner and you feel that there's something not quite right, how do you I mean, it's it's in the zoning code, so it it it has there's a whole section on It's reference to that. I was gonna say, we could probably include a reference. Right? I mean It's nuisance
addressing nuisances, and also, would we ever consider saying it needs to be addressed within
three months or, like, within a certain time? Well, that's very good be the issue of the code enforcement officer. He would issue a notice of violation.
Yes. So our notice this is is in violation of the law. But have been instances where it took a little longer than I think a neighbor would loved. Looking for I didn't mean to what what I was looking for was something like
upon the issuance of a of a of a notice, there are seven days. Yeah. We'd have to we'd have to look and see. You know what I code enforcement officer would would give
a period for compliance. And if you don't comply, then there's an appearance. But so I mean, some sections of our code say it's ten days. Some sections of the code say it's three days. Some sections say it's thirty days. So we have to look and see specifically what this would fall under. And, you know, we could we could do that. But, yeah, there is whenever we give a notice of violation, there is a set deadline that they have to comply by. And if they don't, then it goes to the court too. I'll look forward to looking at that. Okay. I think it's the
Well, there is no timing. It's what yeah. We get to So okay. Let's It's the date that this becomes effective.
No. I'm sorry. Maybe we can let you Let's say a neighbor says, I'm making this up, but there's a rooster. It's keeping me up all night and I can't take it anymore. It's a nuisance. They call the village. Just an example. Yeah. So then somebody would go out Has to. Yeah. And We have to investigate it. Yeah. Yes. Investigate it. Because it's an appearance If it is to violation, violation, the question is, do we put a time frame on when
I mean, generally, our practice That has to happen. Our practice is is not to immediately send somebody to court. Right? Because people don't people generally don't necessarily know if it right? So we attempt to make contact with the property owner or the homeowner to say, listen, you know, we've gotten this complaint, you know, section a b c of the code doesn't allow for you to keep a rooster, you know, please let us know how you're going to address this. Right? And then they come back to us and they'll say, oh, I'm so sorry. I'll relocate it to, you know, old McDonald's farm and then, you know, or they say, I don't care. I'm keeping my rooster. And then, you know, if they if they go with the latter route, you know, then that's when we have to get on the appearance ticket. Or if they just ignore us completely and we can't get in touch with them, then we have to issue. Issue. Yeah. Right? The notice of violation. But we generally try to give people a little bit of time to comply. To comply before we before we go with the formal notice of violation. Which is fair. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the aim the aim of any
notice would be to obtain compliance. Nobody wants to have to take these issues Right. To justice court. Yeah. But yeah. So it's a time certain that we just don't know what it is yet until until you guys draft it up. Yep. And and Well, I mean, we can look to see if there's a a standard.
I mean, like, it's probably already in your code. Yep. So yeah. Reference.
Exactly. I just also wanna note that in our code, which has its own section specifically for dogs, which I don't think we're gonna replicate. Right? But we could consider importing the concept of these, you know, citizen complaint provision. I don't know the last time. So that section of the code provides that a citizen may swear out a complaint with the village justice, which would not, you know, for dogs, but wouldn't require an inspection. Right? Because, you know, sure, you could say that the inspection would be most useful, right, if you said, like, oh, there's this, you know, coop that I don't think it was ever, you know, approved, and it's in the yard. And then the code enforcement officer comes out and says, indeed, there's a coop, and, it was never approved. Right. But you could also have a situate in situation that is, more transitory, but no less annoying, which is like the mallard or the ducks or the chickens keep escaping and roaming onto my land and causing problems.
And then, you know but the code enforcement officer is not necessarily available to inspect
that so the person could make a complaint. We could, if we wanted to, consider importing them. I don't think you can because what you're trying to you have it it has to be self sustaining information in order to obtain appearance in justice court. In other words, the documents have to have personal observation and affidavit by a qualified and duly authorized code enforcement officer. I you because it's the village versus
I don't know that it does work for a I think that you you don't have standing to bring to local justice court
Well, I think sorry. Not to interrupt you. This is the village versus. So No. This is somebody if let's say, for example, the dog went on to your property and did its business. Right? Then you can and wasn't on a leash. Okay. You know, then because we had this happen last year. Right? So they went Someone used it. Somebody did use it. Yeah. Okay. So and they went they went down, and we had to verify this and look it all up because it hadn't been done in a very long time. Right? And so, they had to swear out a statement and file a action in the court, and then that person got served and, they went they went to court. So I actually don't know. I don't remember how it turned out, but yeah. So that that is how that is how it was done. But, yeah, in regards to I in regards to what the attorney was saying, I don't know if that would
possible here with the zoning code in. The zoning code is in the nature of a criminal violation. It it's prosecuted as criminal violation across the board. So the Whereas the dog is civil. The dog is a civil situation. So in this case, you couldn't have a a citizen swear out a complaint because it's prosecuted in the justice court in the nature of criminal violation, and only the people can bring votes
is it our But Ultimately, it's our code enforcement officer who alert police issue citation?
No. The the code enforcement officer issues that notice a violation. Which takes you to to Village
And I'll to the extent that it's relevant, I'll also note that the noise law or the noise section of our code also addresses, you know, animals. And it says the keeping or harboring of any animal, fowl or bird, which might may by causing frequent or long continued noise shall disturb the comfort or repose of anyone residing in the vicinity, which is to say that that is prohibited. So I also we kind of touched on it a little, but the question of making a distinction between flighted and flightless birds. Right? The hen is flightless. Are we okay with flightless birds in general and wanna have a blanket prohibition on the flighted birds being kept in a structure? Because they can't act or you could say they can be kept in a structure. They can u be mainly contained. I don't know if that's possible. If you had, like, a little arrow drum or something for them, or they had to be rendered flightless again.
You know, had had their wings clipped. I don't know.
And, again, I would have to imagine to have to have a large parcel not to do something like that, but it's not possible. I mean, because I think that that's the big concern. Right. You know, kind of the species by species distinctions, I have concerns about as kind of a legislative body, us wading into that in a in a, again, a species by species sense if there's specific broader categories that we can regulate and distinguish, I think that is a reasonable approach to me. I mean Yeah. You know, based on the manager's memo, it sounds like the only flag that we received on a particular species of bird is the parrot, which Wasn't even in the conversation. Wasn't even in the conversation. Don't generally kept indoors. Yeah. Parrots are kept indoor I mean, I've yeah. So
Yeah. Yeah. I I'm, you know, I'm I'm more comfortable at this point just staying with, with what Valerie has.
