East Hampton Town Board Work Session 4/15/25

001East Hampton Town Board. We are live. Thank you, Jason. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the East Hampton Town Board work session of Tuesday, April 15, 2025. Carol, if you could please read the roll call. Present. Kate, could you hear Carol? No, I don't. I hear all of you, but I don't hear Carol. But I'm present. Present. Present. If we could all stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay. So today we have five uh topics for our work session. Uh first we start with public portion. We ask you to please keep your comments to three minutes and then we'll have uh Jeannie Corrosa present

002the bids. Uh we're going to we have a Daniel Dubois from Suffach County Water Authority. He's going to be giving us a an update on the water authority here in East Hampton. Uh the agricultural advisory committee will be giving us a report on the state of agriculture. Then we had some uh questions last week when we tal when uh we had the presentation on the water quality technical advisory committee RFA uh round one. Uh mostly Councilman Flight had some questions. So Melissa McCarron is going to come back and respond to those. And then lastly, Ian either Ian Calder Pedmont will give an update and present the Parson's Dodge homestead draft management plan. That will be followed by liaison reports and then resolutions. So, first we start with uh public portion. We've got a couple of

003people signed up and then I'll ask for a show of hands. The first up is Brad Brooks. Welcome, Brad. Thank you. uh come for a couple different reasons. The first is the lease for the gun club, which there hasn't seem to be much clarity about. Right. If you just move the mic up a little, that' be great. Thank you, sir. Um so, the first one is the uh lease at the Gun Club, which there hasn't been very much clarity about, and I believe has been up for about a year now. From my understanding, it's 97 acres, and even if you did keep the gun club open, it only needs about 30 acres. So, I'm not sure why you would give almost 70 acres to an entity that doesn't really need it. I this town needs

004to do community solar which has been talked about for almost a decade. It needs affordable housing. I would think those other 70 acres should be put to that use. So that's my first issue. Uh secondly, as somebody who was on the energy and stability committee, uh the town has done almost nothing with solar. So not just the land around the airport, but also town buildings. You've done 75 kilowatts in over a decade now. Um there are plenty of buildings. I've sent many things to you. You could do at least a megawatt, if not more. The recycling center is a great spot. So, I'm hoping the town starts to look at solar. I mean, the IRA bill would pay you 30 cents the dollar to do it yourselves. You could save money by doing solar. I'm

005not really quite sure why the town has not done this in the last 5 years. I mean, you got a knife report. You commissioned a knife report seven years ago for town buildings. You've had it for five years. The only thing that's come out of it is 75 kilowatts over at the uh the parks department. So, hopefully you've got six, nine months left. Cycling center is a great spot. And the last thing, since we are talking about the airport, um I've written to you before, I don't really understand why we're one of the few municipalities that still allows leaded fuel to be sold. Almost no, I mean, we sell over 1% of all the leaded fuel sold in this entire country and we do it over our aquifer. So, I'm hoping at some point we

006at least stop doing that. So, those are the three issues I came to talk about today. Thanks. Thank you, Brad. Next up is Hersy Edgington. Good morning, Hersy. Good morning, Kathy. Uh, my name is Hershey Edgington. I'm from Waynecott. I'm speaking on behalf of the Wayne Scott Citizens Advisory Committee of which I chair. Uh, you all received a copy of this letter uh from me on behalf of the Citizens Advisory Committee last week. I will read parts of it. Dear Town Board, the persistent noise and environmental impacts from East Hampton Airport operations continue to significantly affect the quality of life for thousands of yearround and seasonal residents across the East End. Residents report disrupted sleep, disinished diminished outdoor enjoyment, and concerns about decreasing property values. With the town's recent decision to enter settlement discussions with

007aviation interests, the Wayne Scott Citizens Advisory Committee believes this presents a crucial opportunity to address these long-standing community issues. We recommend the following five specific measures be included in any settlement agreement. One, extend curfew hours. The voluntary curfew period should be extended to 8:00 pm to 8:00 a.m. Monday through Thursday and 700 p.m. to 9:00 a.m. on weekends and holidays. Two, equitable route distribution. Establish a formal commitment to distribute helicopter routes based on noise impact severity. 50% on the echo route, 30% on the November route, 20% on the Sierra route to ensure no single community bears a disproportionate burden. Three, updated fee structure. Increase landing fees which have remained unchanged since 2016 to align with comparable regional airports. This would generate both necessary revenue to fund continued uh litigation and discourage excessive flights. Four, ground

008operations management. Implement and strictly enforce regulations on engine idling and taxi operations which create significant noise and air quality issues for Wayne Scott residents living near the airport. And five, executive terminal closure. complete the planned closure of the executive terminal and secure commitments from aviation interests not to pursue separate litigation to reopen this facility. These measures represent a balanced approach that acknowledges the airport's continued operation while addressing the legitimate needs of the larger community affected by its operations. Data from noise monitoring systems shows that thousands of households experience disruptive noise levels during peak summer operations, far exceeding the several hundred individuals who regularly use the airport. Should aviation interests reject these reasonable compromises that balance airport operations with community well-being, we urge the town to pursue every legal avenue available to secure control over airport

009operations. If these efforts continue to face obstruction, the town must exercise its right to permanently close the airport and repurpose its valuable land for community uses that genuinely serve the public interest rather than a privileged few. Thank you. Thank you, H. Mary Purus. Good morning, Mary. Good morning, guys. Um, I'm here sort of representing thousands of your neighbors who are affected by Yeah, if you want to just bring that in front of you. Affected by your airport. Um, in 2021 when the FAA asurances ran out when asked, my husband and I pro bono created a number of bads that helped get you guys, the Democratic Party, elected. Um, the story then was about airport relief and Republicans doing shady backroom deals, but now you guys are talking about settling for the status quo. No relief.

010And you are refusing to hold town meetings about it. A combination that's going to look to voters a lot like a backroom deal. For your own good, you have to think this through. A backroom settlement deal may make a handful of billionaires happy, but voters who vastly outnumber them would look at it suspiciously, like a sellout. And a sellout would make your voters very unhappy. If you've read your own research, you know that it says 15% of East Hampton voters want the airport closed. 80% are okay with an airport, but only with meaningful restrictions. That's 95% who do not want the status quo. And why would they? As we know, it's an ever growing number of voters uh that know that today's East Hampton airport, a landlocked mini LaGuardia, is a polluting, dangerously unsafe blight

011on the town, an accident just waiting to happen. And we've seen what's happened in the last few weeks. We do not have a Hudson River to ditch a helicopter in. It goes into houses and woods. So given that, we can assure you that making some kind of unexplained, the devil made me do it, backroom settlement deal will not make your voters happy. I know you're fatigued. We're fatigued, but this is your job. You signed up for it. You have to protect your town. Don't give up. Um, and a few months from now, some of you are going to be up for reelection. As you've seen on the TV news, how badly the Republican refusal to explain themselves, refusing to hold town hall meetings has backfired on them and made tens of thousands of their own

012voters very unhappy. That would be a really bad re-election strategy. Lack of transparency is an issue the other other side would rightly hit you hard with. So for the good of your town, for your own good, we suggest you plan a few scheduled and advertised airport specific town meetings or even one explain in as much simple detail as you can. Why are you settling? What does settling mean? Are there alternatives, however long and painful? If a study was done incompletely or not done at all, why can't that be corrected? Have town taxes been affected by the ongoing lawsuits? or is it being fully funded by airport revenues, which we we think it is, but people don't know that. Let your voters tell you how they feel. They've waited 20 years and promises were made. For

013your own good, you really ought to listen. These days, people are in the mood to be angry, even at their own political parties. The elected can always be unelected. Thank you. Thank you, Mary. [Applause] So that's everyone that signed up. Is there anyone here that would like to address the book? Barry and then John, you're going to go first. Just push me aside. I see that. Welcome, John. Hi, good afternoon, John. Morning, John Cullen from Riverhead. Lots of traffic today coming out this way. Lots of traffic going back that way. Uh I understand that you're giving up on the litigation for the airport. I find it very sad to hear this news. It has not cost the town taxpayer one penny as many articles in the paper and uh radio stations have said that the

014town taxpayers are paying for the airport. Millions of dollars they say are going toward the litigation that the taxpayers are paying. A lot of people know it the right way and a lot of people do know it the wrong way. So, I'm sorry to hear that. Uh, the disparaging full page articles on East Hampton Star against some of the previous town board members. I think both of you were part of that. All done by the coalition for the airport to save the airport the way it is. I'm hoping that the litigation continues. And I just some a friend of mine sent out a video a tape recording just last night to me from Southampton and I'd like to just play it for the crowd if you don't mind. I don't think you're going to be

015able to hear it. If it doesn't work, let me just try one time, please. Anything further? I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I get a little ner when I'm up here. I get very nervous. All righty. Well, let me just tell you. I I'll email you the recording. And it was an email. Uh, it was a tapered recording on CNBC from Jim Kramer raging about how horrible the helicopters were over his house and going into saying that he felt like he was in Saigon and that he needed to have uh earplugs when he was at his home. I'll try and find the I'm so sorry I thought I had it set up for you. Thank you for your time and I hope things can get only better at that airport and I hope you can talk

016to Blade because Rob Weisenthal, your neighbor, is one of the biggest offenders of that airport. And I've reported that to Jim Brundage, your airport director, and I just seem to just get nothing done because it's the same thing every week. Thank you for your time. Thank you, John. Barry. Welcome, Barry. Thank you. Thank you, board members. Barry Rebeck. I'm director of the coalition to transform East Hampton Airport. Coalition that wants positive changes, not the status quo. Um, as with national crises protested two Saturdays ago, East Hampton is facing environmental degradation on two major issues. Our town board is on the wrong side of both. Both issues include these major concerns. One, air, soil, and groundwater pollution. Two, danger to residents, children, hikers, and bikers. Three, potential wildfires from sparks and crashes. Very real threat. Excessive

017noise well beyond legal limits. Five, misuse of our public watershed land. Six, an entitled few endangering public welfare. And seven, our very quality of life. These issues, the town airport and the Maidstone Gun Club, basically the same issues with two different heads and in the same location too in the woods in Waynecott. The board intends to settle airport litigation without obtaining enforceable restrictions despite ensuring us for decades that we will have control of our own airport. Just it really doesn't seem too much to ask to have control of something that you own. And the board intends to renew long-term lease with Gun Club despite a lawsuit by residents whose homes were struck multiple times by bullets from the range. Reopening the legally shuttered facility exposes 90 nearby homes, schools, and businesses to bullets and all

018of us to continual noise pollution and poisoning of watershed land with carcinogens. If these two toxic entities did not exist, they'd never be permitted in this town. If they would be a bad idea, why do town board members insist they are now a good idea? Thank you, [Applause] Barry. Is there anyone else that would like Lyall? And then is that Kirby? And then Kirby, you'll be next. Greetings. Welcome, Lyall. I don't have anything to say that hasn't already actually been articulated beautifully by our neighbors here. But I wanted to mention that uh regarding the note that I sent each of the town board members um just a few days ago and to which no one responded. In our you know great country um a short while ago the richest man in the world paid people

019to vote for his guy. And right now, you know, two of our political heroes, speaking personally, uh Bernie Sanders and Alexandria, Congresswoman Alexandria, uh Okaziocortez are on a campaign, a tour called the stopping oligarchs or stopping oligarchy tour. So I think what we have in our in our beautiful community is a battle between citizens and uh oligarchs among us who have bottomless pockets and can afford to litigate the out of the town until it needs to find itself some form of relief and go on to the other legitimate issues which you all diligently deal with every day and for which we are grateful. But these particular issues and the one of personally most interest to me is the airport issue and it's been going on for decades for those who live in relative proximity to

020the airport. In most recent years, it's become a heated debate, especially since the town took over ownership of and theoretically control of the airport. But to our knowledge, nothing has happened since, which brings a handful of people here representing multitudes more. uh to this day thinking what kind of compromise can possibly be satisfactory to the citizens affected, to the residents affected, the taxpayers affected by the airport, the noise, the potential for danger, the size of the jets, for example, and the other more specific environmental um matters that have been raised by others more learned on this topic than myself. So what I I would encourage you to do apart from responding to you know somewhat glib emails from myself is be as we recently heard much more transparent with the citizens who elected you. Be

021aware that you know it's one party in control of the politics of this town at this moment. that brings with it, I think, an extra responsibility and I know you're aware of it. Um Kathy, I remember you saying several years ago with when things heated up on this airport issue. Well, I have other constituents that have to be represented in this discussion as well. And at the time, I believe you were referring to the people of Montalk who were concerned that all the traffic, should the East Hampton airport close, be diverted to that little airirstrip at the end of uh at the end of the island here. That obviously would not be the case with jets. It could only be the case with a handful of helicopters. Um, so I guess what I'm saying is,

022you know, hang tough. Don't be afraid to fight the fight. You know, we're here to help you not take from people with billions of dollars who can pour it on and just ex exhaust you. So, uh, that's it. I'm hoping that by 400 p.m. today, the airport is closed. permanently so Barry can stop writing long letters to us. Thank you, Lyall. Anyway, thank you. Thank you for your time. [Applause] Ly, I don't think I received your email. I've got a strange name. So, if you could resend that to me or I'll I'll ask a board member, but I did not receive that. Sorry. No, no problem. What's your email address? We can get it. It's on the website or or I'll send it to you, Lyall. It's a great letter. Good morning, Kirby. We're missing

023two people. I hope they're not unwell. Kate is on the screen. She's zooming. And uh Council Member Flight is on vacation this week. Uh God bless them. Um I'm Kirby Mark Antonio. Excuse me. And um my interest in this particular conversation is the use of public lands and specifically housing. Um, as you may know, I've of course been pursuing um types of affordable housing in the town now for three years. And over that time, I've become more aware of some of the possibilities and the limitations of public land for use for housing. Now, of course, most of the conversation today has been about the airport, of which I have no expert. I certainly am not going to opine as to the pluses and the minuses even though my sister built one of the first houses

024on Northwest Wayne Scott Road in 1982 and uh has seen the traffic over her house grow to exponential requirements. But leaving that aside, Barry brought up the issue of the uh the gun club and as somebody who moved here in 1960, I'm aware that guns have been a part of the East Hampton society since long before I got here. Back in the day, everybody, most everybody had a gun in their house. They didn't have it for self-p protection. They had it for usually hunting. That is to say, at a time when almost the entire area outside of the village was vacant land, if you needed a deer for your Christmas dinner, well, you simply went out and got one. At one point, we had a gun range of what was called the Old Town Dump,

025which is on Old Northwest Road. And it meant that on a Friday night, a bunch of guys might get together and go up there in their trucks and they bring their 22s and a couple six-packs and they'd shine their lights into the pit and when they saw little eyes staring up at them, usually rats, they just have some fun and shoot them. That was perfectly fine and truly in the spirit of East Hampton. Then of course 30 years ago we decided when encroachment of residential land into the Northwest became important, we set aside a piece of property which at the time was very undistinguished. It was one of many large pieces of property that were available and it was isolated and it gave a gun club a chance to do what it wanted to do

026in privacy. Of course, these days that same area is now surrounded by residential property, which brings us to today's issue of whether or not a 1984 lease for 97 acres uh of extremely rare town land will be leased to a private entity, which has been litigated against by its neighbors because of its history of apparently not being as well safely handled. My point is very simple, as I've said before. This town does not have 97 acres in its inventory to make use of. It has two large pieces of property over which it has ownership. The airport, which has been talked about today, which is unfortunately kind of a Solomon's uh dilemma. Is it going to be one or the other? Are you going to shut it down or are you going to regulate it and

027face the consequences of litigation? The gun club is entirely in your ballpark. It is owned by you. It is leased by you. I know negotiations may have come to a point where perhaps the details have been worked out, but the fact of the matter is that a gun club can exist on 10 acres of property, not 97. It I assume is going to be reconfigured in such a way so that it will be safe within its proximity leaving 80 acres of town land to be used for some of the purpose of which I would say housing is one. David just the other week had to talk about the fact that two pieces of property the town would like to buy to use for housing were now off the market. Would you say what I state?

