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The regular meeting of the Mechanicville City Council was held at the Central Fire Station, North Main Street, Mechanicville, NY, on Wednesday, April 21, 2010. Mayor Sylvester opened the meeting at 3:05 p.m. Roll
Call: Mayor Sylvester - present Comm. Higgins led the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag. Mayor Sylvester, seconded by Comm. Seber, moved that the minutes of the regular meeting of April 7, 2010 be accepted as prepared. Roll Call: Affirmative – all. Negative – none. Mayor Sylvester received a letter from the Stillwater Area Community Services Center requesting the annual $7,000 funding from the City of Mechanicville for the Elder Care Transportation Program at the Stillwater Community Center as a significant number of city residents use this program for doctor appointments, pharmacies, etc. Said on Saturday at 8:00 a.m. at Talmadge Park an Army Blackhawk helicopter will land as part of the opening ceremonies for this year’s Little League Season. Said they will march from the park to the Little League field and the helicopter will follow them there. Comm. Seber said they are still collecting water and sewer. Said there aren’t a lot of doings going on right now. Comm. Chauvin had nothing to report at this time. Mayor Sylvester said Comm. Hipwell is on his way here. Said he is in communications with a couple of people on picking up another bus. Said the county gave us $16,000 but they really can’t find something reasonable at that price. Said they found one out in California for $16,000 but it has 200,000 miles on it, the guy told us it won’t make the trip back here. Said they have one for $47,000 so they may be asking for money someday. It will probably be around $60,000. Comm. Higgins said $40,000. Mr. Serbalik called for an executive session involving the 2006 tax litigation issues. Comm. Higgins said tomorrow they will be done with the fire hydrants. Said they finally got rid of the silt at the water plant after 9 months of trying to get rid of it. Thinks they have two or three truck loads left and then it’s gone. Said they have been calling County Waste on the garbage cans and they haven’t gotten any response, they were supposed to be here two weeks ago. Mayor Sylvester said there was a commercial on TV this morning that they want people to put all their recyclables in one can now. Comm. Seber asked what they will put the stuff in. Comm. Higgins said he thinks they will give the whole city a recyclable can. Mayor Sylvester said if it works out, it will save us money. Comm. Higgins said not only on the recyclables but it’s the garbage cans they can do with the one arm. Said we have to wait until our contract is up. Comm. Seber asked if it would be profitable in our city. Comm. Higgins said he said yes but he doesn’t know if it will work with cars parked. Mayor Sylvester said they will have to bring them out to the edge of the car. Comm. Higgins said or the end of a driveway. Said he said it will save us a ton of money. Mayor Sylvester said he doesn’t know if everyone knows what’s been going on with the sludge but Comm. Higgins saved us a ton of money by getting Mr. Fane to take it across the river to get rid of it. Said DEC was going to have them take it to Seneca Falls at $36,000. Comm. Higgins said it would have been $36,000 but what Mr. Fane took was probably 3 times as much as what was looked at and they are probably looking at 9 or $10,000. Chief Waldron said April 15th was school bus safety day throughout NYS. Said they followed 7 school buses with no violations which is very good. Said they had some complaints in some areas and they were sitting in those areas and they haven’t found anybody passing any school buses. Said to be watchful. Said this weekend is a big weekend for opening days of things. Friday night there is going to be a parade at 7:00 p.m. for the Mechanicville for the Mechanicville/Stillwater Lassie League which will leave from the Methodist Church and go down to the DeCrescente Field so expect some traffic delays but they should be brief. Said the Mayor has already touched upon this but he met with the commanding officers of the military to go over the Black Hawke Helicopter landing in Talmadge Park at 8:00 a.m. Said they will bring extra police officers in because it’s imperative that people are a safe distance away because any debris will go flying. Once the kids exit to their parade route, they will take the helicopter over to the ball field and land smack in the middle of the baseball field. Said at that point there will be no parking anywhere located on the south side of the Little League Field because there are a lot of little stones there and there is a high potential of debris flying from this helicopter. Said they did their scouting and gave recommendations to the Commissioner. They will make sure that everybody is at a safe distance. Comm. Seber asked if he had any idea of what kind of a radius are they talking about from the helicopter. Chief Waldron said what they are doing is you will see the path that goes to Talmadge Park; everybody will be restricted to that path or the other side of the path. Said no one will be allowed to go to the bandstand or beyond. Said it’s a nice safe distance. Sam Carabis said a few years back a medivac helicopter landed in the Little League Field. Mayor Sylvester opened up the meeting to public comment. No one spoke. Mayor Sylvester