You know, will you know, willing if if maybe I don't know if she's with us, you know, when we take this up again, but or or if she's got some further comments. Yeah. I mean, you know, so
Just me to answer as a yeah. Just as a reminder. Right? So this is a zoning amendment. So Yeah. This goes through a long process of seeker, of planning board, of Yep. Black, you you know, it's just yeah. Supposed to the county. So there's you know, this is not a
Yep. Thing at all. So you'll have plenty of time to Yep. You know, ruminate over your I mean, well word choices. You know, for those who are listening, we'll we'll move expeditiously on this, but, you know, there are certain steps that have to be taken. I I think based on this discussion and and also the previous one, I think we know where we wanna end up.
Okay. So question two then. Do you want to Well, I think so. Do we I I don't think I know what trustee Simon said, but I don't know if everybody else feels I mean, because the what trustee Nachtaler said was hens and ducks in the r a 40, r a 60, and just hens in the other ones.
Because the concept was around flightless, not having Yes. Birds of, you know, that lie to neighbors. No. I think that's yeah.
In the smaller Well and is it reasonable is the the enforcement of that reasonable?
Well, why why wouldn't you put that in your definition of coop at some place that it needs to be constructed in such a way that the animals cannot fly or escape
from Well inside of it. Yeah. But, I mean, the the thing is that they could be they could potentially be out in the yard too. Right? I mean, the chickens aren't gonna be in the coop twenty four seven. I thought that's what it said. No. It says pens for enclosed. Yeah. So a pen is not Right. A coop. But I personally, I think in terms of the enforcement officer, I think it's I think it's easier on their part if it's specific to hens and ducks. Let's just use that as an example rather than what the mayor said is all flightless birds because then it's like, oh, let me see if their wings are clipped or, you know, I mean, it's it's just I think it's a lot easier for them to be able to say, oh, that's a duck. That's not a duck. You know, it's
Well, you know, you could also have a provision for when they're applying or whatever, you know, that they would have to provide some documentation. Well, they wouldn't necessarily have to. I mean, they'd have to apply if they were building a a coop. Right? But there's no we're not requiring a special permit to keep the keep just to keep the chickens. Yeah. Yeah. It's the housing So of so, I mean, if they're not building the coop, they could just have a chicken in their yard and that's fine? I mean, if they wanted to keep the chicken in their house with them, I guess they could. Well, yeah, but then they're just turning the house in their their house into an aviary kind of. And, like, that's I mean, the only way to live. Are there are plenty of people that keep ducks in their in their that live with the dogs. But my point is, like no. Again, if it's if it's in if it's in your house and it's not leaving the house, then it's not a problem
necessarily for the community. So no harm, no foul. Pardon the pun. But if it's if it's I was waiting all night for that one. If it's if it's safe, I mean, it is. If there if if, like, it could just it could just live in your yard, I mean, more or less, and that would create all the problems that we're kind of concerned about. Right. But, I mean, I don't think people are concerned about somebody having one chicken that wanders around their yard and they bring in the house at night. Like, that's not the situation we're talking about. We're talking about, like, 20 birds living in a thing that are flying around, landing on houses and pooping Yes. In the area. That's right. No. No. That's specifically No. They don't. Right. So, like, that's what I think we're trying to figure out here. Not like if somebody has one or two chickens that are just like wobbling around the yard. Like that's not that's not what we're trying to because I mean we have that now. Right? Right. And that's not what we're trying to we don't wanna take that away from people. Although,
then it becomes a slippery slope because if we don't take that away from people, then that that's where I'm struggling. Right? It's like
But I don't think you necessarily would I mean, even even if somebody had that and it now was prohibited, let's say, because their property their lot was too small, they can they can get a variance for it. You know. So they they have a recourse. Right? They can go to the zoning board and plead their case. So excuse me. So it's not like it's not like it's just a blanket prohibition.
The other question that I have is and I think I brought this up last time. I thought that if you were buying chicks, you had to buy them in in sixes. Yeah. You have bought that. Yes. So I don't that was my understanding. I haven't done extensive research on it, but that was just what I was think when Valerie spoke the last time, she said that that was not her understanding. Because I know she made the number five, and I trust that she did the research, but that was always my understanding. So I just wanna make sure that we're double checking that because We can double check that. Yeah. Then, you know, you have an extra
Well check. Have our we have our resident farmer. I I am not aware that you have to buy them in. I thought it was, a New York state then. At the at the the tractor supply, you can buy one. You can do it. Just wanna point that out. One duck, one goose, one Okay. I don't was under the impression that you had to buy six, but maybe that's bad info. Maybe when you order them, like I don't know. I don't have I don't have chickens. Maybe when you order the cullets. I don't know.
Okay. Well, I I still don't know if we've actually gotten anywhere. I don't think we've But don't think we have. Well, I think we've we've got we've gotten I think we've gotten somewhere on the big picture. You know? I think we we know we know exactly what we wanna do on the on the on the the the the ones that were most in question, both in terms of that particular species and and grandfathering and and house housekeeping or keeping them in the house, and then and then ultimately enforcement.
So Well, so why don't so do people feel comfortable with the setbacks that were being proposed, which would be 25 feet in the RA 5 And 50 feet in the other zoning districts? And this Would you say can just say what can you say that what that can you say what that means? Yeah. So a a 25 foot setback in the RA 5 means that the coupe has to be 25 feet off all the property lines. So 25 feet from the side yard and 25 feet from the backyard. Right. So it it would have to meet in a point in in, you know, saying that So it could not be five feet off the property line. Right. No. No longer. Correct. Okay. Yeah. Is that likely is that is that the maximum that you can practically go in the in the Yeah. Why can't we go the r in in Well well, no. Because the the well, I mean, you could in theory, you could do whatever you wanted, but anything larger than 25 feet, you're you're basically excluding all of the R A 5 because the parcels in the R A 5 are 50 by a lot of them are 50 by 50. Right. So if 25 is the is the maximum
you can really do in R A 5, I'd say. Yeah. I mean, even even with that, if you have a true 50 by parcel, 25 feet, they can't do it. You're not gonna put yeah. Yeah. Right. And that's a significant change to what we have right now. It would be five times larger than what we have right now. Yes. And they're in that I am comfortable with that. Right. And I suppose,
theoretically, that that individual, you know, who could only get you know, thinking about how the zoning board works, can only get to 23 and a half feet Yeah. Rather than 25,
has a has a reason to go to the zoning board. Yeah. Well, that's yeah. That's what I've been saying all night. It's that if somebody had had a a coupe in the RA 5 that was not Right. Legal now, they could go to the zoning board and get a variance. Right. Yeah. And I can't predict what the zoning board would ever do, but they certainly wouldn't do that for five feet. Oh, yeah. No. I don't I don't think so. No. I mean, it would have to be you'd have to have it in the middle of your of your backyard, basically, as Right. Far Yeah. Okay. So we're comfortable with the setbacks, it seems like. So 25 foot, r a five, fifty foot all others.