028My point is very simple. Each one of you has a responsibility to do the things that are most important for the citizens of East Hampton. We need housing. We need a gun club. It can both be arranged on the same piece of property. If that lease has not been signed yet, I strongly urge you to look to the practicalities of using the only piece of land you have to build housing. And I'm sorry if I've taken too much time, but this is an important topic and I understand you know how I feel about it. And I know that you as the supervisor, the person who has the ultimate say in whether that lease is signed, I know you understand thoroughly the dynamics of having a town without housing when you have to have your head

029of housing work remotely so that you can still maintain some skills and expertise. Imagine how that filters down to every business in this area and it touches every member of this community. So, I ask you very politely and contritly, I've run over my time. Please do not sign that lease until you've had the chance to make sure that you have it done the correct way. Thank you very much for your time and attention. Thank you, Kirby. Yes. Oh, Teresa, could someone please turn their phone off? Thank you. Welcome, Teresa. Hi. Um, good morning, uh, town board members. Um, I'm here making the trip once again. It's been a while. Um, I'm with the South Hole Town Aircraft Noise Committee and, um, everyone is very familiar with regards to the very tragic crash that had occurred

030in New York City. Um, so with that, I am bringing to the town board since there are some new members here, a list of helicopters. Um, and that is u off of the FAA website that shows the helicopter models that are compliant with full crash resistant fuel systems which every town board member I hope at this point in time is familiar with and I would like to point out when you review this list the Sakorski S76 is not on this list. So again, if you're going to run an airport, um there are certain responsibilities to be aware of the type of aircraft that are flying into this airport and which ones are safe safer uh versus others. But um this is the evidence that you need and I certainly hope that there will be change

031uh coming. I can't top uh Barry's um information that he shared so greatly and so wonderfully. Um so secondly, I was also told by a reliable source that the helicopters are going to be coming via um Orient upon their exit. Again, I will request that the all town board members review the information with regards to the FAA Long Island Northshore route. Nowhere in that document does it say that helicopters are to return to the North Fork. Okay. or via the excuse me via the northshore route. They are to use the closest route to the airport and that is south of the airport and that would be then bring them to or bring them in via the Southshore route. I want to be very clear that I am not looking to have traffic pushed on to

032any other township. Southampton is suffering. I stand with Riverhead 2. They are suffering still and we are still getting aircraft. Um just the other day, the day of the crash, a helicopter was scheduled to come in here from New York City on Blade, but Blade decided to contract with a SE plane. So a SE plane came and take a guess which route they took. They came through um again through the Laurel area, cut through Southampton to come into this airport. So the noise, the pollution, the traffic is really unacceptable. Um, so my answer to SE planes coming in via the North Fork, no thank you. Um, as a town board, I would respectfully request that everyone review the information on the Northshore route. I respectfully request that you look at the suffering and all the

033noise complaints that have been submitted because I have submitted my share. Um, I've been at this for a long time. And if you want to have aircraft flying over to this airport, then you have airspace from the border of East Hampton all the way to Monttoque. I'm even getting aircraft from Montalk to via the North Fork. Southshore route is wide open. If you want to use that route, utilize that route to the maximum, not to the minimum. And what's going to happen also, in case you're not aware, with regards to the aircraft, more and more aircraft are starting to use GPS. What does that mean? More and more aircraft are going to be using the most direct flight in. Um, so I urge you to reconsider your position on where you think that that you

034want to basically um um let the aircraft aviation um industry win. Please don't do that. There's a lot of people that are affected not only in the town of East Hampton again and even Queens. Take a look at the roots. And by the way, the Sakorski S76 when it leaves here, take a look, it goes through Central Park at about 1,200 feet. So New Yorkers are affected by that, too. It is not only eat the town of East Hampton. So thank you very much for your time. I appreciate it. And I will submit this information for the crash resistant fuel tank information. Please review it to the best of your ability. And if you have questions, um, I'm happy to be able to try to help. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you,

035Teresa. Is there anyone else that would like to address the board, please? Good morning. Welcome. My name is Roxanna Pintelli and I was not planning on speaking to you guys today, but because you know I am the person whose house was shot since 2004. Okay, I'm one of the plaintiffs. I'm asking you not to sign the lease. Since 2004, we've been shot at by multiple bullets. We're on in litigation. And I'm asking you, do not sign that lease. It's not going to stop. It hasn't stopped since 2004. And it's not going to stop. It's going to continue. and we're going to find ourselves again, you know, in the same situation. My kids had to hide in the basement. We live in the basement of our home because of that gun club. Do not sign that

036lease. Thank you. Thank you, Would anyone else like to address the board? Jason, is there anyone on the line? Yes, we have callers on the We have two callers on the line right now. And I'll give me a moment and I'm unmuting. Thank you. Uh hello, this is Bill Crane from the East Hampton Group for Wildlife. Um we are very worried about the Maidstone Gut Club and the lead that is abundant on the land. It's very toxic to wildlife and to people, too. Um, in addition, as you've just heard, uh, there numerous homes who've been hit by bullets and it's a dangerous situation. I've watched the video, uh, of the workers at near the club working at a in a home and they were just I seen the video, they were just shocked to hear

037guns guns explode right next to them. It was um, it really is a dangerous situation. the um it could be a beautiful piece of open space and it could um help preserve the rural character of of our town. I um I would like to see the town not renew the lease, maybe condemn it uh and clean up the toxic chemicals like the lead on the land and then uh preserve it for the whole community. There would be some pressure to put houses in there, but they bring their own pollutants and and we need open space and the wildlife need the open space. So my recommendation is to preser is to not renew the lease, discontinue it and keep it as open space. Thank you very much. Thank you, Bill. Jason, if you could put the

038next caller through, please. unmuting the caller now. Yes. Good morning, town board. This is Carolyn Logan Bluff calling. Uh, and I'd like to speak with you or address to you about the two subjects that other speakers have already addressed, which is the future of the East Hampton Airport and the Maidstone Gun Club. Um the litigation concerning both entities uh has offered you really an amazing opportunity to negotiate uh behind the scenes uh in sequency and this has created such an incredible amount of frustration for people not knowing what's going on what's on the table um to the point that I think many have said not unreasonably just close both places down. Um, I doubt you're going to do that. So, I'm here to ask you to act on recommendations that has been made um by

039people in Wayne Scott and elsewhere that are not unreasonable. I ask you to act on the recommendations outlined in the letter from the Wayne Scott CAC that was read to you by the chair uh today and which you have in your hands. I know which are not unreasonable recommendations and have been put forward to you in a timely fashion. Unfortunately, you've shown yourself unwilling to incorporate voluntary uh restrictions into airport guidelines and we hope that you'll reconsider this. I also urge you to complete the secret process. I hope that's certainly not part of the settlement discussions that that will not be completed and except the draft GEIS and uh which was went to public hearing over a year ago uh for operational changes at the airport and move to the final environmental impact study. I

040also ask you to act on the concerns that people have expressed regarding safety and the environment. It shocked me to think that you wanted to acquire 72H property, 7 acres up on Townline Road for affordable housing, which is right in the line of sight of the gun club. You want to keep the gun club open, play pingpong, and shoot arrows outside and limit the shooting to an indoor range. These are reasonable suggestions that have been made to you previously. I hope that you can honor the residents wishes as which are which are not unreasonable. Please give these due consideration. Thank you for your time. Thank you Carolyn. [Applause] Jason, is there anyone else on the line? There are no other callers on the line. Okay, I'm just going to go one more time in the

041main meeting room here. Was there anyone else that would like to address the board? Okay, we're going to move on to topics then. Jeie, if you please come up and talk to us about bids. Good morning, Genie. I have several items today. Um the first will be accepting some bids. The first is for the food service and kitchen wear items. Milla, Sam, Tel and Sun, Metroar, Interbar Packaging, and Hardy Party are the apparent low biders for that. Um, next is for the Parson's Blacksmith Shop Sighting Restoration Rebid. Ronald Web Builder is the apparent low bidder in the amount of $99,956. Next, we have the Pumpout Tank Monitoring Systems, Aventura Construction Corp. in the amount of $67,998. And the last for an accepting is um for our portable toilets rental and servicing call ahead is the

042apparent low bidder for that service. Um several extensions as well. The first is East Hampton Airport mowing. Suburban Maintenance and Landscaping has uh they agreed to extend um that cost is 14,400 for two annual mowings, printing of miscellaneous forms, Montalk printing in Ridgewood Press. Also, we're going to um extend the specialized bus service in Montalk. Hampton Hopper has agreed to extend that runs from June 26 through September 1st and that amount is $171,671.54 and another extension is for the professional engineering service for town projects LK MLAN Associates um for that and then notices coming up um this week will be for kitchen uniforms and small wares. and also um Abraham's path comfort station and storage building. And coming up on the 24th will be for the SYA HVAC improvements and then the um an RFP

043for the license to utilize agricultural land at 20 springs fireplace road. And that's all. Beautiful busy week. Yes. Very. All right. Thank questions for Jeannie. No. Thanks, Jeie. Okay. So, now we have a presentation today. Okay, we welcome Daniel Dubois from Suffach County Water Authority to give us an update. Good morning, supervisor. Can you hear me? Yes. Perfect. Members of the town board, thank you so much for having me. Uh Patrick, are you just waiting for the presentation to come up? Go to the first slide. You're getting a little preview of what's coming. Beautiful. All right. Uh, thank you so much for the opportunity to be here and to, uh, provide you an update with some of the things going on with the Suffer County Water Authority. Um, as as you said, I'm Dan Dubam,

044the director of communications and external affairs at SCWA. Um, I also just want to say thank you for the continued partnership from the town of East Hampton with SCWA for the benefit of our mutual customers and residents of the town as we provide them high quality drinking water. Uh, next slide, please. So, for the benefit of our of the uh uh audience here and those who may be listening in, I just want to give a brief kind of background on SCWA and kind of what we are and then we'll jump into um some infrastructure updates that are going on in the town of East Hampton. So, what is uh SCWA? So, we are one of the largest groundwater suppliers of uh drinking water in the nation. We've been at the cutting edge of the drinking

045water industry for more than 75 years. SCWA is a not for-profit independent public benefit corporation and that essentially means that we operate without taxpayer funds or investor dollars. Everything that we do is from the rateayers who are paying their bills and that means that everything that we collect goes back into investing into our system. And ultimately what we are is we are drinking water provider and we serve uh about 1.2 million Suffach County residents. Um you know I always like to say we're from Melville all the way out to Montalk. We're on Shelter Island, Fire Island. It's a big area that we cover. Um but uh you know it's it's a privilege to be able to do this for the residents of Suffach County. Next slide please. Uh we there are some um uh areas

046of confusion often. So I do like to clarify that we are not a branch of Suffach County government. We operate uh separate from um from the county. We are also uh not responsible for creating or enforcing drinking water standards. Those are set by the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the New York State Department of Health, but we are responsible for following those standards and reporting our information to those entities. Next slide, please. So, we're a little different than other places around the country. I think most people will be kind of familiar with the system that you'll see in um many cities and towns around the country where you get water from drinking water from surface water. So, from lakes, rivers, reservoirs. Uh New York City, for example, very famously gets all of their water

047from the uh Catskill Waterershed into the Hudson Valley. Um we're a little different here. Next slide, please. We get 100% of our water from our sole source aquifer. That means all the water that we drink is right below our feet in a vast aquifer um underneath the ground. It's composed of three principal individual aquifers. The upper glacial, the magi, and the Lloyd. Uh the vast majority of the wells that we have where we pump our water from are in the upper glacial and the magathy. Uh we do have a few wells kind of up island um in the Lloyd aquifer, but there's been a prohibition against drilling well wells into that aquifer since I think the 1980s. Um so that's sort of kept in reserve. Uh collectively they contain and this is an estimate, no

048one's entirely certain, but about 65 trillion gallons worth of groundwater. It's an enormous amount of groundwater. Uh it doesn't mean it's all usable. Um but we are very fortunate that we have a uh vast reserve of water um right here on Long Island that we could tap into. And we pumped out water from about 600 different public supply wells at 200 different uh 240 different locations um across Suffach County as I said you know town uh county line all the way out to Montalk. Um, you know, we're we're very different from a lot of surface water providers where they might be getting, you know, a single source from a lake and they're pumping it all through an enormous amount of water, but it's coming from one place. We're doing it in a very dispersed sort

049of way. Um, and that means that our customers are receiving water that is really right from their community. The the few closest wells in your community is going to be what supplying you. So, there's limited movement throughout the island. So, what you're seeing, the water that we're supplying in East Hampton is from East Hampton. Next slide please. Uh there are some definite uh advantages to that to having so many different wells. It creates a lot of uh redundancy and our ability to to meet that demand. So if one well goes down for whatever reason. Uh we do have all those other wells to um to kind of make up that difference and it doesn't affect all of our customers. Uh but it also does have some challenges and testing is one of the areas where

050it does create a lot of different uh challenges. Um, fortunately, we have a state-of-the-art groundwater testing laboratory. It's actually the largest groundwater testing laboratory in the country. Um, many other water providers across the nation don't even have their own internal uh laboratory, but we do at SCWA, which we're very proud of. And we take samples uh at many different stages in the in the pumping process. Uh we take samples that we test at the wellhead. So, the water that's coming out of the ground, we know the quality that's coming out. uh we do it at several points during the treatment process to make sure that our treatment is effective and working. And then we also test water while it's in the distribution system and that confirms that our treatment has been effective as it goes

