001e all right everyone we are live uh good morning everyone today's February 24th 2025 11: a.m. thank you for all attending the eastampton village board meeting if we could stand for a pledge to the flag of the United States of America to the Republic for which stands one nation under God indivisible liy justice for all thanks everybody so we have a couple of presentations today uh Dr gobler Who was our first presentation called this morning unfortunately his dad is ill and he had to um uh be with him so he will not be attending today so we'll reschedule that for another another meeting uh next up is our Auditors if you could could uh come on up now just before you start can we do roll call I always forget this part no worries go
002l oh okay uh mayor Jerry Larson here Deputy Mayor Chris minardi here trustee Sandra Melendez here truste Carrie Doyle here trustee Sarah amadan has an excused absence administrator Marcos badron here Village attorney Lisa Puro is attending virtually great thank you good morning everyone thank you um I am disappointed you is not here I have been coming here for many years and I've always looked forward but I heard you were GNA take over today I was I was scheduled Dominic was uh giving me something to read today because I don't know if she wanted to read it but do you want to read anything today domini no oh come on up Dom give us a lesson so if you see you though please tell me I said hello I forget I forgot to bring it's funny
003it's this traditional ever since I've been coming to report he's always spoken it's just well the the important thing you have to remember he always ends with what he's told you may or may not be true so right and no one can prove it otherwise so thank you um Well we I'm here we uh successfully completed your audit um uh just recently uh we prepared our we we performed formed our audit in accordance with uh generally accepted audit standards and governmental audit standards I'm pleased to say that once again you've received an unmodified opinion which means that during the scope of our audit we did not become aware of any material modifications that had to be made to the financial statements in fact we didn't propose any journal entries this year at all uh so
004that's a testim to how the accounting is done here um audit Readiness the staff was Clos the books timely and accurately that's why we had no adjustments um cooperation was great yet when we come in and do an order we are a little disruptive because we're we require a lot of information and that's you know can be a little cumbersome and then the staff still has to complete their normal duties so it's been very very nice to work with them and it just makes life a lot easier for both sets so I want to thank the staff for helping us on that um should be very proud though no journal entries so uh that's really nice um I just like to go a few budgetary highlights um total revenues came in at 31.2 million which
005actually exceeded the original budget amounts by almost $3 million uh the most notable increase of income came from licenses and permits almost $2 million this year and it seems to been a history over the last couple of years where license permits has been coming in uh quite a bit higher so that's very nice from an extend standpoint uh you had 30. 5 million of uh expenditures uh which was actually under budget by almost $1 million uh most areas contributed to that Surplus or reduction um big chunk of it was from the employee benefit section uh had to do with lowp this year so that's awesome um from a capital standpoint you spent about $7.9 million in new capital or new fixed assets uh Emergency Equipment things like that came in at 2.1 million the herx
006project was almost 2 million and I think the Domin was almost 2 million so those are the three items that really made up the large part of that of those Capital expenditures in the current year which is use of the funds which is great uh from a Debt Service standpoint there was no new Bond issues in the current year we did pay off almost $460,000 of outstanding B uh payments in the current year leaving roughly 8.2 million which will be paid off between now and I believe 2037 so it should have no major impact on cash flow at all for that uh from a balance sheet standpoint you ended the year with on the fund financial statements with $23 million of assets of which um 11 million was in uh cash or un was in
007cash and the remaining items were just across the board you only had a million dollar in liabilities which left a surplus or fund balance of 22 million naturally some of that is restricted for the employee benefits in the low sap uh but you ended the year with about $1 million of unassigned um balances which can be used for future use um of the village and I think annually you've been using part of that to help supplement uh the budgets uh going prospectively um the at the there are certain items that are not reported on the fund financials those are more acable items um you guys ended the year with um some obligations uh health insurance which are not allowed to prund um but you have to do an annual calculation that end of the year
008with a potential liability of almost 24 million which will be paid out over the life expectancy of all the employees um that's a calculation that's done annually by the actuaries um and that's really the basic highlights there were no also like to say that there was no uh significant deficiencies in internal controls at all um the controls seem to be working very well based on our ordinance testing so that's a great job as always great thanks and thanks to uh Dominique and her staff and Marcos guys really keep tight rein on the department heads and thank the department heads for all their their hard work keeping the budget down except the police department but you can't put a price on safety all right next up Ed KY I met Ed um recently at a ncom
