Government

Town Board: Goat Hill roof, senior kitchen on busy agenda

PETER BOODY PHOTO | Town Attorney Laury Dowd, the town official designated to oversee the town’s compliance with the state’s stormwater pollution abatement program, shows a layout of the Highway Barn area at Tuesday’s Town Board work session to explain how runoff is controlled and contained on the site. Councilwoman Chris Lewis and Supervisor Jim Dougherty look on.

Repairs to the Goat Hill roof, work to update the kitchen at the town Senior Center despite limited funds, making vacant slips at Congdon Creek Dock available to people on the waiting list after July 1, and appointing John Needham to the town’s Ferry Advisory Committee to fill a vacancy left by George Walsh were the topics covered at a busy Town Board work session on Tuesday, June 28.

No major decisions were made but a lot of subjects were covered and there were a few clues that the town election season is just on the horizon.

Speaking of the state’s newly adopted 2-percent cap on property tax hikes by school districts, towns, villages and cities, Town Supervisor James Dougherty touched off one minor political fracas when he pointed out how much lower town tax-rate increases have been since he came into office in 2007. He’s running for reelection this fall for a third term.

His assertion prompted Councilman Ed Brown, whose term is not up this year, to defend past boards. He made a point of saying they paid for major infrastructural improvements including a new highway barn and equipment, carried out major land acquisitions that took property off the tax rolls; and they also boosted the annual fund balance, which he said boards under Mr. Doughtery have tapped to hold down tax increases.

Councilman Waddington noted that costs also rose under a past administration because of “a substantial increase in one of the union contracts.”

Mr. Doughherty noted that in 2003 the town budget stood at about $3 million and had reached about $11 million in the years since then.

Another somewhat lighter political moment came when Republican candidate for supervisor Bob DeStefano asked from the audience for details about Ram Islanders’ complaints concerning repairs needed to limit erosion on the Coecles Harbor side of the Second Causeway. “What was actually promised to them they’re not getting?” Mr. DeStefano asked.

Mr. Dougherty said the town’s engineering firm was coming up with plans to bolster the “inside” shore of the causeway. He said appraisals were expected by fall but that realistically he expected them in the spring. “There’s no crisis,” he said, joking at one point that he wasn’t going to give Mr. DeStefano material with which to attack him during the coming election season.

Next Mr. DeStefano touched on the sore subject of the Coecles Harbor dock at the Ram’s Head Inn. “Is it not on town property?” he asked, inquiring if there weren’t maps that settled  the question.

“I’m recusing myself,” said Peter Reich, who is in the construction business with Ram’s Head co-owner James Eklund.

“It’s on town property,” said Councilman Glenn Waddington, who is running as an independent for supervisor in what has shaped up to be a three-way race.

“We did a survey and it’s clearly on town property,” said Mr. Dougherty.

Councilwoman Chris Lewis, a Republican like Mr. DeStefano but whose term is not up this year, said it wasn’t “the time or place” to discuss the issue “and what happens next.”

Among the topics covered on Tuesday, the board:

• Heard from Public Works Commissioner Mark Ketcham that the main cedar roof at the town-owned Shelter Island County Club, also known as Goat Hill,  needed to be completely replaced at a cost of about $12,000 to $13,000. He said there was no money in this year’s budget for the work but he planned to include it in the 2012 budget, which the Town Board will be drafting this fall.

• Heard from Councilwoman Chris Lewis and Supervisor Dougherty that they had met with officials of the private fundraising group, the Shelter Island Senior Citizens Foundation, who reported they would not fund the balance required to pay for an overhaul of the Senior Center kitchen after the town uses up pending county block grants from 2009-2011 totaling about $56,000 to pay for it. Ms. Lewis said the work probably would cost  $18,000 to $20,000 more than the town had available. “Jim and I fought the good fight with the foundation but I’m not sure we won,” she said. She urged the town to start the project and finish it over time, as funding becomes available. The Senior Center kitchen is not up to county health codes for serving hot meals prepared there to the public.

• Agreed that people with slips at Congdon Creek Dock that are vacant be notified after July 1 that they must use the slips or lose them to people on a waiting list, according to a new code amendment adopted by the board this year. Town Clerk Dorothy Ogar said she had heard from no slip tenants that they intended to give up their slips for lack of use. Bay Constable Peter Vielbig and Police Chief James Read said the people in question were being contacted.

• Heard Glenn Waddington call for the public to be able to obtain all the data the town uses to fix the location of mooring sites in its various town mooring grids. At the suggestion of Bay Constable Vielbig, board members appeared to agree that posting the latest data on line in a PDF format would provide access without requiring a secure log-in to any database.

• Heard Mr. Dougherty report that, for the Town Board, there was “a huge loophole” in the state’s new 2-percent cap on tax increases because it could be overridden by a vote of three of the board’s five members. School budgets with a higher tax increase, on the other hand, can’t be passed without 60 percent of voters approving it, he said.

• Agreed to set a public hearing at its next formal meeting on July 8 on a law  based on a state model that will require stormwater pollution abatement for construction that disturbs an acre or more of property, as mandated by the state under the federal Clean Water Act. The  hearing would be set for later in July. Councilman Glenn Waddington, who had opposed an earlier version, said he was no longer opposed. Likewise, the Town Planning Board in its review of the proposal “seemed OK with it,” Mr. Waddington said.

• Heard stormwater pollution abatement officer Laury Dowd, the town attorney, discuss abatement policies and needs at the town Highway Barn site, in according with the state’s stormwater abatement rules.

• Heard Councilwoman Lewis make a plea for the revival of SIHOP, the private non-profit fundraising group that promotes affordable housing opportunities on the Island. Board members agreed that, after a slump in real estate seemed to ease the housing crisis for low- and moderate-income people, rents had soared and more people were once again hard-pressed to find housing.