051out into homes and it also allows us to test for uh bacteria and other uh matter that could be introduced um in the distribution system. So we make sure that there are no issues there. We test for a wide range of different uh contaminants including inorganic and organic contaminants, personal care products, pharmaceuticals. Uh the the list is very long. Um in fact, we actually test for 390 different compounds, which is 231 more than is required by regulators. And we do that because we want to make sure that our customers are getting the highest water uh quality water possible. We want to make sure that um everything that we provide is meeting strict uh standards, but we also go above and beyond that. Our own internal standards are often uh stricter than what is required of

052us by the EPA and by the Department of Health. Uh we test more often than is required of us because again, we want to make sure our customers are getting the highest quality water possible. Um so what does that mean? It means that we last year we analyzed more than 92,000 samples uh which produced almost 200,000 tests which results in 1 million test results. So it's a lot of data. It's a lot of samples uh to comb through to make sure that our uh our testing is effective and our treatment is effective. Um but it's a it's a big endeavor and we're very proud of our laboratory. Next slide please. So uh I want to provide you an update on some of the infrastructure work that is happening in East Hampton now. has happened recently

053and where we're moving into the future um with public drinking water. Next slide, please. So, first I want to start with our distribution network. Um as I mentioned, we are across Suffach County. Uh we have a large distribution network of water mane that distributes water throughout our system to homes. In our total system, we have about 6,000 miles of water mane. It's enough to go from New York City to Siberia. So it's yeah it's a large area to cover. Um and we are constantly uh looking at that distribution system and looking to see where we can make improvements in order to uh reliably serve our customers water. In the town of East Hampton since 2022 we've installed 58,000 ft or about 22 1/2 miles worth of water man. Um, and just for a little bit

054of context, across the our entire system, we replace about 20 to 30 mile miles of water mane per year. Um, so some of that that number is uh new water mane that we're putting in to serve new customers, but we are doing quite a few replacements within the town. And we do replacements for number of different reasons. Uh, as I mentioned before, for serving new customers as we expand the public water system. Um, we're, you know, installing that water man so that we can reach new new neighborhoods. Uh, we will upsize water main as more homes are connecting. we might need to expand the size of the water man to meet the current demand. Make sure that pressure is even and um and appropriate for the community. Uh and that also improves flow for as

055I said pressure but also for fire protection. We want to make sure that if um if there is a fire, if there is an emergency, first responders have appropriate flow that can respond to that emergency. We are also replacing water mane if there are water quality issues. If we could get complaints from customers, we investigate. we see that uh the water mane may be the cause for um for discolored water or something like that, we'll make sure that we replace that so that there isn't an issue into the future. And then also and probably the biggest reason is that we want to reduce the likelihood of breaks. As water mane gets older, it becomes more brittle and it becomes more prone to breaking, especially in the winter. That's our big main break season. Um during

056especially those uh freeze and thaw periods, it creates an impact on the water manes and over time they become more likely to break. So, we'll look for older water mane u or material that is less likely to last um in the in the sort of ground that's that it's in and we'll replace that to ensure that our customers are not being disrupted by water main breaks. When those happen, it can um cause disruptions to service for several hours. So, we want to reduce that likelihood as as uh frequently as we can. Next slide, please. Next, I want to talk about what we've done to create more supply in the town of East Hampton in recent years. Um, so we have created a uh we've built a number of new well fields uh which house several

057different wells. As I mentioned, we've got 600 different wells across the county, 240 different locations. So, often you'll have a single well field with several wells on there pumping uh pumping water. Um on Stevens Hands Path and at uh Bullpath, we've built two new well fields. In recent years, we've also built a new well at East Hampton Sag Harbor Turnpike and on Bridge Hampton Road. Um those are all new wells. We also did a replacement well. Um also at Bridge Hampton Road. Uh we do that as well get older, we might need to um you know to reduce the likelihood of failure, we might replace them with something. Um if we have water quality issues, it may be advantageous to uh drill a new well that might be deeper or more shallow depending on the

058water quality. Um and then also we might need to upsize it as demand increases. We might need to just create some additional supply. So that's why uh we'll we will build new wells. In addition to that, we've inst uh we've built almost 3 million gallons of uh new storage in the town of East Hampton. We have almost a million gallons uh sorry 100 million gallons excuse me 900,000 gallons at Cross Highway and then another two million gallons at Townline Road. And the reason we do that is because during the peak uh pumping season in the summer, we actually don't have enough capacity from just our wells to supply our customers with the water that is generally demanded. We need to have some water in reserve uh that can help meet that peak period. So during

059the daytime where the demand tends to be a little bit lower, we refill those storage tanks. And then at night when demand is uh very high because of irrigation, we re uh that's when the um reservoirs help uh for us to meet the demand. So we've built two of those in in recent years. We're also currently uh doing a new overcoat um at our spring closed highway tank. That's what you're doing over there today. You're painting. Yes, we are painting over there. Um and that is a maintenance um uh practice that we do. We do that about every 10 years with our uh tanks and it just helps um prolong their uh their um ability to withstand the elements when they're when they're out there. And Daniel, if you don't mind going back to Cross

060Highway, I believe on your slide five, that might have been a picture of the Cross Highway location. Uh I want to thank you for working with the community and listening to some of the community members because initially that was supposed to be more above ground below ground and so uh it's just another example of the water authority working with the east community members and the town to work within what's needed. Sure. What's need is the pressurization the reserve but at the same time within the character of that neighborhood. So absolutely we we always strive to be a good neighbor in in many communities. uh you know, the water tower is sort of iconic and it's part of the community. Uh especially um when we're building new ones, a lot of times there's concern about the

061character of the neighborhood. So, we do what we can to um to accommodate that. And some of these ground storage tanks, which we can actually uh bury a significant portion of that. Um that helps with with uh with those purposes. And um and we can build a booster station so that we have pressure in the system. Um and it it certainly uh continues to to serve the needs of the community. Scott was buried too, wasn't it? The one by the airport. Town. Yes, that one is also buried as well. Thank you. Absolutely. Uh and then the last thing on this slide that I'll just mention is that we've also installed some new generators at Townline Road, at Cross Highway, and at Spring Close Highway. Uh and these generators help create um some backup in the

062system, emergency backup power. Um all of our wells require electricity to pump. However, our distribution network does not require uh any sort of electricity to operate as long as there are pressure there's pressure in those storage tanks that will create pressure in the system and water will continue to flow even when there's a power outage. So, if we can continue to pump uh water using those backup generators into our storage tanks, we can continue to serve our customers even in the event of a power outage. So, one of the big advantages of being on public water as opposed to a private well, which we'll talk about a little bit soon, is that if your power goes out and you have a private well, your pump's not going to operate and you're without water in addition

063to electricity, heat, cooling. Um, but if you are in public water, we will continue to serve you even in the case of an emergency. Next slide, please. So, one of the uh wellfields that I mentioned that we built recently is on Bull Path, and we've done a major expansion there in just the past few months. And this is actually a um a major thing for the for the town and I'll talk a little bit more why in a second. Um without getting too technical. Um I want to explain a little bit about pressure zones. So a lot of times our system can look like one big network from the outside, right? And we can just move water throughout the system and that's not really how we operate. It's actually a series of much smaller uh

064water systems that sort of operate I don't want to say independently because we can move water around but they do operate kind of within their own zone and we call those pressure zones and they are based on elevation. So we have to make sure that the elevation um is appropriate for the community. If you're at a high pressure zone and you're pumping water to somewhere that that's a lower um elevation, you're going to have a tremendous amount of pressure. You turn on the faucet and it's just going to come out like crazy and it can cause damage to pipes. Conversely, if you are pumping water in a low zone and you're trying to get up a hill to a high area, the water pressure is just not going to work. So, we need to have

065these zones that are outlined so that we have even pressure throughout the system. Um, in Northwest Harbor, we were without a pressure zone in a lot of that community that was appropriate for the elevation. So, until we built the p the bullpath expansion, uh we would have people call up and say, "Hey, I want to uh connect to public water. Um, can you can you serve me?" and we would actually say no, we can't because we don't have an appropriate pressure zone. We now do with the Bullpath uh wellfield coming online and that is a um it's a major accomplishment and it also opens up a lot of potential uh in the town of East Hampton um for public water expansion. And if I can go one more on that, a lot of times with

066the public water would come with uh fire hydrants and fire hydrants will potentially decrease individuals uh home insurance rates also with the distance to fire hydrants which in the area northwest is in that fire district. It's always been challenging then too. So that's another benefit that individuals might be able to see financially too. Yep. You're getting a little ahead of me so I'm going to address that in a second but that's fine. But you're absolutely right. Um, and that's part of what we do when we expand public water as we uh install new fire hydrants for fire protection. Uh, next slide, please. So, why are we so concerned with creating all these new wells and this expansion? Well, much of East Hampton is still on private wells. And just for definition, as I mentioned earlier,

067public water means you're connected to the SCWA system. Private well means that you have your own individual well drilled on your property that serves you uh with with drinking water. Um, East Hampton by percentage is the largest town uh still on private wells. We estimate and this is an estimate there are and I should say except for Shelter Island. Shelter Island is a little bit different. Um, but uh East Hampton is second on that list. Um, this is an estimate. We don't have a full understanding and and no one really does of the number of private wells uh left in Suffach County. We estimate it's somewhere between 20 to 25,000 private wells. Um and we think that there are about 8,000 properties on private wells um in the town of Eastampton, about 41%. Uh in

068the last few years, we've connected about 280 new properties. Um and this is in the last 5 years in the town of East Hampton. And just for context, in all of Suffach County and our entire system, we've connected in the last 5 years 2,600. So good percentage of that is happening in East Hampton, which makes sense because it is uh the largest area with private wells is still in existence. Next slide, please. So, I want to drill down on two areas in particular um where public water expansion is um is sort of an ongoing endeavor. Uh Northwest Harbor and you can see on this map those blue lines indicate where we have water manes and you can see vast areas of uh of this part of the town without any sort of uh water man.

069You can see probably there at the beginning uh the to the bottom of the map there is a little bit of a line to a purple square. That's where Bull Path is and that's what's creating that pressure zone that's going to help with um serving new customers in this area. Next slide, please. Another area where there's still significant areas uh significant land without water mane is in Springs. And in this area, there is quite a bit more water man, especially there to the north, but you'll see there further to the east um that there is quite a bit of area without water man as well. And I wanted to drill down on this map specifically that northern areas there on the bottom. Those blue dots indicate uh homes that are our that are SCWA customers.

070The red dots indicate suspected private wells. So you can see even in an area in a community that has um is fully built out in terms of water main, most of those streets um are ready to connect right now. If someone calls up calls us up and says we want to connect, we could connect them very quickly. Um there's still a lot of homes that are on private wells. So as we talk about connecting more areas um and we have to be concerned with the amount of supply that we have for the entire area um even where we don't have water or where we do have water main there are quite a lot of private wells that we need to be concerned with. So how does water man get built? Can I just say so

071springs is getting it from Aabonic Road. Correct. Yes. Yeah. It kind of goes up uh that area and we do have some well fields further to the south that are supplying the area. Okay. So there is there's capacity there. there is capacity but as I said as we connect more people we do need to be concerned about the amount of capacity that we have um as I said before we can't in the summer months when uh you know people are watering their lawns and doing a lot of um of uh gardening our ability to keep up is definitely challenged. So whenever we are connecting new customers we do have to be concerned and we have need to make sure that we can uh properly supply everyone. So it's something that is an ongoing concern for

072our operations team. Um, we want to make sure that we have that. Um, I do know that our production control team, which is in charge of pumping the water out of the ground, you come the summer months, uh, gets pretty hectic for them and they're they're very concerned watching the when they connect, they don't like leave their irrigation on their well and then have the Suffach County water, you know, for their home. So, that is an option. And when you're when you're talking about up island where people have it's been developed for a number of years, it's not really an option. and and because of the potential for contaminants really at the highest level of the aquifer. So basically whatever is on the surface will get to the upper levels of the aquifer first, right?

073And if you have a private well and those tend to be much more shallow. I mean we're talking 50 ft as compared to some of our wells uh that are 700 800 ft deep. Whatever you see on the surface has the potential to get picked up by that well. So I know a lot of times and this is not a decision that we make at the water authority. Um you have to get uh permission from the uh Suffach County Department of Health Services. They may have concerns of having an irrigation well that could be spreading around those contaminants um you know in the area. So oftent times that's not really an option further west out here. I do know that there are a lot of people as they connect they might keep their private well

074for irrigation purposes. Uh from our per from our standpoint, that's actually extremely beneficial because that takes the pressure off our system for irrigation. We want to make sure people have water in their homes for for drinking, for bathing, for cooking. That's our primary concern. Um so that can be very helpful and it's more cost effective for the homeowner. Precisely. Because they already have that well drill that well drilled. Um they don't have to worry about the cost of the of the water for that purpose. So I I have a couple of uh questions if I may. I'm I'm on Zoom. Um, sorry about that. I'm home today. Um, one, so I live in an area of Springs where there are not water manes, so I don't know what the process is for having water manes

075installed. So, we're on wells. We have no options. But also, it seems to me, uh, in a number of times in your presentation, you're talking about the stress that's put on the water system for irrigation. Um and I think that's maybe something we should look into uh in terms of you know uh that how we can address that particular stress as people want to you know it's connected to the landscaping and what people are using on their lawns um mileultural lawns that really uh are detrimental to the uh environment as well. So, uh, it's interesting that again your peak time is lawn watering time, uh, and that has a potential to impede drinking water for people. Uh, council member, I very much appreciate th both of those questions. Uh, and fortunately on the next slide,

076I'll be happy to answer them. Um, so I I thought it would be beneficial to talk about the process of connecting um to the public water system to SCWA. Um so ultimately the cost to expand public water must be paid by the residents who are seeking to connect and that's part of our governing documents. Um our existing customers don't pay for the the basically to subsidize new people who are connecting. Um residents who want to connect must pay that cost. We do however to take a number of steps to to reduce that cost as much as possible. The first of which is we offer the first 75 uh feet of water main expansion uh of extension free for each home coming off of a private well as I'll explain a little bit more how that

077works in a second. Um and then the other thing that's important to note is that we require at least 40% of residents uh homes in a neighborhood that is looking to that we're looking to expand to to commit to connecting. And the reason being is that we are going to the water authority is going to um essentially front the remaining 60% of that and we expect that we'll recoup those costs as people choose to connect. There'll be a search charge placed on that property and when they want to connect they have to pay that search charge but we are fronting that cost um until people uh connect eventually. Um, in areas where there is a known contamination, we reduce that threshold from 40% to 25% because we recognize the public health emergency and we want

078to make sure that we're getting public water um to areas that especially need it. Next slide, please. So, there is a standard cost to connect which is a uh currently it's $330 per foot. And when I say standard cost um there's a difference between standard cost and actual cost. actual cost is, you know, what what our contractors or um our engineers will say that this is going to be the cost per foot. Um for residents who want to connect, we we charge a standard amount. And the reason we do that is because there could be some streets where it's particularly difficult to to work in. They might have a high water table that requires dewatering. We don't want those residents to have, you know, a bill that is substantially higher. So, we start uh we

079charge a standard cross uh cost across the board to help ease that burden. However, if you're a business or a municipality looking to expand uh public water for whatever purpose, we do charge actual costs and that's part of our um our policies. Um so the way we essentially do it is we add up the amount of water man that needs to be um installed in order to reach a community. we subtract 75 ft for each home that is connecting um and then we divide that cost by the number of homes that are connecting and that becomes the search charge that every um new customer would be responsible for paying. There's also a standard tapping fee for a 1-in water meter which is about the standard size for uh for a single family home of $4,600.