So then who is comfortable with what trustee Nachtaler was saying about hens and ducks in the 40 alright. Forty and sixty and hens in the rest. Alright. Is anybody on board with that?
I'd I'd like to just reserve judgment on that. Just think think it through just a little bit little bit. Okay. Alright. So we don't so we're not gonna come to a decision on that. Yep. And and also, can we get can we just get Valerie's perspective?
Yeah. I mean, I I would imagine that she's gonna say it's fine if that's what you wanna do. Right? You know? But But
also, I I wanna start, and maybe this is what she's saying in her memo or in her proposed language, but I wanna stop using the word foul, period. Well, that's we've taken it out completely. Okay. But in her memo, used foul, which is why I just wanna confirm that we're not going to do that. She only uses it under farm animals. Yeah. But not Well, She said I would like to confirm that foul permitted on properties will be limited to. Don't wanna use the word foul because that I wanna take that gray area away. If we're just gonna say that it's whatever it's gonna be. Yeah. Right. So, like, let's just stop because that was where what the zoning board was like, that was the issue. Well, they got yeah. They that's where the dictionary came Right.
But anyway, so can we just not like, let's stop using that word because that's the confusion. I haven't I been using it. I've been saying chicken and ducks. And the mayor just used it, like, you know, another usage of it. So okay.
Yeah. Okay. So I I guess we're gonna have to come back to this if we can't we don't seem to have consensus on what should be allowed where. So but at least we have at least we have setbacks Yeah. Set. So that's good. So how are we gonna get from here to there? Oh, just on the ducks question. We're gonna have to schedule this for another work session. I mean, it's if we don't have if we don't have consensus. Yeah. But What's the lack of consensus around? On what's on what what types of birds are allowed in which districts?
So is it would folks be comfortable if it was what Valerie was proposing? Yes. Yep. Would you be
And you wanted to say But I but if it's causing a delay Yeah. But I just wanna I just wanna clear on what on what the so she's saying chickens and ducks. Yes. She was saying chickens and ducks and all And I was saying
just the hens, chickens Right. In in the smaller lot sizes because Not the ducks. The ducks because of the reasons I was Who? Saying about ducks, you know.
They tend to be more flight of birds. I don't wanna make a decision that makes it so we have to come like, when we make this decision, I don't ever wanna talk about chickens, ducks, or fowl ever again. I think that however live draft and begin the process. Yeah. See it being that That is right. Things change over whatever. Yeah. Why don't we go with, you know, go with what Valerie has, which also includes the twenty five twenty five feet, which I think protects
folks, you know, five times more than they're currently protected. We can always make an adjustment later on. Okay. But here's my other question. If we made it
how do we have any idea how many people this is impacting in the village? Like, many people have chicken coops? We don't know? We we don't really know because,
you know, I mean, I'd have to go through the we'd have to go through the records. We don't it's not like we have a separate
Right. You don't register them like you do at all. So I guess my question is, is there any because of what you said, like, with the standard lot is is
In Harmon, it's 50 Right. By 50. Yeah. So which would mean that a that you would I'm sorry. 50 by a 100, I think. Sorry. Yeah.
So is there a reason to make the setback such that it autumn it triggers it so you have to come in and you have to announce to your neighbors and you have to go to the zoning board to get a variance in order to put the chicken coop up?
I mean, if you did it that way, then you'd basically be, I mean, you'd I don't think that I don't think that would be the right way to do it. You'd wanna be doing it as a special permit. Or whatever it is. I'm probably using it long term. But whatever that is, so that if you're gonna put a coop in your yard, then you couldn't just put one like, one can just appear one day Some some of the municipalities do do that. Ardsley had it that you needed to come to the village board for special more comfortable with that because building permit.
No. I'm saying in in some some of the municipalities, like the village of Ardsley, and there was one other one that I forget who it was. I think it might have been Rye Brook. They required that if you wanted to keep chickens, you needed to get a special permit to do so. So Does that become too cumbersome? I don't know if that's The issue is your special permits all go to the planning board. Yeah. So it would go to the planning board. Yes. Right. But I I think that helps. I think what trustee slip and was saying is it would just provide notice to the neighbors to be able to because because right now, if they were just getting a building permit, there's obviously no neighbor notification or anything like that. But if they're getting a building permit, it has to comply with all this
that you're adopting. So this is the protection against the impacts to the neighbors. The fact that you're regulating it to this extent Right. Is all that you need to do to make sure your neighbors are protected or your adjoining property owners or That's what this is all about. That's what this is about. So I don't know that you need an extra step to allow them to come in and complain against something that's gonna meet your new reg strict regulations.
Do know what I mean? Yeah. I do. But I'm just thinking about the fact that that gives neighbors an opportunity to come and weigh in on the fact that there might you know, there's gonna be this this change in their But that neighborhood. But the the local law will allow neighbors to come in to provide that level of input. Okay. In other words, if you wanna make this stricter,
you can do that. But I don't know that having people come in with placards that say, you know, down with chickens is really gonna help the the process of of regulating this use.
I just think that some of the properties are not appropriate for a chicken coop. So And and that and what we're doing right now is going to make those inappropriate properties inhospitable or in, you know, not inhospitable, but but not of you won't be able to do it because of your property. Correct. Okay. So yes. Yeah. So the protection is the is the restriction.
Which is related to question three. So she just wants to know if you wanna move forward on this. Well, no. Was saying, do we want vacuum, or do you wanna wait to do Oh, yes. Livestock at the same time and bring it all back in I know the mayor's preference was to look at farm animals
as well, but I don't know. Are you changing your mind now at this point? Let's just resolve this one and move on. Yeah. Okay. I'd say stay with number two. Yeah. So right I mean, right now, farm animals are prohibited. Right. So yeah. Okay. And they're defined somewhere in Well, I think there's a
there is well, no. Actually No. I'm just I'm just kidding. Because that's how we got into trouble with foul. I don't to be honest We're not using that word. I don't think they are defined in the code, but Valerie has a has a proposed definition. Alright. So Yeah. So let's get Valerie and I working on this local law, and we'll With get it referred and start secret. Complete faith. Okay.