read RES. NO. 42-10 CITY COUNCIL DECLARING ITS INTENT TO CONTINUE Introduced by Mayor Sylvester, seconded by Comm. Higgins. Roll Call: Affirmative – all. Negative – none. Mayor Sylvester
read RES. NO. 43-10 CITY COUNCIL REFERS THE ACTION AND ESPLANADE Introduced by Mayor Sylvester, seconded by Comm. Seber. Roll Call: Affirmative – all. Negative – none. Mayor Sylvester
read RES. NO. 44-10 CITY OF MECHANICVILLE RETAINING HRP Introduced by Mayor Sylvester, seconded by Comm. Chauvin. Roll Call: Affirmative – all. Negative – none. Mayor Sylvester
read RES. NO. 45-10 PAYMENT TO STEVEN SGAMBATI TO UPDATE LOSAP Introduced by Mayor Sylvester, seconded by Comm. Chauvin. Comm. Seber said the problem he has with this resolution is not work Steve did. Said he’s of the belief that if you hire somebody, whatever the work is the work is, it’s not piece meal, we’re not doing things one piece at a time. Said they hired him for $250.00 to do the work and that includes the catching up with the work and he doesn’t think they need to pay anyone any additional funds for that. Roll
Call: Mayor Sylvester - yes Comm. Chauvin read RES. NO. 46-10 PAYROLL AND VOUCHERS Introduced by Comm. Chauvin, seconded by Mayor Sylvester. Roll Call: Affirmative – all. Negative – none. Mr. Serbalik wanted to bring the council up-to-date on the resolutions for SEQRA. Said last year the city was lead agency for the Esplanade Project. The SEQRA (State Environmental Quality Review Act) had to be complied with so the council was directed to be the lead agency. Said it went through the City Council and Planning Board for approval of the project as it existed at that time which was May but nothing was done. Said they received final approval of that project but what they did in the beginning of January was to revise the project to include more residential units. Said with the revision of the plans, the council again has to assume the lead approval process and they submitted new plans which will be in front of the Planning Board in May and the request was for that informational meeting to be held with the Planning Board and the City Council on the new revised project for May 19th. Said at that point, after the informational meeting, there is going to be a meeting with the Planning Board on the first Monday of June on what’s called preliminary site approval. If the Planning Board approves that, either the preliminary or they can go to final approval and if the Council at the May 19th meeting also approves the project, the project for all intended purposes can be ready to go either in mid June or July depending upon the final Planning Board and Council approval. The City Council will remain the lead agency to make the final decision in that respect the site plan for the purpose of SEQRA. Comm. Seber said so in effect the May 19th meeting will be a council and a planning board meeting, they will make their presentation so it sort of counts as the first meeting of the Planning Board. Mr. Serbalik said it will be counted as an informational meeting for the Planning Board. Said if the Planning Board is satisfied with what’s there or if they have questions and they can be answered at the first June meeting, the Planning Board can theoretically give final approval at that point. Said there will be two meetings before the Planning Board so the Planning Board can wrap it up in June if they so chose, probably July at the latest. Comm. Seber said May 19th is an afternoon meeting, we will have to move that to the evening to accommodate everyone. Mayor Sylvester said talking about the Planning Board, are we going to have a public hearing also that night to take away sending people for farm stands to the planning board. Mr. Serbalik said there is a provision in the code that says anyone who wants to use the property for outside sales has to go before the Planning Board to make sure that there are no traffic problems or whatever and that applies to anyone, a transient or a person who owns property in the city or whatever. Said there is a provision in the code that says these permits have to be granted on a yearly basis and he thinks the amendment to solve the problem where these vendors don’t have to come back every year and do the same thing, if somebody wants to come in initially and set up an outside vending, it would be appropriate for the Planning Board to insure that it’s okay but then on a yearly basis if they are going to be doing the same thing, if we eliminate that one provision just saying they have to go back every year, he thinks that will solve the problem but that would be an amendment to the code so we have to have a public hearing on that. Comm. Seber said thinks they should have the hearing the same night because it’s that time of the year that the vendors are going to come in. Mr. Serbalik said if they want to eliminate them coming back every year like BJ Farms and Debbie’s, you eliminate that provision. No old business. Mayor Sylvester made a motion to close the regular meeting at 3:30 p.m. to go into an executive session, seconded by Comm. Seber. Roll Call: Affirmative – all. Negative – none. Mayor Sylvester, seconded by Comm. Seber made a motion to close the executive session to re-open the regular meeting at 3:50 p.m. Roll Call: Affirmative – all. Negative – none. Comm. Seber, seconded by Mayor Sylvester, moved that the regular meeting be adjourned at 3:52 p.m. Roll Call: Affirmative – all. Negative – none. |