080Again, it's standardized so that if you're on, you know, on the far side of a of a state uh state road, which could be very expensive to work in, you're not going to have a much higher cost for that tapping fee. And just to explain a little bit, um the water man is the portion of um SCWA infrastructure that's in the road. And then to get to each house, there is a service line that must go from the water man to the curb uh to the curb stop. And that is SCWA is um responsible for that. So we m we maintain those if there's ever a leak or anything that we replace that at our cost but we do require new um new customers who are connecting to pay the cost of extending it. And

081then there is also the private service line and that goes from the curb into the home and that is generally speaking the full responsibility of the homeowner. Next slide please. So as I said we recognize that the cost to connect to public water can be very uh expensive for individual homeowners. So, we do offer in addition to the 75 foot allowance and charging standard cost a few other things to um to help ease the financial burden. Uh we offer financing up to 25 years for new customers who want to connect uh with only a $500 down payment and uh we have interest rates as low as 3.9 3.09%. payments are due quarterly and that really does help ease ease the cost um spread it out over time and has made it a lot more um

082a lot easier for for people to bear the financial burden of of connecting. So uh that's a program that's gone into effect in the last few years and it's been very effective. We had a lot of people take advantage of it. Next slide please. So that's one model for how people can uh connect to the public water system. I do want to talk about um another model which is actually was was sort of uh started here in East Hampton with a project in Wayne Scott back in I want to say 2017 2018. Um and this is using grants and government funding to help expand public water. So in Wayne Scott there was a project where there was um a number of private wells that was recommended that they connect to the public water system. uh

083the town of East Hampton paid for the cost to expand that uh that water mane and that was used to um connect many homes. I think it was uh I think we've got 438 different homes that were able to connect uh under that project. But it's also something that has really expanded under recent years and we've really um since 2021 really been able to use government funding, grant funding from the federal, state, and local levels to help expand uh public water. Um so as I said before, there's about 25,000 homes. we estimate that are still on private wells um especially areas where there are there's evidence of PAS contamination and we work very closely with the department of health services. They do um surveying of private wells to see if there is uh any PAS

084in the area and they will work with us. They set priorities for the water authorities say this is an area that we really want to see public water expand to. We use the data that they collect to support um grant submissions and uh grant applications to the federal and state uh government. And since 2018, SCWA has been awarded $28 million um to connect more than a thousand homes to high quality public water. Um so this has been a really effective way to get people onto the public water system, especially when there's a public health need. Um, and using this model, we've able to we've been able to eliminate uh the cost entirely for um for these residents. And that means the water man, that tapping fee, and actually in this case, the private service lines

085as well, because some grant programs uh will help pay for the private service lines as well. Next slide, please. I just wanted to focus on neither of these projects are in East Hampton, but I just wanted to show these as sort of a model of, you know, what we've been doing and how effective it has has been. Uh this is a project in Riverhead that we are um actually just finishing up right now. We reached an agreement with the town of Riverhead to um expand uh SCWA into the town. There is a Riverhead water district, but they don't cover the entire township of Riverhead. Um so this was a $10 million project to for 64 homes that had high levels of PAS contamination. Um so this was very significant and the cost for individual homeowners

086was going to be probably several hundred,000 to connect. So it was just not uh um not realistic for many of them to do. We had to extend water main more than four miles uh in this case. Um fortunately we got a lot of support from the federal government. We got um $3.5 million from our congressional members. Um and uh and a number of other funds. Um so we were able to fully pay for that cost and uh to date we've got 92% of the homes who are connecting. Next slide please. We also have a project that we just broke ground on in Calbertton. Uh we just broke ground last week actually and uh we're going to connect um almost 200 homes to uh to public water. And again, we've gotten um you know, more than

087$10 million in in grants uh to help um pay for the cost. So, I just wanted to highlight those two areas to um Next slide, please, to show that this has been a very effective uh way to expand public water. Um, as uh, Council Member Lisa said before, uh, fire protection is a significant, um, advantage of public water. As we expand public water, we, uh, install fire hydrants. We maintain about 38,000 fire hydrants across Suffach County. Um, and you know, we saw with the recent wildfire how significant that could be. And I think it's really brought a lot of focus into uh, into wildfire protection. Uh, next slide, please. And just on that, I know we agree. I know council member Flight is working on a lot of that out here also and your assistance

088with locating some of those within his emergency preparedness has been well, even though he's not here, I'll speak for him. Uh he wants to thank you also, I know. Yes, absolutely. Have it on a GIS layer, too. That's great. Yeah. Actually, this next map here shows we just shared this with the town. So, so you can update your maps. When we did the bullpath uh expansion, we installed a number of fire hydrants. So, that expands uh that public water protection to that area. And as we continue to install water mane throughout the town, we'll we'll work with the local fire departments to make sure that we have fire hydrants that serve that need. Um and in this case, uh because we were building out that wellfield, this was done at our own expense. Um so

089that was very helpful to that community as well. So are all those marks those are uh those yes those red marks those are new fire hydrants. Awesome. All right, next slide please. So, very briefly, I know I'm taking up a lot of your time and you have a lot of important work, but I did want to very quickly go through water conservation as we're going into the uh pumping season. You know, weather is going to start getting warmer um and things are going to start getting drier. So, uh next slide, please. Um we experience our peak summer usage between May and August, and that honestly that uh that period is starting to get a little bit longer. It's going into September and October. Long Island has a sufficient but not limit limitless supply of ground

090water. So, we want to make sure that we're preserving the aquafer. um for future generations. And uh the you know the bottom line is as we have to build more infrastructure to meet demand that means more costs for our rateayers uh which means higher bills which is something we want to avoid. So if we can avoid building new infrastructure to support demand that helps keep rates low for everyone. Next slide please. This chart just kind of shows what uh we call the irrigation situation. You can see um the the blue line on the bottom is a typical winter day. uh that white line that goes down, that's 6 a.m. And during the summer, that's our peak usage. So, you would, as you might expect in the winter, there's not a lot of usage going on

091at 6 a.m. People haven't quite woken up. They're not getting ready for for work, taking showers. So, the the um the usage there is very low, and it goes up throughout the day as people are, you know, bathing, drinking water, cooking, all those sorts of things. In the summer, it's the opposite. 6 a.m. is our peak time, and that's because most people set their irrigation timers to turn on overnight. So, we see demand skyrocket up until the early morning hours. And so in the summer when we have that high demand and it brings our our storage tanks very low which can reduce pressure in the system, that's when people will start to wake up for work and they'll turn on the faucet and the pressure is just very low. And that's because of irrigation demand

092happening during the uh during the summer months. And you can even see that blue line right there. It's a rainy summer day. Even on days when it's raining and you'd expect people wouldn't be turning on their sprinklers, it's still turning on. It's the the demand is still very high at that time. Next slide, please. I'll just skip over this one. This basically just shows the same thing, but we were uh last summer we were pe um peeking at about 515,000 gallons per minute um during peak demand. And that's enough to fill an Olympic size pool in about a minute. And if you ever seen an Olympic size pool, it's massive. It's a lot of water um to go by very quickly. Uh next slide. Oh, thank you. Um this is a map that shows the

093top consumers on the East End. The average home in Suffach County uses about 150,000 gallons of water per year. We do have some users um that are using a very high amount of water uh more than a million gallons, some as much as 20 million gallons um per year. So, this kind of shows um you know, where there are areas of significant stress on the system and that's coming from um you know, everyone has a part to play in this. We're not going to just say that this is just a few homes that are causing the problem, but there are certainly homes that are using a large amount of water and that does co significant stress on our system. Next slide, please. So just very briefly what we're doing to address this. In 2020, SCWA

094adopted a tiered rate structure and that means that customers who are using the most amount of water about the top 20% will bump up into a higher tier and they'll start to pay water for um whatever they use after a certain threshold. And we are also considering um creating a third tier for the sort of super users, some of the ones that you may have seen on that last chart. Um and that can that can help pay for the additional infrastructure and it can also incentivize people to use less water. Uh in 2023 we instituted a new comprehensive water conservation plan. Some of the key elements and probably the most important thing I'll talk about when it comes to water conservation is our odd even lawn watering policy. And this is a policy that instructs

095our customers to use uh to to irrigate their lawn only on certain days. So, if you're on an odd address, if you're at, you know, 0 1 3579, you should only water your lawn on an odd number calendar day. Vice versa for even uh 02 um 468 on an even calendar day. And that helps reduce that peak and kind of even out demand between multiple days. We do find that a lot of our customers will water on every other day. The only problem is they're all watering on the same every other day, which is Monday, Wednesday, Friday. So if we can shift some people over to Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday, that would really help with honestly if everyone was following the odd even policy, we probably wouldn't have a significant issue with meeting demand. Uh we

096also enhanced rebates for water saving uh devices that you can use in your home or for your irrigation system and and we've uh given out hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of rebates for those water saving devices. And we have proactive ad campaigns um to really let our customers know about the need to conserve water. U next slide, please. We have uh television ads um that we put up during the spring and summer letting people know. We're doing direct uh messaging to our customers and direct uh conservation outreach with community meetings, going to fairs and things like that wherever we can meet people and let them know about the importance of saving water. Um we want to make sure that we're doing that. Next slide, please. So, that concludes my presentation. Again, thank you for

097the time. I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. Board members have questions for Dan. No, it's pretty thorough, Dan. And I do have to say, you know, uh, I mean, I don't think we have to say too much here, you know, being our sole source, Aquafiller here, that we are very dependent on, uh, good drinking water. The town of East Hampton takes that very seriously. You're going to see a presentation if you want to stay uh, about our water quality technical advisory committee. Uh, our recommendations, uh, the town supports those, the town I I've always enjoyed working with yourself, with Jeff Zabbo, and other others within the water authority. your staff. I know a lot of them if we need something, I think they just installed at our Campwell Court affordable housing project.

098Finally, we were in there. They they installed that very quickly then, too. Your your company's always very responsive. When I switched over at my house uh to public water was 40% on there. Um and I didn't have the money to do it to be honest. Uh, and it was the decision, do I do I pay for another water heater to explode on me, flood my basement, or I go to public water or self-accounted water? And and I did do that and you I am immortized it over years, which kept the pain a little bit less for me as a growing family then, too. So, there are those opportunities. I think you put that out there then, too. And overall, uh, I think the partnership is strong and I I've appreciate working on that for such

099a long time. Absolutely. Thank you so As I said at the beginning, we really appreciate the partnership with the town and we welcome you as a customer and I'm glad that their uh our um financing option was was helpful for you. I think customer by three times but yeah, but yeah, I appreciate that. Thanks. No, just thank you. That was very informative and I appreciate. Yeah, thanks Dan. Thank you so much. And we appreciate your daily emails that let us know when you're working in our community so we can push that out to residents. So, absolutely. Okay. So, now we're This is a very friendly crowd, but farmers farmer far farmers are friendly. You guys are welcome back anytime. Uh so, now we're up to the state of agriculture and I believe we're going to

100hear from uh Amanda Maro and Alex Balsam who are the chair and co-chair, co-chair and chair, however you Alex is going to hide behind a hide behind a pillar. Um before us. I know. Good afternoon. Um, Supervisor Burk Gonzalez and and the remaining um council members, thank you so much for having us. We're going to provide a somewhat brief overview of the state of agriculture um in the um in the town of of East Hampton. We're here representing um East Hampton farmers, but in particular the East Hampton Agricultural Advisory Committee. And just by way of a of a short introduction, my name is Amanda Mero. I am the co-founder and director at Amber Waves Farm, which is a 35 acre nonprofit teaching farm located in Amagancet. We specialize in new farmer training and children's food

101education programs. We grow mixed vegetables, cut flowers, and small grains like wheat, rye, and oats. Um, and we are coming into our 17th season of production this year. And I'll give Alex an opportunity to introduce himself as well. I'm Alex Balsam. Um co-owner of Balsam Farms. Probably be silly to not mention that I'm Ian's partner in Balsam Farms. Um we farm uh about 200 acres on the South Fork, not all of it in the town of East Hampton, but more than half of that in the town of East Hampton. Um and I I do want to say we've our committee has talked about doing a state of the ad presentation for many years. I'm glad we're finally here. We hope to make it maybe an annual thing. Um, and uh, like I said, we're happy

102to be here. So, since this is our first presentation, I I think it's worth mentioning um, that the reason that we're able to farm successfully here is because of our extraordinary soils that we have here on the East End. So, we we all know that property that land in East Hampton is is extremely valuable to us as growers. It's extremely valuable because it's some of the best farmland, some of the best soil actually in the country. um the recession of the Wisconsin glacier uh about 11,000 years ago. And I'm not going to do a momentby-moment history of of agony Stamped for the last 11,000 years, but the recession of that glacier um left behind the beautiful silt deposits that make up our lomy soils now today, which are largely rock-ree. They hold organic matter well.