You said farm animals are prohibited. Yeah. The key so under the under the proposed language, it's the keeping of farm animals is prohibited except for the keeping of chickens or ducks. That's what it is. It's already in here. So should we specify that that should not include
roost is it It says the keeping of chickens and or ducks, excluding roosters. Okay. Yeah. That's what it's specifically said. Do we we know if anyone in Croton has a farm animal, like
a horse or a goat or a sheep? There there are I In the village? Yeah. There there's probably some. Yeah. I I don't know. I think it's I don't think it's a lot by any law you know? But we really we we really truly don't know because it's not something we've ever surveyed or, you know, taken stock of. Right? I mean, it's but just anecdotally from what people have told me is, you know, that's we have some very large properties. Right? We have some three, four, five plus acre properties. So Right. And I guess the question is, would we consider allowing
Well, I think that was but I think that was where That was her question. Sherry, do you wanna just put that in here?
Yeah. And, I mean, I think I think Briarcliffe Manor in the in the information that trustee Nachtaler had sent around. Right? Briarcliffe Manor had a very nice table. Right. Yes. They did. Yeah. That you know, I don't know if Lori Lee Dickson worked on or not, but I did not.
So it was really it was five a it was two acres in Briarcliff. You can have goats, sheep Horses, donkeys? Horses, donkeys, mules, and other large. So you have to have two acres or more. And they also limit the number of animals that you can have. So it's Yeah. It's the maximum count of all of those are three.
Well, no. I think people honestly, I think people are don't want to out themselves because what they're what they're doing right now is illegal. Right? So they don't want to say, oh, I have a duck or I'm not a duck. I have a goat, you know?
I saw it at summer fest in the spring. Earlier the horse was out of the barn, but Yeah. There was a horse.
Have you heard of braying donkey at 06:00 in the morning? I'm just saying. Oh. Because I have. You would you would know if it was there. Yes. You would know if there was a donkey living next door. Yeah. Okay. Okay. I think we're done. So do you want you wanna keep it like this? Yeah.
I'd say wait for you. Can I can I just look at that chart that you just Yeah? I just Yeah.
I just don't want you to to if you have people who have horses, I just don't want you to make them illegal just by virtue of this code.
Well, they're already illegal. That's part of the challenge. Well, I mean, the thing is that They allow chicken wings. Ducks and geese. Let me just pull this up. Sorry.
Oh, got it. Okay. I just don't wanna open up a whole new Yeah. We don't have to we don't have to The village. We don't have to copy that chart word for word. Right? You know, that's fine. Yeah. We don't wanna let So that that would be so that's a moot point anyway. Exactly. Bar. And where did we land with children? Opening it's opening up a whole new Yeah. Avenue for no particular reason. Yeah. But I think what I think what the attorney was saying is is correct because and this is why I wanted to pull up the wording. Because because we're saying at this point, as we discussed about grandfathering,
all the Right. Right. All of the harboring of those an other animals will be against law. What we so what the what the language says right now right? So this is the language in the code right now is keeping domestic animals except pigs for individual domestic purposes or as pets, provided that not more than three dogs over six months old and not more than 25 foul shall be permitted. So we don't define what a domestic animal is in our code right now. Right? So theoretically, somebody could say my goat is is domesticated and it's my pet. Right. Right? I mean but now we're going to have a definition of domestic animal and farm animal, and a code is gonna be considered a farm animal. So that would technically now be illegal
under the code. Right. Because you're saying a domestic animal shall not include any farm animals.
animals in this co the co provision, she's a domestic animal shall not include any farm animals as defined here on. Yeah. That's the proposed language. Mhmm. Yes. That's what I'm saying. So we so we're not going to we're making them
That's what I'm saying. So right now the right now the code is ambiguous. Right? The code is ambiguous. So you could make a case that like I was saying, you could make a case that your goat is a domesticated animal and it's your pet. But right now, we're making it explicit that that is illegal
under the proposed language. Right. Right. Well I'm just again, I'm just worried about horses because I know. Well, let's
Well, I can't I really don't think we have anyone that has a horse.Don't have anybody with horses. We would see them. We would see them. I would think we would know. I mean Getting coffee. There I've there's obviously, there's a couple of large properties in the North End, but, I mean, still, I think we would know if there was horses. Horses?
there was an alpaca, so I just yeah. Right. I I would say it's definitely I would say it's definitely more of, like, the goats or
I'm open to seeing that fixed, you know, if but but not tonight. I will stop talking. No. No. No. No. No. No. I'm saying we don't have to do it tonight. I mean, we can put we can look
at the chart. Not we don't have to go into detail on the chart tonight, but, the mayor was saying, we could just put the chart in the law as part of the We could ask Valerie to just, yeah, put in the chart and Just put in the chart and then we'll through the process. We'll go through the process and see. Mhmm. And then you'd have to change a 11 h, keeping a farm animals is prohibited. Yeah. We would just change it to say the keeping as permitted or as detailed in the charge below. Okay. Yeah. Something like that. As long as we take care of what we're Okay. Yes. We're good? Okay. I I think we are totally out of this out at Have this
Okay. Sorry. So what happens next? Is this gonna be back at a work session or is this gonna be back as a resolution? This will come back as a resolution. So it will as a as a start of the process. Right? So you're gonna refer a So then are we gonna so when are when is the point where we would revisit docs?
Well, that I mean, so you're gonna refer you're gonna refer the law. Okay. Right? And, I mean, you can as you get feedback from your planning board, your, the Westchester County board, the WAC.
So then here, I would like to propose that we take ducks out and see if we get pushed back for somebody to add ducks back in. Because if we don't, then we don't have a duck problem.
