Citizens for an Informed Yorktown

 

 

Town Board

February 4, 2014

 

CL.OSED SESSION

(Agenda items not available)

 

OPEN SESSION

Absent: Supervisor Grace

 

1. Appointments

ABACA: Edwin Pell was reappointed for a three year term.

 

2. Courtesy of the Floor

Sale of town-owned properties.Susan Siegel, the person writing this summary, asked the Board if it had changed its mind about selling the five houses it took in rem last year at auction in order to get the most amount of money and instead would be selling the properties based on bids submitted directly to the town. Noting that a $50,000 bid had been accepted for a house on a 4.81 acre site, she wanted to know if there were minimum bid prices, whether the bids were open or sealed and whether there was deadline for submitting bids. She said that while accepting bids for vacant parcels that might be of interest only to abutting property owners made sense, many more people would be interested in purchasing the houses is they knew about them.

 

In response, Councilman Bianco said that the town might sell the properties by auction or bid and that some properties are only of interest to abutting property owners. He also said that there was a cost to selling properties at auction, although Ms. Siegel responded that the buyer pays the premium, not the town as seller.

 

In a related action, after the town attorney said something to Board members that was inaudible to the audience, the Board postponed voting to approve the sale of one of the vacant parcels that had been taken in rem. No reason was given for the postponement.

 

Convalescent home. Citing what she said were inconsistent sections of the zoning code regarding nursing homes and convalescent homes, Linda Gironda asked the Board to request an interpretation from the Zoning Board as to what constituted a convalescent home, specifically whether a convalescent home was independent of a nursing home. She said that the building inspector has stated that a convalescent home is separate from a nursing home.  She asked that the interpretation be made before the March 4 public hearing.  She also referred to an email that had been sent to Board members asking for clarification about the agenda and format for the February 24 informational meeting and the concern of homeowners that the informational meeting might be duplicative of the public hearing.  She said the homeowners did not want the informational meeting to be moderated by the Town Board, but rather by a separate moderator and that the homeowners did not want to argue the benefits of a halfway house but rather issues revolving around the special permit. In response to Ms. Gironda’s question whether any of the other agencies the  application had been referred to had an obligation to submit comments, Deputy Town Clerk Quast said the agencies were under no obligation to comment on the application but that she would check back with them.

 

3. Award Bids

The Board awarded bids for body work on town cars to Yorktown Auto Body and to Luposello’s Auto Body for town trucks.

 

4. Sale of unneeded town equipment

The Board authorized selling unneeded equipment from the Water Department and the Building Department using the online service, Auctions International.

 

5. Mohegan Manor Sewer Issue

The Board approved a resolution allowing representatives of the Mohegan Manor Adult Care Facility to conduct tests of the Yorktown sewer system to see if it has the capacity to potentially allow the facility to hook up to the Yorktown system.

 

6. Ethics Code Violation

In an item not on the agenda, Councilman Murphy expressed disappointment that a Statement of Findings from the Ethics Board dealing with the member of the Town Board that was not supposed to be public knowledge had been leaked to the media, adding that what was reported in the newspaper was “just the opposite” of what was in the Ethics Board’s findings.  The Town Board, with three members present, then voted for a verbal resolution that said the Town Board agreed with the Ethics Board’s finding that there had been no impropriety on the part of a Town Board member and that Board members would take the ethics training class recommended  by the Ethics Board  ini its findings that they had already done. The Board did not identify the board member referenced in the Ethics Board’s findings.