103They hold moisture. They drain well. They're beautiful growing soils which has given us the opportunity to produce a variety of crops out here from uh mixed vegetables to livestock, nursery stock um etc. We have a really robust farming community here on the east end. I think it's worth noting that we have one of the oldest agricultural communities in the country. people have been well Europeans have been farming here for about 400 years and I think we should be really uh really proud of that heritage and really protective of it and certainly the reason that we are still able to exist farming here um is because we have been product protective of it. So when I think you know why are we still farming after hundreds of years here I think it's the sheer uh stubborn

104will and tenacity of the people who choose to farm here. This is certainly isn't the easiest uh place in the country to farm. There's so much competition for land and development. Um when we when we go to conferences and tell other farmers and other places how much unprotected farmland goes for out here, you know, millions of dollars an acre, it's it blows their minds. So, we certainly have our work cut out for us. But the reason that we've been able to uh continue as an industry is due in part because of the conservation efforts put forth by the town, Suffach County, Piconic Land Trust, and conservation tools that have kept farmland in active uh in active production. So, we're certainly very grateful for those tools. Um, I think without which many of our of our

105businesses and organizations wouldn't be able to exist. I think additionally, um, we are we're able to exist as a robust farming community out here because there's such high demand for the products that we grow. Um, I'll give us a pat on the back for that. I think some of the products that we grow out here are some of the highest quality products you'll find anywhere in the country. Um and our um our agricultural heritage is really embraced by people in town. So for most of us, we distribute almost everything we grow right here in the town of East Hampton or potentially dipping over the Southampton town line over over into South Hampton, but largely we're able to distribute um right here right here, which is great. Um we love to keep our dollars circulating in

106our in our local our local town economy. Um we are we're also tremendously proud as an a community to have a farmer on the town board. So I just think that's that's worth mentioning. Also um nationally when we look across the country the average age of the of a of the American farmer is 58 years old. Um and farmers are retiring at a rate more rapidly than than were able to actually replace those those farmers. I think something that's exciting that we see here in the town of East Hampton is that we have a patchwork of farms that have been around for many generations, people who've owned their farmland for 400 years, and then also new and emerging farms that have been around for two and five years. It felt like, you know, at for

107for me at Amber Waves, like we were going to be the new kids on the block forever, and we aren't anymore. It's it thrills me that there are many organizations or pardon me, many farms that have started since we did um that are now the next generation. And I think that continued interest and availability of farmland in East Hampton is going to be one of the key things that enables us to keep going as as an a community which I personally as a as a member of the of the agricultural community I'm am so excited about. Um so just a kind of a brief overview of what we have um what we've kind of achieved or what we've seen in in the last 10 or so years um in East Hampton. Um, first of all,

108the East Hampton Agricultural Advisory Committee was codified um in the town of East Hampton. So, that's been exciting, I think, as a way for us to talk about code, talk about pinch points, which is um what Alex is going to go over today. Um, and for us to share information and kind of be on the same page as an industry about how we can support each other and and what we need in order to be successful. Um, one of an example of something that we worked on that we were successful in is taking a closer look and working closely um with t in analyzing t town code to think about deer fence regulations and how we can make sure that uh legislation and the code is doing what it's meant to do in particular making

109as much farmland as possible available for farming. So that I won't get into the spec specifics, but we were really excited to um to deal with deer fences and setbacks so that maximum acreage could be farmed and preserved. So we're excited about that. Um there are more a operations now than there were in town um 10 years ago. Um some of them many of them existing on um town owned or town presented farmland. I'm thinking of feather top farm and sand and soil farm. Um the town has used CPF funds to acquire some at risk pieces in Wayne Scott on Cousins Lane and Amigansit um on Cedar Street and certainly we it makes us really happy as farmers to see a land stay open um and not be not turn into not be growing houses.

110Um there was an enhanced easement purchased on um a piece of farmland on Peter Dankowsky's piece of farmland which um you know goes a step beyond just keeping the space open and actually ensures that it'll be affirmatively farmed. Um which is something that that we're certainly interested in seeing properties not layow but be an active an active part of our production. Um, there's a farmers market in basically every hamlet. Kind of on on every day in any day of the week or certainly on the weekends in any hamlet you're passing through, you can see a really robust and bustling farmers market. Um, our farms here on the east end also do a tremendous amount of work with our local food food pantries. Um, as this group knows, there's an often invisible but highly dire need

111for people who live right here in East Hampton for food security support. and um and our local farms are donating tens of thousands of pounds, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of value um of produce to our local pantries which are are getting consumed locally. So, we're tremendously proud that we have the opportunity to do that. Um and I think it's an example of how um small and mediumcale farms across the country can be answers within their communities. we can be nimble and are able to start solving pro pro problems where we are just just locally here. Um and I think finally in terms of our there are many more successes but what I'll just um land on is that um we the within agriculture we in the town of East Hampton we're

112providing thousands of jobs um and many of them year round um which is I think for certainly for Amber Waves as we have we as we've grown as an organization is something that I'm really proud of to be um to be a year-round employer for so many people and I'm sure that Balsam shares that that pride in being able to employ so many of our neighbors. um at our farms. Take a take a minute just to you know talk about some of our challenges. As you know I mean it's no secret farming farming is very difficult and has it has more than its share of challenges. So even though as Amanda said you know our our produce is and and our agricultural products are generally sold in the South Fork. You know ultimately we're still

113growing commodities we're still price takers right? So we're competing in areas where you know basically all inputs you know from land to fertilizer to transportation to fuel u labor it's all it's all cheaper you know it's cheaper to farm somewhere else besides East Hampton right so so that's a challenge to our businesses um needless to say you know we're not we're not the only industry facing labor shortages so finding labor obviously is a challenge for for our local farms Um, we're on an island, right? So, we can't our land, our farmland is limited. We can't branch out and find other farmland. That's so that's also a challenge. I think most of the the farmers who are on our committee, I think almost across the board, everyone would benefit from more farmland, right? But that there's

114only so much to go around on an island. Um, weather and climate are definitely becoming huge challenges. the we see more extreme rain events, uh perhaps more extreme droughts. The uh frost on the early side of the season and the late side of the season is is variable. Everything's just getting more extreme. I mean, even in the 20 plus years we've been doing it, it we notice the difference. So, um that makes it hard to navigate. It's it's hard it it's hard to plan your crops, your season when when when these, you know, you have these this more extreme weather. And also um pest and diseases. It seems that every year and of course East Hampton farmers this is not unique to East Hampton farmers but every year in in New York State and in

115our region were seems to be battling something new whether it's you know the alien leaf miner or you know fitra taking over fields which a brutal disease um things that we spotted wing dressilia uh corn rust late blight um anyone who's tried to grow basil in a pot on their porch probably saw it wilt away due to downey mildew. Yeah. So these things are all new within the last certainly within the last decade and usually more recent than that. And so we have to come up with techniques on how to battle these things, right? So again, not not unique to East Hampton, but but a cha but a challenge for our industry for sure. So part of why we're here today is, you know, update update uh the town about the state of agriculture, which

116is generally strong, I think, is the message we're trying to to, you know, to speak. But um some challenges that maybe we'd like help with soon. Um a site plan. We've our committee has talked for years about the challenges when um you know when our when our growers come to the planning board or the town for approvals for a structures. We're not going to get into the spec specifics of that. That's probably for another presentation. Um but I think uh perhaps because because neither a residential nor a commercial site plan is appropriate for us, it actually the way it hurts agriculture the most is it probably hinders, you know, uh the construction of of necessary a infrastructure because if the process is so ornorous or expensive, people just aren't going to do it. So we

117need to make it more reasonable and tailored to agriculture. Um, and that's something we'd really like help with and I'm sure we'll talk more about that um down the road. Also, housing, right, for for labor. We want to our industry wants to be be part and continue to be part of just the general conversation that's going on in the town about housing for for, you know, for for all businesses. But I think there's also possibly room to do something specific to for agriculture. Like for example, the town of Southampton allows uh farmworker housing in a structures. Maybe there's something that uh that's something we could we could do in East Hampton as well. Again, um we just want to put that on our on our radar. There's also to and these next two are lesser

118lesser extent issues, but we'll mention them anyway. There is there is a good deal of farmland out there that was preserved as farmland meant to be farmed and it's not being farmed, right? I mean you all know that how a land owner a neighboring land owner can buy up agricultural reserve basically incorporate it into part of their estate or a reserves as part of subdivisions are essentially never farmed. Um this is something that maybe there's there's there's things there there's a number of ways that the town could help us with whether it's enforcement or or enhanced easements. Um, but we would we would like to being that we have such a little amount of farmland out here, we really want to see the land that was intended to be farmed brought back into production. Obviously,

119the town has done that on a number of properties that you purchased so that you know where lands that were historically farmed like the farm on Cedar Street but hadn't been farmed in years, you brought them back into production. And that's that's great, you know. Um, and even what we call roadside clutter, right? We have our agricultural corridors where we're moving big slow equipment up and down pretty frequently and as you know the town rightaway is 50 ft wide at least and people put obstructions on there right whether it's just the flag so that the landscapers don't park on the lawn or whatever it is but you're taking that 50 foot rightway and you're turning it into 20 something feet and that's we're slowing down traffic. Yeah, we're slowing down traffic, which but it's al

120it also just there's a there's a danger inherent danger in that, you know, when we're pushing this big slow equipment out into the middle of the road and we don't have those shoulders that we can take advantage of. So, I think we welcome any any questions that any um board members have about about this presentation or anything that we didn't touch on or anything that you'd like to hear from us um going forward. Yeah, I'll I'll start just just very briefly. want to say thank you Alex and Amanda for being here. Um and and to all the other farmers in the back. Um I know it's a maybe unexpectedly dry day and it's tough to take time out of ironically with a lot of a lot of talk about water today, but not being rainy

121is a good thing for for farming. Um and I and I think that it was touched on in the in the presentation, but there's a lot of people in in town whose profession their livelihood is earned by farming. And I think that's more people today than probably 20 years ago. And that's a that's a positive. Um, I also wanted to disclose I'm I'm a partner with with Alex in an agricultural operation. Um, and I I know all the other farmers I think in town because we're a we're a small community in general and certainly agriculturally. Um, agriculture's had a major impact on on my life and like all life experience. I bring that to the seat here. Um, but more importantly, egg affects everybody. And I think more specifically, uh, East Hampton, it's part of

122our identity. And I think from a planning standpoint, if you look at our comprehensive plan and our town code, um, agriculture contributes as much as anything, maybe besides fishing, uh, to our sense of place. And so, I think it's it's important to recognize how, you know, what a big part of our our community that that is and and hopefully continues to be. Um, you know, simply put, we're better off with a successful a industry here. And as you pointed out, there's a lot of advantages we have based on our soils and uh, economy. There's a lot of challenges and I think there's a real risk of of losing agriculture as a as a major um, you know, impact on East Hampton. Uh, I want to thank the committee for the work they do. I know

123that, you know, they show up often and, you know, straight from the farm. Um, and and I think it's important. And I remember talking about the egg committee when Larry Canwell was supervisor because as a as a planning board member at the time, people would turn to me to ask about agricultural issues and that seemed like a pretty fragile way of approaching a and and I thought that there needed to be some, you know, system so that the town could always hear feedback from the people who are doing doing the work and know the details of it. And so I think forming this committee um has been a fantastic thing. I think it's invaluable to hear directly from the farmers about the the things that are impacting you which are always always changing and I

124think for us as a town board and other town agencies to do their job you know effectively and and recognize agriculture we need to hear from you and we need the information and so I think that this is a is a great thing that you're giving this speech today and I hope that we can have more a presentations be it state of a annually and and specifically with code and other changes we can do in our town um to help support agriculture. Um I think preserving a is one of the most important things we can do. So so thank you very much. So if I may, if we're going to go down the line, um I just would like also thank you for the information that you gave us on the presentation today. It's very

125important. I'm up on the screen. Sorry. Um I'm at home today. Um it's very important to uh understand what the challenges are uh to agriculture which is a a towndefining um um uh uh business or and and um really has supported the town residents over the years since the beginning of the town. Um what I'd like to do is uh further your recommendations and I know it's a tough season for you guys to have a lot of input but particularly with the a uh a overlays um and the uh the site plan review uh for agriculture I'd like to you know uh be able to work on that um with Ian and uh fellow board members um to be able to uh come up with some uh draft changes. is um you know um when

126we can all get together and work on it. I I think they're reasonable and the road right away is an issue for everyone in the town and you're highlighting another reason why it's important to keep those road rightways clear um as they become more and more obstructed in town with unnecessary objects. So, I really thank you for this presentation, but I'd like to also be able to do some work on it, you know, um, in the future on on particularly on on those areas and also housing as well. I I think those are very important recommendations. So, I thank you for them. Thank you. So, I know Ian touched on it, but uh, agriculture and and, uh, fishing are intertwined, and it's not just a town desire, it's a town board mandate. It is within

127our uh comprehensive plan. I'm going to read from it. Goal six is to encourage and retain traditional local resource-based fishing and agricultural uh industries that practice environmentally sensitive methods of operation. That's what I think we see out there. And I think that's one of the things when I'm town board I try to work with work towards as far as our fishing industry and our agricultural industry. I know Kathy and I've been doing them with Ian here and the other town board members, Kate included. Um, I I've been very um blessed to live out here my whole life and to, you know, I played in a lot of dirt out here on Long Lane over the years, you know, with the challenges and and and others. And even more so to take it here and to

128be able to claw back at some of our agrarian roots right now, it's it's it's something I'll take past this job for a long time to put it put those ef efforts forward. I think I mentioned it to Ian the other day uh when we just recently uh uh closed on the on the former Cheryl's dairy farm. I brought in my my my dairy bottles when one when one when I broke and I was bent out of shape and smashed it. Oh god, it was the wing it was the Osborne dairy farm. Anyway, anyone has one, let me know. Um we we've been able to call back in the last couple of years three dairy farms. Uh, one being the Baker Brothers dairy farm, Namaganzit. Uh, the Cheryl's dairy farm recently at the head of

129Tho Harbor, sorry, Springs Fireplace Road, and the Wayne Scott Farm, which is 66 Wayne Scott Main Street. Uh, agriculture takes all different ways. There's road row crops, but there's also uh, you know, um, I remember there used to be cows out here, you know, uh, there's there's other forms of, you know, farming that we might want to see eventually on some of our properties then, too. Uh I'll leave that up to yourself and also Ian to help that. But it's always great to see that. Um getting back to the challenges then too. Uh I can't stand when the road right away is been taken over. I know Steve Lynch and Kevin Cobb been working on slowly doing that. Uh please let myself know or through Ian or to myself I'll work with the high highway

130department as a liazison. Uh particularly as you see those routes in and out of the farmlands that are here. um and let us know how we can help you with that. That's the easy one. Um I think housing if Southampton is there and they have that and there's ways they can do that with a market laws and we can do that respectively to the neighborhoods on there then too we understand that that it it should be part and I and we we will add it to our all hands on housing to find out how we can do the type of workforce housing on agrarian properties. I'm very supportive of that. I think it's a way that we should try to move that move that forward uh to to assist that industry which I think the

131nexus goes right to goal six on there then too site plans Kate is right I'll let Kate sort of take the lead on that then too through the planning department on there uh but one of the things I think you touched on uh Ian sorry Alex um weather uh it is it is challenging enough to deal with bureaucracy or challenge to deal with uh government but You have to deal with weather all the time. Okay? Uh if it's if it's bomb stores, storms washing you out, if it's aridness that's blowing blowing dirt in there, we all have to understand that agrarian roots out here long lasts any of us living here right now. Anyone in this room, anyone watching, there's been a farm out here a lot longer than that. So give the farmer a

132break if something by mother nature turns it off for a year here. Everyone's willing to fix it and work together, but everyone's very easy to criticize. So, step back, relax. We'll fix it. But one thing we need to do as a whole is work with what we can do to help mother nature. And two, excuse me, that's my rant. Uh, but overall, I want to say thank you very much. I look forward to supporting uh everything a little bit more. I look forward I look forward to sweet corn, lobster, my muscles, and stuff like that coming up very shortly, too. I really look forward also to driving around with my kids and goose necking at the wonderful views and vistas of farms that are in East Hampton and on the east end. Thank you. All

133right, I guess I'm up. I'm just going to say that I concur with all of my colleagues and I think having an annual state of agriculture would be a good thing and I, you know, would appreciate you folks coming back again next year. Um, the other thing I just wanted to say, it would be really helpful, and I know we've talked about it, but there some of the the farms that lease land from the town, it would be also great to get individual presentations from, you know, Isabelle and Nick at Feather Top Farm and, um, you know, uh, James and Andy at Sand and Soil and, you know, Amber Waves comes in and, you know, Balsam just so we understand, uh, and we see, I'm guessing many of you folks back in the audience may

134have started as apprentices at Amber Waves and that's how you got your start in farming and I think that that's something too we could educate the community on on how you you keep it going and you are bringing in the next generation of farmers and like I said you folks are very warm crowd and you're invited back anytime. So I don't know if there's anything else you want to say to wrap up but I think thanks thanks for having us. We're so happy to be part of the of the conversation and for the work ahead. All right. Beautiful. Thank you. Thank you. All right, Melissa, you're up and it's great to see you. [Music] Good afternoon. Happy to be back. I'm Melissa McCarron. I'm a principal environmental analyst in the natural resources department. I'm here

135just to do a followup on the CPF water quality uh request for applications. Um these were recommended last week at the work session by the chair of our water quality technical advisory committee uh Billy Hjack at the April 8th meeting. Um so I'm just here to follow up on some of the questions that the board had. Um, so this is a process that we implemented in 2019. To date, we've awarded um around $9.3 million to 47 different projects. So, it's been a very successful program. We've seen a lot of these come to fruition and ranging from, you know, water quality um for wastewater improvements, habitat restoration, storm water improvements. Um so, it has a wide range of applications. Um, so we received 10 applications this round. Eight were deemed complete and were recommended last week.