I mean, you could also here we are. Sorry. I'm sorry. I do I do want this to end. I really, really do. I mean, you could what what you could do is a way to do. But, I mean, if we're gonna add in the chart on the farm animals, you could add ducks to that chart
and say you're only allowed to keep two ducks on more than one acre or something like that. Okay. That's good. Okay. That's as long as there's some flexibility as long as there's some flexibility to do that. Yeah. I also don't wanna open a door where, like, somebody's not doing something right now and and we then open, you know, there because something's not permitted, then they're Everyone's gonna have a duck. We're gonna have ducks all over. Or somebody brings a horse back because they're like, oh, well, now, you know, I had my horses somewhere else, but now I'm gonna bring my horse back. Like, that's what I wanna try to avoid Yeah. In what we're doing. I have no idea if we've done that or not because Well, but, like, you're you're gonna get eyes on it and you can Yeah. Right. Mean, you're gonna even before you refer it, you're gonna have a draft of it and, you know, you can say if you look at the draft and you can say, oh, I really don't like this, then let's we can make a change to it before Right.
Relevant. I don't think so because we're adding the because we're We're gonna take we're gonna take ducks out of The definite out of being allowed and put it in the table with more specificity.
Okay. Yeah. Think that that makes sense. So the next step is we're gonna review a resolution, which is gonna start the a draft a draft Which ball with start the ball rolling with a bunch of other things. Normal. Okay. Normal way. Yeah. Okay. And what do we have a what do we think the timeline for something? Amendments to the zoning code take about two months, start to finish. Okay. Because I do think there are people who have a vested interest in Sure. How long the current situation is gonna be going on. So I think just giving a
conservative estimate of what we think it's I gonna mean, it could be depending on the summer, right, you know, like the village board is only scheduled for one meeting in August.
You know, there there are it it could be a little bit longer. The the general time is two months Okay. For But so that's the answer when people are saying to us, you talked about this tonight, when do you think there's gonna be resolution to the situation? Estimating it's gonna be about two months Yeah. We think. Okay. Yep. Then Thank you. Then it will be done. Yeah.
Alright. Discussion on establishing a policy on student members, for advisory committees.
Okay. So I put together, a memo on this. We've talked about this, on and off for a little while now. You know, we've had student members. Some have been officially appointed. Others have served in unofficial role. You know, it it did it does seem to make sense to have a pal a policy on this. You know, there are a lot of benefits to having student members involved in these committees, you know, build skills and habits of civic engagement, and also gives the committee members insight into things that they may not have with younger younger members participating. So there's no state law or or rule regarding this, but, you know, the state has encouraged student members on boards of education. And so there there's they're all board of education throughout the state now are required to at least have one, student member. That was a new law that was signed, starting last July. And so I put together you know, I looked at a lot of different
boards of ed that have kind of formulated policies on this now and, looked at some other places, throughout the country that had student, member policies. So I just put together some bullet points that, you know, we could discuss. So I said, you know, there should be no more than one student member for an advisory committee with seven or less members, and then no more than two for other, advisory committees. Student members would be appointed as nonvoting members of the advisory committee. Student members should be juniors or seniors in high school. They should reside in the village, have at least a 2.5 GPA, and have a letter of recommendation from their high school principal or dean. They're appointed to run with somewhat with the school year, September 1 to August 31, and that the student members would adhere to the guidelines that were adopted by the village board, including about attendance.
And then, you know, I would say most of our advisory committees would be suitable for student members, but, the WAC and the VEB would not necessarily
because I I did. I mean, I have a I've you'll be shocked to know that I have a lot to say on this. But but I'm pretty organized about it. Okay. But my my one my quest I was questioning why like, I Liam liaison to VEB. I think that it would be totally appropriate for the right member to student member to be on there. I'm I'm not gonna die on that hill, I just think that I was just curious why you picked those two to not have student members. Well, so so the so the WAC is made up of it has a membership. WAC, I WAC, I was not gonna Yeah. My question was more about VEB.
Yeah. So the I mean, the VEBin the in the code chapter that created it, right, it says that members are supposed to have certain
skill sets. Right? They're supposed to either be licensed architects or landscapers. I just think from being in those meetings, if you are a kid with that interest, it would be super interesting and a great experience to have access to people discussing the things that's be that are being discussed on the VEB. You know, as I said, I don't I don't feel that strongly about it, but I think there is we sit on it together. I think it's a good opportunity for somebody wouldn't be a perfect fit for everybody, but if you had a kid that had that interest, I just don't wanna block them out of that. I I mean, listen, if you if if we feel
wait, I shouldn't say wait. If the board feels that you wanna do that, we can look to I don't know if we wouldn't I mean, that's that board is specifically created by code. So you'd have to Right. Do a local law to amend the code. Right? Is doing, like okay. Yeah. So it's still the same category as the planning and zoning? Can't you can't have Yeah. I mean, it doesn't it doesn't it's not it's it's technically statutory because it's created by statute.
Okay. It's not is an answer.I didn't know what the answer was. Yeah. And I feel very satisfied by the answer. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay. Should I go into my other things? I don't I don't I don't necessarily wanna exclude somebody because their GPA is not 2.5. I don't I feel like if they're getting a recommendation from their guidance counselor at school, I don't I just don't wanna exclude somebody completely who maybe isn't a great student, but would be really benefit from this opportunity. So I would say that at least for the first iteration of this, let's take away the GPA requirement and see what happens. You know, I don't Yeah. I mean, I think that's suggestion. You keep the letter of recommendation? I would well, either maybe not a letter of recommendation, but, like, I think that we should talk about what the process looks like. You know, like, the guidance the guidance counselor recommending this person, we don't need, like, a long letter of why this person is great.
But I think as long as the guidance counselor is willing to or whoever we're identifying as the person, I think you said like Dean or something. I see a principal or Dean. I mean, it doesn't have debate. Well, I was reached out to so the reason, like, just if we back up, last August, I think, somebody at the school the guidance counselor at the school reached out to me to say, you're the liaison to the arts and humanities committee. We will we have students who are interested in doing this. I feel like maybe it was discussion before that, but I feel like that was really when I started harassing you about it. So, I think that coming through guidance is the place where it makes sense. So if the guidance counselor is willing to
put this person up, you know, recommend this person, then I don't know that we necessarily need a letter. I think we just need to be building that relationship with the guidance office so that that can happen. Yeah. I mean, I used the word letter there. I mean, yeah, this these were just bullet points. We can we can define what but there should be something from that individual school, whatever it might be. Could would would we consider a an appropriate faculty member or
Again, I don't think it really matters whether it's a teacher, guidance counselor. I think it's coming through guidance because the guidance counselor is gonna be saying to the kids who are juniors and seniors, like, what are you Yeah. Are you getting your college? Yeah. Right. Like, this is what you're interested in. This would be a great opportunity for you. Like, the village board has these five places where you might be able to plug yourself in. I think that's where the relationship is going to that's where that conversation is gonna take place based on recently having high school children. Are they required to do a civic uncertain number of hours since There there is a like, for for National Honor Society, in order to there's a there is a requirement for that. But also, it's not across the board. It's not for everyone, but I also think that this is something that would look really good on a college transcript to be able to say that you participated in this. Also, my kid participated on a committee in this way, and it was, like, very informally done, but I think it was beneficial. And it did give her it gave her an experience, but it also gave her something to put on her resume and to talk about.
