Workshop Minutes
City of
The
Workshop for the City of
Those
in attendance were: Mayor
Clara Lou Gould
Council Members Leake, Way, Kyriacou, Antalek and Fasano.
Excused: Council
Member Thompson
Also present were: City
Administrator, Joseph Braun
City
Attorney, Gerard Pisanelli
David H. Stolman, AICP, PP President, Planning/Development/Environmental/Transportation
Jennifer
VanTuyl
Begin
with Private Roads
David Stolman – The December 9, 2004 Proposed Local Law is the latest version which primarily pertains to common driveways. The Planning Board thinks a common driveway is more appropriate than a single driveway. Eventually you are going to want to take these private road standards to a public hearing. These were designed with the best interest of the city in mind. This set of standards will be applicable to a couple of projects right now. They are the Tioronda property and the Ebert property. The Tioronda project is on the Planning Board Agenda. It might be appropriate to have a meeting with the property owners to talk about how and if all these standards would apply and to modify the standards for the better if necessary. You might want to do this before you take it to a public hearing. There needs to be some interaction to work things out. We have met on that project on an ongoing basis. We had a site visit not too long ago. It will be to the best interest to the city to make some adjustments.
I
am suggesting that Art Tully and I meet with the Tioronda Applicant to talk
about the use of these standards and how they would apply to the project. Eventually, there would be one set of
standards that will fit all future sub-divisions. If these standards do not apply, there may
need to be a variance
Fred
Antalek: Regarding
They
went through the trouble of going through zoning and now they are going to sell
it. None of the Council Members were
aware that the property being sold. Fred
Antalek happened to see the signs tonight on his way to this workshop.
Mr.
Stolman will get back to the Council in the next couple of weeks.
Next
Workshops: Jan. 31 and February 18.
In
September or October of last year, the city council rezoned a number of properties but not the
Ursuline Property. At that time, at the
Public Hearing, there was a strong mention of not to do anything with the
Ursuline property. Therefore, the Ursuline Property was put on hold. At that time the City Council was
entertaining three local laws.
Note: City Attorney, Gerard Pisanelli excused
himself from this workshop to attend the Zoning Board Meeting upstairs.
To
rezone the Ursuline Property, the front would have gone to one acre zoning, the
middle to 2 acre zoning and the property closest to Fishkill’s eastern most
part to 3 acre zoning. Those local laws
were put on hold at that time. These
three items on the Ursuline Property have to be resolved. The thought was to put this back on the
agenda to try to move it ahead.
Mayor
Gould asked Jennifer VanTuyl if she had any information to at this time.
Jennifer
VanTuyl - (Answered questions from the spectator seats). Since she was not informed until late this
afternoon that this issue would be on tonight’s workshop agenda, she had no
time to prepare a report. She intends to
speak to their attorney sometime tomorrow.
She asked for time to get a report to the council. The city council agreed that she could
present her findings at the next workshop or the one after. At that time she will be able to answer the
questions that were raised at this workshop or get the person to come and
speak.
The
Estimated Budget on Page 6 of this document was discussed. Council Member Kyriacou asked why the
original plan which was done ten years ago cost so much more. David Stolman answered that much more work
was done at that time and because of that there was less work to do this time.
Also
discussed were various ways to distribute this information to the public -
Mailings, Website, newspapers, emails.
Council
The
cost of printing is not included. City
Administrator, Joseph Braun will contact printers to get a price.
The
Mayor suggested using interns from the High School? They are eager to help.
David
Stolman: There may be some things they
can do.
Council
Member Kyriacou: Who would be the lead
Agency in charge of this project?
David
Stolman: I would think that the City
Council would want to put together a committee – not too large to become
cumbersome. This committee should
include representation from planning, zoning, city council environmental, CSE
perhaps a couple of residents. The
ultimate goal is for the city council to adopt the master plan.
The
Survey can go out to all residents as well as be placed on the website. The draft plan and the final plan can also go
on the website.
Regular
meetings of this committee will be open to the public as well. There will be input sessions from the
public. Inventory and analysis should be
put on the website.
Update: City Administrator, Joseph Braun spoke to Mr.