136Um, there was a question about the scoring guide of how they're scored. Um, I will include that in the future presentations. Um, but 50% of the it's out of 100. So 50% of the criteria is based on water quality improvement criteria alone. Um, so looking at proximity to uh priority water bodies, if it's in the water protection district in the ponic eststerary, uh, things like that. If it's a a source reduction, so if it's waste water, it gets more points. Storm water gets a little bit less. Um, 10% is cost factors. 28% is project readiness and goals. So, permitting, if there's any obstacles for the project, if it's a voluntary project, and then 12% is maintenance, monitoring, and long-term evaluation. This is just an overview of all of the projects that came in this round.

137So, we had 10 total. Eight were recommended. Six out of the eight were wastewater projects, and two of them were habitat restoration. So, I'll just get into each one that had questions. That's good. Take the next one. Um, so 151 Main Street, actually North Main Street was a project that came in um for a wastewater improvement for a multif family residence. After speaking with the applicant, um it looks like the recommended award um isn't enough for to incentivize them to move forward right now. Um so it is enough or it's not enough? It's not enough. Not enough. Um, so it was probably about 20% of the total cost, 25% of the total cost. Um, so the water quality committee did talk about this in the review process and this has been an issue with some

138of the other projects that have come in in the past. So this year after this round closes, the water quality committee does want to take another look at the septic funding guide that we have and just make sure that things make sense and if there's needs to be any modifications that we take care of that. So we're not going to notice this one for public hearing. Is that um I'm going to double check with the applicant, but I think we probably won't be noticing this one. So, the next one was um I'll go back to the nappy camping. Go back nappy camping club in here. Um so, nappy camping club wasn't one that you guys had questions on last week. Um but I know you guys um or at least David wanted to discuss do

139you want to do that at the end a potential? No. So I just know looking through the the application and I think this is a priority priority water body for us maintain and uh again as this is an incentive program on there is it incentive enough to actually get this installed for the amount of usage that it's happening there then too. I don't know if that will necessarily potentially do it here based on some of the financials that are there. So that's that's why I would be interested in in that and that might be something that I as my daughter's facetiming me something at college. So excuse excuse me. Um I I'll discuss that with the board then to then too. Uh yeah, I'll just put in a couple comments on that. Um, so the

140original request for the projects was was $825,150. The applicant does has raised some money from their members um to go towards the project. Um, but based on the calculation of our guide that we've the committee and the town board has prepared several years ago, the first estimate was based on the best fit flow, which is um 5,700 gallons per day. and that award would have been just around $260,000. The committee did have the same discussion and within the limits of our current guide, um they're recommending the award based on the design flow which is um 800 8,250 gallons per day. So that raised the the uh recommendation to 375,000. Um, so then it's up to the board if they want to increase that above what the committee's recommended. So I'll just leave it at that.

141Thank you. Um, so DNR realy one more bag. That one. Perfect. Um, so this project came in. It's a a reapplication from um DNR Realy Group, which is the property owner at um 28 Maidstone Park. It's operating as Rita Cantina currently as the tenant. Um, so they're upgrading the on-site septic. Uh, it's a commercial restaurant. Um, so there were questions about it the project being in compliance with town code. Um, and that was the major reason why it was delayed the last round. So they have a planning board approval which was from um, July of 2023. um ARB approval as of February of this year and they did get a septic registry permit um April 10th of 2024. So at this time they are fully in compliance with Yeah, I think we just have to

142double check with the town attorney's office in case there are violations in justice court and where that stands. So to my knowledge, I believe that's all been rectified, but yeah, but if they can just sign off on it, then that would be ideal. U Melissa, do you know uh though the one thing I asked was the um system installed with the benefit of a building permit? So um projects can either move forward with a building permit or a septic registry. So if a pro project is only currently doing an upgrade to the septic, they just need a septic registry, which they did get. Thank you. Yep. Any more questions on that one? Yeah. Um, so the next one was the South Fork Sea Farmers Reef Building Project. This was a request for funding to support

143oyster reef installation in ThreeM Harbor. Um, they're purchasing equipment um for tumbling and washing those shells before they're um, you know, put into bags and installed as a reef. Um, the question was who would be eligible to use the equipment and who would be responsible for maintenance? Uh so we confirmed with the applicant South Fork Sea Farmers and East Hampton Aquaculture Hatchery, the town department would be the only exclusive users of it. Um and they would be also responsible for the maintenance and repair of any of the equipment. Could I just go on a little side part on this one then quickly? So uh myself and the supervisor and others, we attended um the EMA the high school science symposium this past week. on there. Uh, and if you've never done that with Stephanie Townish

144and Dr. uh, Rabbido and one other individual, and I apologize, um, it it it is spectacular to see East Hampton's youth in high school right now presenting on science in such a thought-provoking way. And many of these were in aquaculture and the reef buildings uh, uh, that they're doing in aonic and such. and their their tests and their control subjects of design of aquaculture reefs on there. It was on full presentation at the high school and presented by them for in front of what 400 people. Yeah. I mean it I mean what what what were you doing at 16? I mean I was I actually was part of that program. Were you really? Oh gosh. I mean so yeah I did a project on um hyperaccumulating ferns um and arsenic contaminated soil similar to the

145Wow. I I mean it it was it was spectacular to be there but I know that this you know this project in South Fork Sea Farmers was well represented there and an assisting then too. So sorry I mean just to anyone listening and Barley was a mentor. Barley was a mentor. Dr. Barah Uden's a mentor in aquaculture from Crant New York. Uh it was it was you you I my wife and I sit there going wow and it was jaw-dropping wow to hear some of these kids in particular when they started talking about aquaculture and other things. Yeah. I actually I read through all the the abstracts for the that program and I was just amazed at how many kids were participating in it because back when I did it there was much less. So

146great to see expanded so much. Sorry. I apologize. No, I agree. It's and it's worth noting. It's an incredibly impressive program and I think anybody who goes is is amazed. Yeah. Okay. So, this was just I think that was Tom's question because he wanted to know who were going to be the exclusive users. So, we got the answer for that. So, thank you. And I think unless they were somebody was to partner with the town aquaculture hatchery, you know, they would see the benefit of it, but exclusive users would be great those two entities. Um, so the next one was the Springs General Store. Um the question so this project is for the um upgrade of the sanitary system to an innovative alternative system. This is a relication. They actually were part of our first

147round I think in 2019. Um and at that point they didn't get enough of a incentive to move forward. I think it was a different owner at that time too. Yeah. And it was a different owner. Um so a lot of things have changed. Um but I think the the question that came up this time was the status of the permit for um Suffach County Health Department. Um I did contact the engineer which is TF Engineering. They are working with the health department engineers. Um there were questions on the traffic rating um the H20 rating based on the location of the system. It's going to be in you know drivable area. Um so they're working through those. Um they did say that the flow and everything and the components were approved. So that there's minor

148outstanding documentation required by the health department and this actually was um a reapplication in 2023 and they have since gotten planning board approval um for the things that were holding it up at that time. Thanks. And then I think the other thing was that Tom had a comment about how the different scoring why some were, you know, in the 90s and others were in. Yeah. So um for this one the um the score was a little bit lower. Commercial applicants um are automatically dinged for five points. So non not forprofits, municipal non-governmental agencies um get full credit for that criteria. and um commercials do not. Um and they also uh lost points for um not being a failure, catastrophic failure, which is actually good news for our environment. Yeah. Um so minor points and that's

149still a pretty good score for a commercial applicant. Thank you. Okay. Um another wastewater improvement project was the TreeCape at East Hampton Condominiums. Um this is another large scale upgrade. Um, this is the first time this applicant has come in. They're proposing two different systems to serve three condo buildings on two different parcels. There was a question about the number of units. So, and there also was a typo on my slide last week um on the flow. So, I just wanted to clarify that. Um, so the total flow for each parcel is 3600 gallons per day. So, the total flow for the project is 7,200 gallons per day, which is very high. Um and then there's four units in each building, three buildings on each parcel. So there's 24 total units that would be u

150benefiting from this upgrade. Great. And there are other parcels part of this community. So there could be some future another application coming in in the future for more upgrades. Think they wanted to kind of the test case. Yeah. Bite off not bite off more than they could chew at one time. And this is the last recommendation that was made. So this was from Clear Bays Environmental. Um this is a habitat restoration project and it's a enhanced wetland restoration for shoreline stabilization, habitat improvement and also nitrogen mitigation. Um it's along 150 ft of shoreline in the um headarters area of Hog Creek. So I think the only question on this one was the location of where it is. So we can go to the next slide. There should be a map. Um so these are four

151CPF parcels preserved. Um and it's in an impacted area. So as I believe Kim was um discussing last week, the nitrogen concentration here was relatively low, but it's very high flow. So you get a lot of nitrogen loading, and that's what we're trying to address here. as well as um that high flow is contributing to the additional erosion happening here coupled with used to be bulkheaded which is now kind of diminished. Um so it's a good opportunity for improvements. Great. So thank you very much. Uh uh I want I want nice to see you. Uh I also want to thank Billy Hjack for pinching last week uh as as the chairman of the water quality technical advisory advisory committee and a volunteer and all the volunteers on on the committee then too. Um the process

152is sound that go you you've been going through with this for the last seven eight years now approximately then too. I think we're starting to see results of that sound process out there. There's always nuances and and needs out there. Uh and if anyone's interested in the future for grant funding this, please contact the natural resources department yourself uh and Kimshaw uh to find out how uh they might be able to apply for grant funding in the future. But uh uh I thank you for coming back with answers. Thank you for having me. Right. And I think Melissa, everybody was supportive of moving forward to public hearing. Do you know if you'll be able to have those I know you need to the Yeah. Um the resolutions are all ready to go. Oh, they are.

153Um yeah. So as long as all of the projects of your support um yeah those can be submitted for Thursday. Beautiful. And did you want to talk about the NAP peak? Uh I don't have the information enough in front of me to talk about it uh from the scientific application. So let me grab that and I'll I'll walk around to board members. Okay. On that then too. Or else we could always delay that one right. It could be noticed on the first and then I think that might be heard on the 15th. Let's do that then because we we notice them individually then also and then you're going to confirm about the 151 North Main Street if they're if it's if we need to notice that. Yep. I will. All right. Beautiful. Okay. Yeah. I

154just want to say thanks Melissa. You were answering questions of mine as as recently as this morning. Um and and as Dave pointed out, you know, Billy last week went all the way to Montalk as a volunteer and just this is really important work and we appreciate all that you guys do. Thank you so much. We have a very strong committee. So very thankful for all of them as well. All right. Thanks, Melissa. All right, Ian, you're up with the Parson's Dodge Homestead draft management plan. All right, for all those that are hung to the end, right, Chelsea, if you could cue up um our sort of limited slideshow. Uh so I'm I'm pinched here for for Scott Wilson who who took the lead on drafting this management plan along with the property management committee.

155Um, so if I'm imperfect, please forgive me. Thankfully, Lauren Bulier, a dedicated property management committee member, is here in the audience to make sure to hold me accountable. So, and if if Lauren, if you have anything to add as I go through this, please feel free to to speak up. Um, the management plan was posted online, which I think anybody interested in this should really read through that document. Um, it includes a report from Bob Hefner about the historic significance of the area and the different structures. I'm going to go through the management plan and just do give a summary of what's on the property and I'm sort of going to blend the historical aspects with with aspects of how how the property should be managed. Um, we chose a name first of all, the

156Parson's Dodge homestead, which is might sound a bit strange because I think colloquially is just known as the the Dodge property. Everybody knows it as as such, but given the history, it was originally um Julius Parsons who who built here. um his granddaughter later um married Cleon Dodge and that's how the Dodge name came into being and so we chose the Parsons Dodge homestead is hopefully although it sounds a little bit different it encapsulates what what the property is um it's approximately 11 acre property and it was acquired for four different purposes historic open space agricultural and recreation um my approach to this and what I encouraged the property management committee well a I wanted the property management committee to have the management plan they were comfortable with that that came to the board. Um

157my philosophy here is to keep it as open as possible so that we you know from that management plan we could welcome any type of applicant who might apply for a license in the future without you know precluding some idea that we hadn't thought of. And so we want I wanted this to be sort of as broad within those four stated purposes um without sort of keyholeing it into to one particular lency. So I have no idea who might apply if this goes out to RFP. Um the mission simply stated is the Parson Dodge homestead celebrates the legacy of the Parsons and Dodge family through the preservation and interpretation of their historic Springs farmhouse, barn, cottage, and natural environment which represents the 19th century farming character of the Springs area. Um so that's that's the

158the mission simply put. Um and now I'll go through the the various structures and components of the property. Um the first one is the Julius Parson's House which was built in 1880 as per the Robert Hefner the Bob Hefner report. Uh an interesting little thing we were just talking about the Springs General Store earlier and and previously um before building this house Julius Parsons was actually the storekeeper and the owner of the Springs General Store. um and actually built this house after he um stopped that that work. He was an important figure in East Hampton generally, but I thought that that was just an interesting um tie-in as we often experience in East Hampton with such a such a rich history. Um as I mentioned before, it was his granddaughter Mary Louise um and her

159husband Cleon Dodge that eventually moved in here and that's why it became known as the Dodge Property who owned the property. Uh the Dodge family still owned the property up until East Hampton acquired it. Um this is a picture of the house here. Uh and in the in the management plan, we addressed the need to make the first floor handicap accessible. Um again, we we left this as open as as possible. Um but the idea would be that the first floor could be used to represent some period in time that would be historically appropriate that would be open to the public. although wouldn't want to preclude that from it being used in a modern sense for a meeting space or or some other purposes but just in recognition of the of the history that's there

160and also ADA accessibility for public structures is important and so how best to make it ADA compliant and where the entrance will be um while preserving the historic features as much as possible. The management plan recognizes the second floor um which uh we don't know what it'll be used for. depends on on who applies for the license. Um but it's it's contemplated that it could be a groundskeeper, a farmer, a dosent or some other kind of property caretaker. But again, um we wanted to leave this sort of open just just so that we we welcomed all applications. Uh slide two, please. Uh the second structure is the Julius Parson's barn, um which was also built in 1880. Um, we need this the house it's the house we just looked at and is very good shape

161I think or relatively good shape for an old structure. Um, the barn I think would need a little bit more investigation in terms of engineering to figure out what needs to be done. It's also a little bit of an odd structure if you go in the the flooring um is not is not typical. You know, there's a place where a carriage used to go and and so some some work will certainly need to be done on restoring that barn. And I think what that work looks like will likely depend on on who the ultimate um user is. Uh depending on what it's used for, if it's if it's used in an agricultural sense or if it's open to the public, we'd also have to look into making sure that it was ADA compliant as well.