The other thing is the, I think we need to have, like, a parental acknowledgment because some kids who are juniors are not 18 years old, and I really wanna make sure that our parents know this kid is gonna be on Tuesday night at 07:00 Yes. With the recreation advisory committee or whatever that looks like. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that just some type of acknowledgment and maybe even if the don't know what we can do if a kid is is over 18, but I think that I want this to not just be because the conversations I had with the arts and humanities committee was sort of we don't I'm paraphrasing, and they were not being negative about it. But they don't want this to be something that where, like, they're they're, like, babysitting. They want this to be, like, somebody who's engaged, somebody whose parents gonna drop them off and pick them up, like, all of that responsibility. Yeah. So the parents need to have a little bit of a role. These are high school kids even if they are super mature high school kids.
excluded committee. Oh, and then the only other thing I wanted to say is I wanna make sure that, and I don't know what the process exactly is gonna look like for the chairs. We've already given the chairs a lot to do this year with the new way that we're doing things. So but I want them to get the right committee member. But I also don't want there to be if I'm the chair of recreation advisory, my kid should not be on recreation advisory. We should have some type of you know, because there's a benefit to doing this. So I don't know what conflict of interest is too strong a word, but I wanna make sure that we're not just
system for for this working. Yeah. I mean, the board oh, they're gonna be appointed members, right? So Right. The mayor and the board confirm them as members. Right. So
so, yeah. I mean, I work with school boards, so I see this working so well. I was not I did sort of think in the beginning, like, this ad hoc school board thing is like but, like, I'm seeing kids really, really benefit from being able to sit at a table with a bunch of adults and have a voice even if they don't have a vote. So I think that this is an incredible opportunity and a great way to sort of bridge the gap. You know, you got to work with a with a student last year Yeah. During the CHOOSE project. I think it was a great experience for him and a great experience for you. Yes. So I think the more that we can be finding ways to to create these opportunities for kids, the better.
Are these gonna be voting members? No. Okay. Thank you. No. Never mind. Anyway, so that's all my thoughts.
Does this happen at the beginning of the school, like a certain time? Yeah. So I I wrote I wrote it to they would have terms starting September 1 to
August 30. I mean I think it should probably end whenever the school year ends, like, because the expectation that a kid's gonna do it through the through August when school ends in June or Right. So I mean, I it was just rather it was just easier to say a term of a year rather than, like, a term of ten months. I mean Yeah. That's fine. But I I just don't think it's realistic to think that we're gonna get kids I mean, a lot of committees don't meet in July and August anyway. Yeah. But I don't think that once they grad like, should run on the school year. Yeah. That that's what I was trying to do, have it run on the So the school year would typically ends June 30.
Yeah. I mean, I I just don't know if we want I mean, for the calendar, I mean, do we want to have it be a ten month term or just have it be?
I I also think that it's gonna take a little while. Like, they're not gonna start September 1. Yeah. They're gonna go back to school. They're gonna whatever. They're gonna talk to their so I think it more likely will it'll be amazing if the kids can start by October 1. I think it's gonna be a much more abbreviated
think I think it makes sense to leave it on the September 1 to August 31, even if there's no even if they don't show up in the summer. I mean, if they're done, they're done. They're not they're not gonna get reappointed at the end of August. And they can just provide a letter of interest, and then,
you can appoint them to the board. Yeah. So, mayor, do you see yourself interviewing these people the same way you do regular committee members? I just don't know what that what you're thinking that process looks like. Probably. I mean, I I think I would just take the recommendation of
And we would just ask them, like, these are the five openings. Do you can you try to help us fill them? Yeah. Yeah. I think that that's a really good idea.
Have the you know, I mean, I think it's I think it would also be beneficial if we put it out to the public as well because there could be private school children. Absolutely. Absolutely. Not just send it through the Could be a hen hut student that's interested in doing it. That's true too. So whatever whatever it is. I don't we haven't had people banging down the you know, there were a couple committees where there was interest, but otherwise it hasn't been. But I think once it's formalized, it's gonna be Yeah. It's out there and people know about it. Yeah. This would have been right up my alley in high school. Which committee would you have been on? I probably would have done recreation. You
I don't know what the pack mean on all the time. Not on that comment. Yeah. But it seems like is there confidential
I mean, I'm the I mean, the pack actually had student members when it first started. Okay. Yeah. So And it's like, we talk about it almost at every meeting about how there's nothing confidential really that's talked about. I mean, there's you're not supposed to talk about outside the meeting what you talk about, but there's nothing we're not nothing There's no there's no confidential information.
Yeah. You're probably not talking about, like, discipline and stuff. No. No. No. Yeah. Standard operating procedures. Yeah. Yeah.
Okay. So we'll put together with the with these couple of changes, we'll put together a formal policy. Mean, I'm happy to have people disagree with me on what my suggestions were, but obviously No. I didn't hear any disagreement. So
Everyone's meant to just stop talking. No. Wanna talk about this subject, School. I feel strongly about it. Thank you. It's been a year in the works.
Yeah. Oh, A school committee? Yeah. The lunchroom committee. Lunchroom, prom. No. My favorite was the a b club. Scraps because you need it. Food scraps. Yes. The a b club. Remember that? Back when you had to Push the TVs in. Push the TVs in? Yep. I was still in school for that. I don't know if Miguel was. Yeah. You were? Really? K. When I taught school, I was still making mimeograph. Oh. That
Alright. We need to keep moving on. Alright. Okay. What time is that? No. We're not. Sorry, mayor. Good morning, though. Two more we're we're getting there. We're getting there. Alright. So the heart committee. So we had said at the last I guess at the last work session, we said it would be on this work session's agenda. So just talking about the makeup and constitution of the heart committee and its future plans. So I don't know if anybody wants to start by sharing their thoughts.
