A letter from Supervisor Dougherty

To the Editor:

A significant, happy and tax saving event on the shared services front – the mandate Governor Cuomo handed down early this year to “inefficient, small New York State Town Governments” to get into shared services, “or else.”

Southold and Shelter Island are entering into a 2018 shared services agreement whereby the highly regarded Southold Town Engineer Michael Collins will provide engineering services to Shelter Island to assist in handling our MS4 and other engineering issues.

It gets better – we were anticipating an up to $80 an hour charge for Michael’s services and are agreeing on $50.64 an hour. Better still – as an incentive to jump start the shared services program, the state is offering cash rebates to Towns getting in early, and I am confident the 2018 Town Board will take advantage of this offer.

On December 12 I executed an agreement with the Scudder family to purchase with 2 percent open space funds an approximately one acre waterfront lot at the end of Congdon Road on Congdon Creek, where our town dock is located.

One less waterfront home – and heartfelt thanks to the Scudder family for their cooperation and agreeing to a bargain price of $800,000.

JIM DOUGHERTY

Supervisor, Town of Shelter Island