162Uh slide three, please. Uh so the third structure is referred to as the most intriguing structure by Bob Hefner. Um it's this little cottage which is uh 14 by 20 ft. So, it's it's relatively small. Um, it dates back to the mid 19th century. Uh, it's believed and is possibly the home of Henry Mitchell, who was a Native American in the area, um, who lived between 1850 and 1890. um this and and it's not it's not sure that this was his house, but based on the fact that uh Julius Parsons purchased another property, the the Gilbert King property, which was on the east side of Springs Fireplace Road, where this um cottage was originally thought to have existed. So, it's thought that he purchased that property and moved this cottage here in 1890 or shortly

163thereafter um when he purchased the uh what is known as the Dodge property or the Parson's Dodge homestead. Uh so anyway, this is it's it's an although it's a a small structure, it's just important because if if Henry Mitchell did live there, a Native American, it's thought to have lived there with his wife and five children. So as we talk about house sizes and GFA, I think thinking a family of six, you know, five kids between one and nine and a 14 by 20 foot structure, um puts everything in perspective a little bit. Um, and it's just it's just noted in the management plan that if any further evidence is discovered that this was Henry Mitchell's home, that that should be acknowledged in whoever uses it. And and the reason why there's some mystery is

164because the house was redone. And so everything the walls were all covered up at a later date. And so if work is ever constructed there, we might discover something behind the I would say modern, but it's not modern, the most current walls that would, you know, give us more evidence that Henry Mitchell did live there. Um last uh slide number four please. Uh this actually you know lucky to have friends here on the board. David Lee is knows a lot about historic se cemeteries. This is the Louiswis Edwards family cemetery. Uh I know David and a committee did a report recently um that was added to this management plan. The cemeteries was um it predates the Dodge actually. It was from 1784 to 1865. Um so it predates the the house on this structure but

165it will be an important part of um this management plan and just preserving that and recognizing. I don't know if Dave if you have anything else to say specifically about it. I just I appreciate we this was one of the historical cemeteries that we restored as part of this effort that the board is uh restoring our historical colonial cemeteries in 2024. That report done by the burial ground preservation group. I believe we're attaching to this. So I just I just thank you for that. um and maybe a new picture for where it was in 2025, obviously. So, I thank you for including that. No, no, thank you. Uh all feedback is always always helpful and welcome. Uh slide four. These slides we're just going to go through through pretty quickly. This these are aerials of

166the property as you can see. Um I don't remember the exact date. This this slide goes back quite a ways. And you can see that the back part of the property um was open and agricultural. It's now wooded. If you go to slide five, this is, you know, also old. You can see as as the, you know, things are changing. And then slide six is present day. So the back area that used to be agricultural is is now forested, is wooded. Um there's an open acre sort of to the north uh west of the property that that is open and the the management plan refers to that as being available for agriculture or you know to further advance whatever the user is is trying to accomplish there be it a farmer or um if it's

167some historical um type of operation instead. Um, so there's that acres mentioned and then the forested area in the back uh is contemplated with uh to to be used for a multi-use path which have been I think greatly successful around town or some sort of wooded trail um or potentially being you know it's not in the management plan currently. Actually I know David Lee you had some questions about this. It was discussed at the property management committee level about possibly being open to clearing that land in the back. again that didn't make them to to bring it back into agriculture. That would be quite an endeavor at this this point because there's so much forest that has grown up. Um I'm personally open to that. I I didn't want to force the committee to put

168that in. Some members felt strongly about it, others not so much. And so I I just thought we'd leave the the management plan as as it is and talk about it as a board level where they wanted to amend that to allow for the opportunity for for agriculture. I'm I'm certainly open to doing that. Uh, and in fact, Bob Hefner even in his historic report um mentioned that that might be something that we would we would do here. What do we know about the soils there? Uh, I don't know much about the soils there. I I I'm a little familiar with the farm right next door and and spring soils are generally sier and lighter. Uh, but as the ad committee pointed out earlier, you know, we're blessed with with really good farm soils and

169so East Hampton farmers might say it's bad soil and other people would be, you know, it's relative. Yes, it's relative. So, I mean, and it was a farm, so it's it's not we wouldn't be reinventing the wheel. And and then that wouldn't even be on the table if historically it weren't farmed. But I think in in appreciation of what this property was and recognizing the history, I I I do think it's reasonably open to that. Although, I wouldn't say it's the only prop, you know, proper use for for that area. And so I I'll just end with uh a quote from Bob Hefurn in his historic report which I think sums up what we're trying to do here in the management plan. Uh he says retaining the buildings open setting and agriculture land of Julius

170D. Parson's farm is essential to the historic character of the heart of springs. And um I think this the property management committee did a great job on this plan. Um, I think if the town board agrees, we can adopt that and then hopefully the next step would be to go out to RFP um slash some sort of maintenance there to get an end user lency in there to fully appreciate all that is the Dodge uh Dodge property. Okay. So, thank you uh and and thank you to the property management committee for uh putting putting this management plan forward. I I I think it's a a uh it's a very successful management plan as far as each management plan is specific to each each unique property that we have then too. Um you are correct. I

171think all the permitted uses and the restrictions on here are in line to what we've done in the past on there. I think it's uh uh it's it's restricted but also open enough to allow for future uses on on the property. I think it conforms with town law 64E with the uh the CPF uh general obligation law on there that allows for this. Uh as far as the forest area, that's the only thing I uh I know it's been was discussed. Um I believe there's actually even a tar works back there at one time. Norma Edwards, who was a a great lady of Springs recently passed. I believe she actually even got married in there in the in the judge in the building. I know I think I stated this a long time ago. I

172think that the local judge used to have session in this building a long time ago and she told me a lot of the information that's back in the woods. I think it would be appropriate to potentially allow for the use of portions of that for a land in the back knowing that there's active agricultural land to the south of that or easements on on the property. I think this is the Collins property. Um but again that would go through appropriate planning at the town board at the time then too. If it happens, yes. If it doesn't, fine. Uh, but overall, all the other uses in here and the information on there is very similar uh to our our other managed uh plans and I look forward to bring this to public hearing. Kate, did you

173have comment? I agree with David and Ian and I'm uh I think this should this is ready for public hearing. So I just you know the the as it states I mean this is a very really well done management plan. uh you you didn't mention and I don't know if you have it available who serves on the property management committee and contributed to this um document because it's incredibly thorough and um I'm appreciative the the primary goal is to encourage public enjoyment of this historic homestead and through it gain an environmental, economic and sociological understanding of the evolution of springs from the early 19th century to the present day. I think that is spot on. I have the privilege of being able to drive past this property twice a day, coming to, you know, going

174to work and coming home. Um, and it's just you like you let your breath out when you like for some people they go over the nap peak stretch and it's like, okay, they can take a deep breath going past this property with the open space is quite remarkable. Uh I I the where you've identified you know the work that needs to get done and how the first floor becomes you know handicap accessible is um you know spoton and I will say for myself taking advantage of the uh Buckskill property and the property on um Springy Banks the half a mile trail loop is so popular with our residents. Um I grateful that this is incorporated in here that this could be an option moving forward to put a half mile uh trail loop on that

175property so that more folks you know will have access. Um but you know other than you know those comments and I know Loring's here and and I appreciate Loring. I'm sure you had a a hand in all of this. Um you know I think it's ready for public hearing. Great. Um, well, as I said, it's always nice to have help, and Kathy pointed out a glaring oversight on my part for not saying thank you appropriately enough to the committee. Um, everybody on the committee, I think, does a great job and is dedicated and shows up, volunteers their time. Um, if I miss anybody, please let me know. But those members include Helen Harrison, Dennis Fabershack, Lauren Bulier, uh Dick White, Stacy Meyers, Larry Kaine, Vicky Bamante, Jess Frost, Pam Bickett, and Glenn Hall. Uh I

176think that's everybody, but uh and we also have input from the public. You know, we we've made a an effort to make sure those meetings are public. There's been been people interested in the Wayne Scott property. Uh recently met at the Wayne Scott Chapel. They opened up their space to us. And so it's been a very very productive committee and I think an important one. The primary goal of the um property management committee is to deal with CPF properties or town properties that have structures, historic structures and making sure that we have a plan to m maintain those. If we're purchasing structures, we want to make sure that they, you know, we preserve the historic integrity into perpetuity. Great. So thank you for the reminder and I'm I apologize committee. Lauren will bring that up

177at the next meeting and I deserve it. Well, You got it in. So you're you're all good. All right. So that wraps up our topics for today. So we are going to move on to liaison reports. David. Yes. Um uh thank you very much. And parks and recreation. I want to let everyone know that you can sign up online for the junior lifeguarding courses for this summer. And also online registration is available for Nipper Guard training evaluating and testing. uh spring soccer grades 1 through three and four through six which be began April 5th and spring tennis also then two at the Lee Hayes youth park. Uh the Nature Preserve Committee met last week. Um we discussed uh uh uh finalized changes to chapter 162 the town code for uh talking discussing uh nature reserves

178and town lands. I'd like to try to get that to the town board this coming May. Madam supervisor, I believe you're looking to the schedule on that which is great. There also was a good discussion about another public park in the town of East Hampton, Townline, Town Lane Park. It's uh a little bit unknown to individuals, but it's actually probably one of the most unique parks in the town uh in which there's actually a very large sculpture garden on the property from the sulfur uh family. And there is a proposal in there to add some more access to that property there then too along with maintenance on there then too. Um when I say it's unique, it is one of the most unique locations then too. Uh so we'll continue to get that to the

179town board for more in discussion. Um in buildings and grounds, I want to thank Steve O'Brien and specifically labor crew leader Paul Columbo. Uh they did a lot of great work as we get ready for our beaches for cleaning up um Jin Beach and Montalk in the parking area. Surprisingly, the whole entire beach head uh is cobblestoneed around the parking lot, but hadn't been seen in probably 15 years. You know, sand blows. So they they they cleaned that off. Removed some invasive species talking about Vicki Ba Monte. She requested that there's some bird uh tree of heaven out there we removed. Buildings and Grounds has also been busy. Uh we've recently removed some signs in Montalk uh some of our parks that are going to be repainted. So um please uh anyone writes in that

180signs have been removed or stolen. They haven't. They're just removed for uh for safekeeping and and restoration. Um let's see here. Uh Suffach County is working on the working waterfront survey. If anyone's interested in that information, please contact my office and that might be a good social media post. It's already It might already be up. I I approved it yesterday. Spectacular. Thank you very much. Uh and then also uh let everyone know I don't excuse me if you mention this. The Long Island Railroad Service is going to be only using bus service this coming weekend. So please contact the LAR if anyone's traveling on the holiday weekend. two. Lastly, I have uh a bunch of resolutions on for Thursday, and some of them are actually change orders uh that have been uh accumulating for change

181for the playhouse. If any board members have any questions on those, please let me know. But that's all I have. Uh and I wish everyone a couple couple good weeks. Don't forget little league opening day is next Saturday. Do we have a time? I should have been better for that. I I believe it's 10 o'clock and maybe we'll even put that on social media also then, too. you could just confirm it. That Yes, I will. And that's uh and that's all I have. Thank you. Thank you, Kate. Yes. I hope my dogs who have been quiet this entire time will stay quiet while I speak. Um first, I'd like to Jason, if you could uh tee up that video, I'd like to start with the public service announcement. Thank you, Jason. Uh so I would

182just like to remind folks that uh in chapter 255 of our town code um uh some of the rules are that uh to blow, rake, place, spill, dump, or otherwise deposit any leaves, grass, garbage, refuge, cutting, wood, oil, pesticides, or other materials or debris from one property onto any public property, including but not limited to streets, sidewalks, and rideways, or upon the private property of another person without uh such person other person's permission is prohibited. So please um keep the leaves on your own property and uh blowing them into the street. I'm sure we've all experienced it. Um it's uh it's the leaves are just going to blow right back first of all, but it also is very um disturbing to drive through one of these uh blowing clouds. The other uh part of chapter

183255 that I'll just remind folks that no more than two leaf blowers of any power source um shall be used at any one time on any property uh exclusive of any property in the incorporated village unless the property is greater than 1 acre in area. So um I'll also like to give out the number for ordinance enforcement. That's 631-324 3858. And I just ask folks to be mindful of the town codes and uh particularly of blowing anything into the streets. Um also uh just uh coming up in May 16th will will be the shift from uh um the prohibition on gas powered leaf blowers will begin. But I'll send out another reminder as we get closer to that uh date. Uh secondly, I am going to screen share. um really uh techn taking use of

184the technology today. Um as as the board recalls last week in my liaison report, I spoke about uh two of the recommendations from the Wayne Scott uh CAC traffic subcommittee regarding stop signs that were discussed on um presented the whole presentation was to the full board on February 18th. Uh Kathy, you asked if I would bring back the maps um to uh show the board members um and the public about what two recommendations I spoke of last week. Um let me uh see if I'm sharing my screen. Let me pull one up right now. Um this is at the Can everybody see this? Yes. This is uh one of the stop sign recommendations that did not have any negative public comment during the presentation. And this would be the addition of one stop sign uh