Well, I suggested that the nature of the heart committee makes it suck and the and the makeup of it, as you just said. If we were to follow if the heart committee in its current state were to follow the rules that we put together for all the other committees, it would basically be disbanded. And they do do they do good work, but it is made up of people who are on other committees. But their duties are not exactly like the other committee. You know, it doesn't it doesn't run like other committees do. They do some ad hoc projects that either they suggest or we suggest, but not on a particularly, I don't think, like regular basis. Not that's not a negative thing, it's just a statement of fact. And so my suggestion was instead of making them adhere to the rules that we have made all the other committees adhere to, which meant that a lot of people or some people had to choose one committee or another. The heart committee could continue
to be constituted by people who serve on other committees, but it would not be an official committee anymore. It would be changed to like an ad hoc committee or something or whatever the right term And
we did we did have an ad hoc committee envisioned under our naming policy, which, you know, if if the board wanted, it could fill that it could fill that role.
Right. So, I I mean, I think that's a good idea. I think they do really good work with what they do, and I don't. And in talking with the committee members, even just how to change the lead I think the committee is happy with the way it's functioning, with the leadership in place the way it is, and the membership in place the way it is. They don't have any desire to change the current makeup of the committee. Although there might be a opening, I think. Maybe I'm wrong. No. There are There are openings. Or openings. And also, we may be able, excuse me, to fill those openings if people knew they didn't have to like show up every Tuesday or whatever once a month, Yeah. Whatever that Right. They could just come in and participate,
but in a less formal way. Yeah. I think it's it's, you know, pretty much functioning that way now. It's, you know, fairly infrequent meetings as as committees go. And, you know, just based on, you know, just as an example, the Coach Dobney event a week ago, Sunday, I think it it does the heart committee does something that that I think is very valuable for the community, not not done in any other way. So I I think just, you know, keep going. I I would say that, you know, they've been functioning on the basis of three per year. I don't know that they necessarily have to do three per year so we can kinda Three events or three meetings? Three no. Three honorees. Okay. Three different people to honor or groups to honor. So I think, you know, we can kinda let them, you know, loosen that, you know, so that it's not which is something I think they adopted themselves. It's not in the resolution. In your resolution. No. So just keep keep going, you know, the way they are. It's it's it's it's been valuable and, you know, just,
you know, support them in any way we can.
So we would refer to them as a different type of committee? Yeah. They they would be they hypothetically,
what trustee slip in was saying, they would no longer be they would no longer be a a A standing. A standing committee. They would they would be an ad hoc where they would only they would only meet or plan something on call of the board. Mhmm. So,
you know, that that they came to the board with in terms of ideas. Oh, yeah. Yeah. They yes. But, I mean, the direction would come from the board. Yeah. Right? As opposed to now where they're kind of self directing. Mhmm. You know, I mean, I I think that the committee I I agree with trustee Simon in that the three events a year is a lot. You know, when this committee was formed, my suggestion at the time was to have it be, like, one of one honoree a year and have it be more of, like, a public process so that people could submit, you know, which, as far as I know, is not really going on right now. They're kind of choosing themselves. I don't know what You know? So and and and that's in no way meant to take away from the people that they have chosen. They're all very worthy people. But I I think that kind of channeling them a little bit better would would certainly benefit everyone.
Oh, I I was I was just seeing who the so do you as the liaise so do you do you, mayor and deputy mayor, you guys are liaisons. So you go to the meetings that they have, like I don't what's the We do. Carolyn, I mean Carolyn is the chair of that and she's also the chair of PAC. I only know the way she manages the PAC committee which is like very well managed. So I assume that there's a lot of communication in between meetings Yeah. That looks Exactly. Like, you know, I I think most of the meetings that
that we've had have been meetings that have, you know, sought to sort of plan out the next few months. And, you know, once you establish that, you know, we're gonna honor the doctors, you know, then a lot of that can be done by email and occasional, you know, checking in. But it's not it's not like every single Thursday of every single third Thursday of every month or so. It's I think it's and, also, most of the people most of the committee members now have been either they're either from the start or, you know, very soon thereafter. So they know, you know, very much how to how to get get things going.
So you're you're in agreement with Yeah. I don't have strong opinions. Okay. Trustee Nachtaler, are you you're okay you're okay with what trustee Slippen is proposing? Okay. I am. Trustee Simon, are you yes. Okay. Ad hoc committee. Yep. Okay. I'm giving it a different name. Yeah. So I so, I mean, we kinda we we did this a year or two ago. I can't remember exactly when with the trails committee where we, you know, relegated them from because they used to be the stand alone committee, then we put them as a subcommittee. So it would be somewhat the same thing where we just passed a resolution changing it from a standing committee to an ad hoc committee. Yeah. Keeping the name. Keeping the name. Which Yep. Which was the first great function of the committee Yeah. Creating that name. Yeah. And also, you know, like, under the current resolution, right, you're supposed to have between five and seven village residents. You wouldn't necessarily need to have such you wouldn't need to have such stringent
regulations on the ad hoc committee. It could be a little less formal. So so we'll put something together for that.