Bill Erlich. He would like to lease his
property for parking to the city on a long term basis as long as the city
agrees to allow him thirty parking spaces for parking for whatever he does on
Council
Members Way: Why should we commit to
paying thousands of dollars for parking when we do not know how many parking spaces
are or will be available and how many Mr. Erlich will use.
Maybe
we should offer credit to any private parking property that we are interested
in using for public parking.
We
might look into purchasing this property.
Once we acquire it we will maintain it.
Also, we should verify that this is a block where we need additional
parking. We can offer full market value
plus give them credit. If it works it
will be a model for other blocks
Re: Cervone Property at Church and North Cedar –
If we also purchase this piece of property, the city will own a one-half of a
city block which can be used for parking.
Joseph
Braun: With the library, Cervone’s and
these three parcels, there will be a considerable amount of parking.
Council
Member Kyriacou: Maybe we should get the
loan now and keep it in the bank because the interest rate is low.
An
appraisal has been done on Chestnut and
Letter
from Joseph H. Braun dated
“Attached
is the plan for completion of improvements to the east end of
From
Verplanck all the way over to
North
Chestnut Reconstruction-
Re: Letter from City Administrator, Joseph Braun
which read as follows:
“Attached
are two plans for the reconstruction of
Council
Member Antalek: I can’t see penalizing
the people who live there by taking the parking in front of their building away
when in fact this is not a main roadway
If you take the sidewalks away from one side and widen the roads, you
will create a speed zone.
Alternate
side of the street parking was suggested which will slow traffic.
Council
Member Kyriacou: I propose, on this one,
that we do a traffic study and the financial planning to see what our pattern
is. Cedar Street may have changed. South Chestnut is (except for all but the
last block) is sized correctly to handle speeder traffic out of
Mayor
Gould: The traffic committee should look
at that.
City
Administrator, Joseph Braun: I spoke to
Dave Miller and the Traffic Committee is in favor of widening the road and
having only one sidewalk.
Council
Member: At one time we wanted to narrow
the street to stop speeders. If you do a
survey on North Cedar, they want to keep the road the way it is.
We
have narrow village streets and people are used to them. We have our community character and we also
have a traffic issue. I think we need to
look at this more comprehensively.
Can we delay this? I would prefer that we do a study of Traffic Patterns and look at it comprehensively.
City
Administrator, Joseph Braun: Yes, we can
delay this but the streets are in pretty bad shape. It will take at least two years.
Council
Sidewalks:
People
should not be responsible for their broken sidewalks when it is caused by
traffic riding over their sidewalks.
When
the water melts, it seeps under the concrete freezes and breaks the sidewalks.
We
got some information from NYCOM. Has
anybody read that?
No
Smoking Code
– It was agreed that necessary steps will be taken to eliminate reference to
John McElduff’s in this code.
A
Public Hearing will be set for
1,000,000
single limit with a 5,000,000 umbrella.
Council
This
will not be expended until we receive a report for the year 2004.
Other Business
Police
Assistant Job Description
The
correct title of this job is “Police Assistant” per Civil Service. (Not
“Dispatcher”)
Proposed
Grant Award Between the Division of Criminal Justice Services and the City of
No
one was familiar with this grant. There
was no Appendix attached. The only thing
they could gather is that it had to with narcotic control. The Mayor will speak to City Attorney, Gerard
Pisanelli to get more information on this grant.
:
Beacon
Fire Engine Appointments:
Letter
to Mayor Gould, Members of the City Council dated
At
this time, please ratify Anthony Fratoli as an Active Jr. Member of Beacon
Engine Co., No. 1 on this 4th day of January, 2005.
Please
take Bill DeCarlo SR of the Exempt rolls and place him back on the Active rolls
of Beacon Engine, per his request.
Also,
at this time per his request, move Sam Matychak, II from the Fire Police to the
active rolls of Beacon Engine. Signed
by: Gary Van Tassel, Recording
Secretary, Beacon Engine Co., No. 1
Appointments: For
Arthur Tully of Lanc and Tully, Engineering and
Surveying
David Stolman of Frederick
P. Clark Associates, Planning Consultants
Sedore and Company, Auditors.
City
Administrator: You do not necessarily have
to change auditor but you have to change the Audit team. This can be with the same company,
At
Motion
to end Executive Session at
Workshop
ended at
Submitted by: Lucy
Cullinan –