185on Ser's Path uh to complement the existing stop sign on Wayne Scott Stone Road. And again, this was discussed as a really big sighteline issue uh for folks. So, there was the recommendation to please um add uh this one stop sign in the uh southbound edition. So, that's a total of one stop sign recommendation on Ser's Path. Not quite sure if I can switch to the one on Northwest Road. Do you see this one? Yes. Yes. Great. So, this is the addition of uh one stop sign on Wayne Scottstone Road in the northbound um uh direction and one proposed stop sign in the southbound Wayne Scott Stone Road to complement the existing uh stop sign on that again very difficult but heavily traveled um roadway uh Wayne Scott Northwest Road. So, the uh final recommendations

186that the uh Wayne Scott uh CAC would like to bring to the town board, I'm going to stop sharing would be uh the addition of a total of one stop sign on Ser's Path and uh one stop sign in the northerly direction and one stop sign in the southernly direction uh at the intersection of Wayne Scott Northwest Road and Wayne Scott Stone Road. And I asked the board if we would schedule public hearing on these uh three single uh three stop signs uh to hear from the entire community. I'm I'm fine with those. I've been fine with those one those locations and I think uh I would like to see go to public hearing on them. Kate, personally, yeah, I favor the one on Ser's Path. I I'm not so sure about the the other

187two. Um, but I would be okay to go to a public hearing. Yeah, I I'm not so sure on the the two on Wayne Scott Stone Road. I think the chief had said he wanted to wait. That was the road we were looking to reduce the speed limit to 25 miles per hour. We haven't heard back from New York State DOT yet. And I think his recommendation was to hold off until we heard from the DOT. Um, so I'm not sure if we're, you know, ready for that. I mean, we could hold the public hearing, but um I I agree with you. I think I would go with just the Ser's path. I just, you know, um and for all the same reasons. Yeah. So, would we go to public hearing and then if the

188state somehow rejects our request, you know, we don't have to do the a resolution? Well, yeah. Okay. Let's go on Ser's path. I I thank you all and we'll hold the other one off. Okay. Great. Thanks so much. And then just finally, um, and I'm going to, normally I'd read, uh, I have been outreached by, uh, uh, Springs residents, including and and, uh, members, uh, of the Springs community that are concerned about preserving the history of Freetown. um including Prudence Caribine who is uh instrumental at the uh farm museum property and also up at Parson's blacksmith shop and is a wealth of information about uh history of Springs and Freetown and Bonica history. Um and so I'd like to uh uh let the board and the public know that I'm going to be researching some

189information on declaring St. Matthew's Chapel a historic structure on private property. Um, the St. Matthews Chapel was uh uh uh in the in the um very instrumental uh to the African-American families, the uh indigenous people and the Bonikers uh as the first uh community church. Um uh uh the building was relocated in the 20th century, but it's it has a deep meaning and his for the history of Freetown and to the history of East Hampton as a whole because it's all one history. Um so I will be looking into and bringing back presentations to the board on having that structure um which is now on private property being used as a gymnasium uh declared a historic structure on uh private property. There is a mechanism in New York State for that to be able to

190happen to at least preserve the facade and the interior of the structure. And uh that is all I have. Great. Thank you, Kate. Ian uh yeah, just a reminder that the Old Stone Old Stone Highway is closed at the bridge um near Parson's Place uh in the heart of Springs. Um that hope that work could last into next week, but hopefully it'll be completed this week while the school is closed. Um again, if anybody hasn't experienced that and knows anybody in Springs, please spread the word. It's a very small detour, but but something to consider and it's well marked. Well marked. Very well marked. No, it's very very very well marked. Um yeah, I think the the project has been been run great. Um and I also want to thank the food pantry again. They

191have a pickup tomorrow um and have extended their hours from 1:30 to 6:30m to try to reduce the the lines that sometimes form which I think is generally helpful and particularly helpful um in this case since the road is is is closed and limited. Uh spring CAC meets tonight at Ashwag Hall. Uh the main topic of conversation will be Nancy Carney, the superintendent of spring school will be there to talk about the spring school budget. um this will be the second time she's come to the spring CAC and I just want to say thank you because you know the school um governance is different than town and but that is a a frequent topic of conversation in the CAC and she's been incredibly open and transparent and and willing to answer questions and I thank

192her for being uh available tonight. Um egg advisory met last Thursday we saw their presentation today. There's not a whole lot to go into there. I do hope to continue uh with some of the things I alluded to talking about site plan and farmworker housing in the future. Neither is fully ready to go at this point. Uh and again, I want to thank the planning department and particularly Tina um Lagaren for uh her comments and and and helping uh sort of discuss that with the ad committee and and looking at it from a planning perspective which I think has been very very helpful. Um, the only other thing that they commented on, they actually met last Thursday. Uh, they wanted to give some comments on the Cherald Dairy. Um, and I wanted to get comments

193from them because I I toured that site with Scott Wilson and it's it's different than a lot of the agricultural properties the town has either purchased development rights or outright in that it historically was horses or or cows, animals. Um, we've done a lot of row crop farming. Uh and the committee sort of commented and there there's a a letter I think forthcoming from them that I wanted to get it before the RFP went out knowing that there might be a conflict after that point. Uh but I think they'll have comments just based on what types of agriculture might be appropriate there that we can consider once RFPs are are returned. Um blacksmith shop bid was was awarded which was great. I thank you Jeie for that. Uh hopefully that project will will start soon.

194And I just want to remind everybody that in the summertime uh on Saturdays, and I'll I'll revisit this at at future liaison reports, but the the shop is open. The forge works, you know, a lot of cleanup went in there from a number of volunteers in the Springs community, including students. Uh it looks great. And if you go down there in a Saturday morning while the farmers market's open, again, I I'll give you the exact dates later once they're they're picked. But there's blacksmiths Mix Yates and James Deartis who are there, you know, forging forging metal. And it's just uh you know, I've actually tinkered with blacksmithing myself in my younger days. And uh just a super cool experience that frankly I didn't know about until I got on the board last year. No, this

195is news. So, I encourage everybody to What are your younger days? Um, the the other thing I wanted to talk about was the first-time home buyers program. This presentation, I think, was presented two weeks ago. Like to schedule that for public hearing. And the point of the public hearing really is going to be to allocate funding to that program so that we don't so that closings and and funding isn't delayed for people who are, you know, imminently buying a home. The only I think pieces of conversation that we had at that time were um one to have loans of $30,000 as opposed to a potential of 40,000. So I think we would set it uh the program total at 600,000 that we would allocate that the the housing department could could run administratively. So 20

196loans up to 20 loans at 30,000 and then at that point we would revisit if those if those fill up. The only other thing that I think we had consensus on was there was a thought of um one of the requirements is to live or work in East Hampton to get this um loan and there was a a talk of adding if you had a contractor license whether that was an appropriate criteria. I don't believe it is and I don't think the board did. So with those two changes I'm going to notice it for public hearing on Thursday. I just wanted to make sure that the board was aware. Um and feel free to read it if you have any any questions. Um the only and on a related note I I have been uh

197contacted with somebody and this came up once previously with people wondering about buying vacant land or constructing a home. That isn't clearly part of the program at this point because the idea is that people are receiving this funding to have a place to live immediately. Although I think it's something we we should consider, especially with the Canwell court coming up. And David and I have spoken briefly about this, but I just want to put it on the radar that we might want to look at expanding that program um and interpret how the CHF laws would allow or not allow for that. And that's all I have. That makes sense. Thanks, Ian. Thank you. Uh I just have a couple of things. One, uh, town Marine Patrol is sponsoring a two-day boater safety course at the

198Montalk School on Saturday, April 26th and Sunday, April 27th from 2 to 6:00 p.m. For more information or to register, folks should reach out to Tim Treadwell and you can get his email online. We'll also put this up on social media. Uh, there's also going to be a future course uh, maybe offered in June, so please stay tuned. Uh just remind folks uh this is our last work session in April when we we'll be back. It'll be May and the season will be upon us. And I just want to remind folks that if you still need your beach sticker, please be sure to come down to the town clerk's office. Better to do it in April or May than try to get in here in in July uh when the lines really back up. So,

199town clerk's office is open from 9:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. And then the other thing I wanted to mention, you know, work has begun. Change Hampton has started to uh lay out where the irrigation's going to go. Just so you know, there will be a crew here tomorrow installing the irrigation. Uh we're excited to support this next phase and and look forward to the plantings and how the meadows will now visually enrich our campus and educate town residents on uh na natural landscaping. And then the other comment I wanted to make was the um the RFP that's going out for farmers for the Cheryl uh former Cheryl dairy. We I brought this up in my liazison last week. the East Hampton CAC really wanted to see an emphasis on um public being able to access

200that property if you know farmers are you know uh there that there's a way for them to be on the property and have community interaction. So I know it's mentioned in the RFP but it's not um it's maybe there can be a bit more emphasis on that. Well, that it's one of the criteria for scoring criteria that that the reviewing committee has always gone over. Okay. So, could you route the the scoring criter Bless you Carol the scoring criteria so I could share with them you know what the I don't know if that's appropriate right now but let me check with Scott when it gets back sounds good or at least for my next meeting which will be the first Monday of May. Can I comment on that? Because the the ad committee actually commented

201on on that as well. And I think that this is a little bit tricky in that if you're responding to an RFP, more community involvement isn't always good. I don't know if people would want a, you know, a really substantial upupic or a pumpkin town type of thing. And so I I I think that over time we want to sort of create boundaries specifically what we're looking for because I don't want to encourage people to put a proposal that then seems too intensive. Um, and there were some questions about that. So, I don't I don't know how to handle it. Um, there's understandable confusion, I think, of like how much is enough and not too much. Where's the line? Right. I believe though that the scoring criteria is in the RFP and the RFP is

202a public document, so it should be able to be shared. I know that you mentioned that some they might want to see it as a park. I don't believe No, I didn't they say park, but they like, you know, they threw out the idea of like a strawberry festival or, you know, like, you know, reasons for folks to to be on the property and because it is, you know, 20 acres, we invested quite a bit of money, they they just want to be able to um spend time on that property. So, it's just it's a it's a balance, right? if it's a working farm, but the community wants access or the folks on it was unanimous from the East Hampton Cafe Harbor CIC. So, I'm just putting it out there. Okay. So, now we are

203up to resolutions. I'm happy to offer resolution 2025 560. This is authorized the 2025 CPF management and stewardship plan for calendar year. Second. All in favor? I I 561 is the authorized payment for Outback portable toilets for outstanding 2024 invoices in the amount of $220. Second. All in favor? I 56 562 is authorized payment to Toshiba for a service from 2024 in the amount of $174.82. Second. All in favor? I. 563 is a budget modification for the recreational department where we're bringing uh from other equipment in the amount of $6,500 to the same amount to the line for uniforms. Second. All in favor? I I I have resolution 564. Um I had received information that the title needed to be amended but it has been changed to the proper title. So I will be offering

204an amendment for it. Um it is uh 564 is release security. URP 40 in SP-1 SP-2-1 at 37 Gardener's Lane and this is to receive to release security that has been held uh for road work being done and the applicant is Clever Lopez and the parcel is located at 317 Street Springs and the amount of the security is $16,500. Second. Could I just ask a question? So, if the UR parcel is 317th Street Springs, um, it was the title that had an error. Should But shouldn't the title and the UR parcel match? The title and the UR parcel do match, don't they? They match. No, it's been corrected. I don't know if it's corrected on your copy, Kathy. Okay. So, it doesn't just uh it should say if it's not corrected on your uh property

205uh URP40 in springs- 2-1. The latest copy that I downloaded from the town website had the change. Okay. Second. All in favor? I a resolution 565 is to authorize sampling and testing at EcoArm. Uh this is where the town owns property at Long Lane and has leased the property to East End Community Farm and Gardens for agricultural purposes. Testing on soils on site for arsenic content has been performed since 2001 through 2016. The town wishes to continue testing on the site and has received proposals from Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffach County to perform the sampling and testing resolved that the town board hereby retain CCE to sample and test soils. uh from Long Lane at 12 sampling locations at a cost not to exceed uh $500. Second. All in favor? I I um let's see.

206Hold on a second. Resolution 566 is to accept security and undertaking from Beach House Development LLC in urban renewal parcel 8 in EH15. And this is pursuant to urban renewal laws. the uh to ensure the town the timely construction of roads and drainage within urban renewal areas. Plans require owners of individual building lots to perform a predetermined amount of road work. Whereas a town engineer and planning board have now assigned the parcels listed below to specific work to be accomplished. Uh resolve that the undertaking together with the following securities are hereby accepted by the town. This is beach house development care of Mark Cardone and this is for work uh for the parcel located at 21 Ocean Parkway in East Hampton and the amount of the security is $26,000. Second. All in favor? I I

207resolution uh 567 is to retain Cornell Cooperative Extension for storm water management outreach. This is where the New York State Municipal Separate storm water sewage system, the MS4s, require that operators of small MS4s and operators of construction sites that disturb one acre or greater of land to implement programs and best management practices to control polluted storm water. Whereas the town of East Hampton is required to submit a notice of intent outlining a plan to fulfill the requirements of phase two, which will require submission of additional permit requirements. Uh whereas Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffach County Marine Program has expertise in GIS stormwater management, elicit uh elicit discharge detection and elimination and general storm water management. Whereas CCE can assist in the process by conducting a desktop analysis field and field reconnaissance to review previously mapped

208outfalls in the town of East Hampton. Whereas the town desires to retain CCE to provide such services resolved that Cornell Cooperative Extension is hereby retained to provide professional services of uh to the town with regard to stormwater management outreach set as set forth in their proposal um and not to exceed uh and and Cornell cooperative shall be paid for such services the sum of $2,000. Second. All in favor? I. Resolution 568. This is a budget modification for community housing. This is to move $50,000 from the budget line for community housing loans to the budget line for outside professional. Thanks Tom. accent here. Second in favor. I was a terrible resolution 2025569 is to authorize a stipulation of settlement in the matter of David Kleinberg versus the town board of the town of East Hampton. Second.

209Second. Oh, sorry. All in favor? I. I have resolution ID 32720. This is authorized payment of fees related to the Army Corps of Engineers project inlet dredging project or the town enter. Yeah, I Ian's got those that are already on a resolution 570. This is a notice of public hearing for acquisition of 82 Bow Orsman Road and a public hearing will be held on May 1st, 2025 at 6 p.m. or as soon thereafter as this matter may be heard. Second. All in favor? Uh resolution 571, I'd like to withdraw. Second. All in favor? I. All right, David. Uh I have resolution ID 32720. This authorized payment of fees related to the army cores of engineering Monttok inlet dredging project uh where the project requires easements to be prepared and recorded in order to commence the

210project resolved that the town board authorizes the budget office to pay any and all costs related to title recording of easements for the placement of dredge spoil under the town's agreement with the army corps of engineers not to exceed $5,000. Second. All in favor? I. So I think that's everything. Do I have a motion to go into exec session? Yes, I'd like to make a motion to go into executive session for personnel, contracts, and CPF. Second. All in favor? Thank you, everyone. Thank you, LTB. We appreciate it, Jason.