Okay. Snow in the summer. The memo, please. Yes. Well, this is the perfect time to talk about it. Alright? And now we're gonna talk I've already told, superintendent Balbi that it's not going to snow this winter because, you know We're done. Yeah. We're we're gonna be so prepared, and we're not gonna get any snow. We did double duty last year. I know. But they got two years worth last family in Maine didn't have that much snow. Really? So I don't know what happened. So anyway, so we talked I talked to the chief and I talked to superintendent Balbi about our existing parking regulations. You know, the the regulations that we have have pretty much been unchanged since 1993. You know, they they allow no parking on the street once two inches of snow has accumulated. Prior to 1993, street parking was completely banned from November 20 to April 1 each year between three and 6AM. So regardless of whether regardless of whether it snowed or not. And I mean, honestly, that's still how a lot of municipalities
do it. So but we changed it, like I said, in 1993. You know, these regulations exist for a number of reasons. Streets without vehicles allow the crews to clear curb to curb in an efficient manner, saves the time that's needed to clear the street once the storm has ended, and then, having the streets cleared allows for safe passage for emergency vehicles, essential workers, and so on. You know? But as we all know, we heard, from a lot of people over the past winter about, you know, snow smaller snow events being, you know, three inches of snow. And, you know, because we live in the Northeast and we do deal with snow on a somewhat frequent basis, you know, three inches of snow does not necessarily shut down the village. Right? So, you know, people were not able to park on the street with three inches of snow, but a lot of our businesses were still open. So, you know, what I what I discussed with the superintendent and what we feel comfortable with proposing
is that, we allow parking in our business districts from 7AM to 7PM on one side of the street. And, during the nighttime period, on street parking would continue to be prohibited to ensure DPW can clear the roadways efficiently. And then if there was a major storm like the blizzards, obviously, we would be we would have the ability to prohibit on street parking, you know, for twenty twenty four hours, you know, under the state of emergency declaration. So, and, you know, if we had another blizzard, I would think most of the businesses would be closed anyway. You would hope. So, so that's that's the proposal that we are, looking for the board to consider for, parking. And then, in regards to our sidewalk network, the list of areas that DPW is responsible for continues to grow. And so with this past winter, especially, it was it was difficult for our crews to be able to get to the sidewalks,
within the time window that's prescribed under the code. And so we looked at the, I met with superintendent Balbi and the foreman and the assistant foreman to go over the list of locations that we clear. And a number of these are actually, sidewalks that are adjacent to private property that for one reason or another have been on our list. And so, you know, under the code, the owners of these properties are legally responsible for clearing those sidewalks. So, I plan to send a letter to these property owners, shortly after we have this meeting, just letting them know that, know, starting with the upcoming winter, they're going to be responsible for their for their sidewalks. Additionally, I'm I'm recommending that, two sections of the code, section one ninety seven fifteen be modified. That section of the code, lists the sidewalks that we exempt from the twelve hour prohibition because of their geographical location.
Namely, these are ones where the houses are up on a hill and the sidewalk is at the bottom of the hill, and the property owners don't have, don't have access to that sidewalk from their property. Think of, like, the houses that are on the Duck Pond Hill, and they have the sidewalk on South Riverside. Right? Those those people up on the hill there have no way to get down to those to get down to that sidewalk, but it abuts their property. So they're Got it. They're responsible for it. So we exempt those types of sidewalks and and DPW clears them. Mhmm. So I'm not I'm not proposing that we change that. What I'm proposing is that there's actually a section of Farrington that was brought to our attention last winter that we should add to that to the list that we clear because, again, it can't be easily accessed. It's homes that are on Palmer that can't access the sidewalk on Farrington.
Okay. Well, I I just think that our our business folks who really have a hard enough time during snowstorms in general, I think are gonna be very pleased, know, by I I hope so. By this innovative approach. Yeah. I I think, you know, we heard we heard the the the request loud and clear Yeah. During the
during the winter. And so, you know, I wanted to I wanted to try to come up with a way that we could that we could address it. Yeah. Just from a practical do we do we then if we're doing the one side, do we rotate that over or Was it alternate side? No. It wouldn't be alternate It would it would just it would be one side of the street. I mean, it would have to have signage posted, so I don't think we would alternate it. It would it would be Yeah. Fixed that way. Yeah. And, again, it would only be effective during the day, so people wouldn't be able to leave their cars there Right. Overnight. So DPW would be able to come through and clear it, and then it would be available again the next morning. It's still a very I think a very significant move forward. Yeah. Yeah. It's main it's mainly to to allow time for when the shops would be open so that people have some place to park. Right? Because, you know, specifically, like North Riverside and and South Riverside,
besides street parking, there really are not too many options for public off street parking. I mean, the Upper Village, for all the parking issues that we have here, at least we have some off street parking in the Upper Village for people to use, but the other areas don't really have much at all.
park? It doesn't It would be it would be an right. So our parking restrictions go into effect at two inches, but this would just be it would just be you'd be allowed to park from seven to seven regardless. Okay. Yeah. That's good. Yep. So how what's your plan for communicating this? Well, so this is a this is a local law change. Okay. Yes. So you'd have to go through a have a public hearing and get feedback and then ultimately adopt the law. We'd have to get new signage to put up. You know, the superintendent and I haven't actually gone through and decided which side of the street would be. You know, we need to look at where driveways are and see, you know, what would be best for parking. But, you know, then when we do that, we can certainly let the business community know and, you know, let the general public know.
So this would include the North Riverside Yes. Business section. Yeah. The business district. Yeah. Get They specifically mentioned that when they were here at some point, think. Yes. They did. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, what what I'm envisioning is it would be North Riverside, it would be Harmon, South Riverside, and it would be the the Upper Village. Yep. So what the bound the exact boundaries TBD
Right. But it would be those three areas. And then the property owners who are impacted by this, you'll contact them direct they'll get a letter or something?
So that's for the sidewalks. Oh, oh, sorry. For the sidewalks. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'm gonna send them I'm gonna send them a letter. Okay. Yeah. Manager that's I was gonna add, can you if they happen to be seniors,
you know, we know it was really difficult year. Yeah. I mean, to expect it was hard for anybody to Yeah. You know, shovel. But, if you could add in the letter if there are any you know, if this is a senior household, remember
or, you know, there's the The snowflake program. Snowflake program and and just have them sign up because Most there are there are a couple of residential properties that, for whatever reason, were added to the list, but the majority of them are commercial. They're they're along South Riverside and Corner Point Avenue. Okay. So but, I mean, I I think that was done I'm speculating here because I really don't know because it it predates, you know, both myself and the superintendent. But I'm thinking that was done because the village wanted to ensure that the sidewalks would be shoveled for commuters. Mhmm. You know, but that's not that's not so much an issue now with, you know, if it's well, it's important that the sidewalks are shoveled. I'm just saying if it's if it snows, people just work from home. And we've also reduced it used to be that you had eighteen hours clear your sidewalk. Now you only have twelve hours. So if it snows,
you know, during the day, by the time the commuters are going to the train the next day, your twelve hours are up. So I think I think that's less of an issue now at this point. So Okay. Well, I'm glad that we're tackling this in June because there's plenty of time. That was the idea. Right? Yeah. I mean, you know, I wanted to give I wanted to give yeah. Thank you. I wanted to give people ample operate for the ones who were changing the practice. Right? I wanna give those people ample opportunity if they need to hire a service So or whatever it might
Yeah. Yeah. That but probably I mean, it's gonna take Frank and I a little time, so probably sometime in July. Oh. You know, we'll have the law and then maybe schedule the public hearing for the meeting in August. And then but the the letters, I'll try to get out, you know, either this week or next week. So I wrote a draft already. Just have to get it out.