009um convention up in albony and uh he's got a great product and we brought him out here to see if the village is interested in participating welcome Ed thank you very much you know mayor trustees the public uh it's always good to follow after the the audit is done because I'm going to talk sort of about a product that actually is you have to think of it more of a like a financial institution type type tip product uh I'm just going to give a little brief history of myself my company and then I'm going to jump right into it again my name is Edward KY uh I've been coming out to the uh the East End my entire life uh my family is out in Shelter Island um you know I grew up in the
010city but and the last six years I've made that my home base and I'm raising my I'm not raising my wife but my wife is there and raising our son in Shelter Island and um I work for a company uh you know with that like my career basically uh went to cuse universary went and uh worked with my family they had an energy company uh you know my grandfather my my dad really were they were all energy guys so I sort of followed in that footstep and and went with that as well as a career and for in in that time period I went and worked for my family I said that and then I worked for the City of New York in purchasing doing energy so I worked in the juli juliani administration for
011two years and the Bloomberg Administration for four years and then when uh joined amarat H the Big H gas stations I was them for a while and then I uh helped start a company called good energy and uh I've been at this one company for 19 years and we Chase basically large real estate so if it's Jones Lang Lal vernado you know Ruden like real estate uh we have five offices we're in Boston headquarters in New York City pure Illinois Dallas Texas and London England and the primary part of the the of the company is government we probably cover over I guess probably between three and 4,000 municipalities across the country so we're we're very strong in uh you know just New Jersey alone we probably cover over 400 unities there so if it's Newark
012uh Atlantic City Trenton and all the other different suburbs of of that Short Hills we we cover all those communities Illinois we have another probably 500 so munities in there Massachusetts New Hampshire so on and so on and so on and we have very strong office in Texas as well uh but part of that is uh in New York's State uh we got involved with nikom which is the New York Conference of of mayors of which the the Village of East H is a member of and uh and then they have the Association of towns which is uh there there's 530 Mayors in the state of New York and then 900 I think 28 supervisors in the state they came together and they created nyup which is the New York Municipal energy program of which
013I run and so I report to those associations of which they report to the thousand plus elected officials of what we cover um so part of that is you know we have a very large footprint in the state of New York uh we have you know munies up in the Buffalo area Syracuse platsburg White Plains and then uh in downstate and part of that is when we go after deregulation if it's natural gas electricity or demand response whatever these Energy Products that we're going after uh we've done very successful at State Long Island is always we've we've run a very large n natural gas program and uh we had both counties both uh NASA and suff County came together and they created the Long Island purchasing Council and we had about 97 political subdivisions join
014into that natural gas uh Cooperative that Cooperative alone probably lasted uh I'd say five to seven years and it created about 35 to $40 million in savings throughout throughout Long Island in the last year and a half you know we're still pursuing the natural gas electricity has now become for the first time in Long Island so it was always you you just couldn't do it um reason being is because Pegg had a black box that they wouldn't reveal we we couldn't get access to it we successfully sued them went to the Public Service Commission they opened up their pricing structure and now we're doing business online bringing electricity um what this is is basically right now uh you know probably 95% of private businesses do this uh government all around Long Island are doing this
015right now East Hampton does not have an energy budget you're you you you have an electricity sort of sort of guess between five and 10% what you paid this year because reason being is you're on an index rate goes up and down up and down as an auditor you would know that's dangerous people don't like that like um you you like have a budget going forward what are we going to pay right now you don't know like you sort of guess it's coming but then certain events haveen happened in the last couple years Ukraine happened gas went up to to 10 bucks and energy prices got to 27 cents out here now the market has calmed down and everything else and we're you know I always tell people when you know natural gas is the
016primary feed stock that creates electricity and the only sort of to get a price on electricity is like what the natural gas markets they go hand inand to each other right now and I tell people if if if if gas is under $3 that's a gift and like right now because of the cold weather the this brutal winter that we were coming out of gas has spiked so we're in like the 475 450 range that's going to come back down we we know with spring and stuff like that but the whole thing is like how much is it going to come down right now you're reading all through the newspapers is energy is becoming so more and more important every every day just because of the electrification of everything cell phones cars this homes are
017now going completely electric heating is going electric so the demand for electricity is going that way and most importantly is AI is coming online and we have no clue on how to predict this the economy is the AI economy is going this way and generation is here there's a gap there that we have no clue how it's going to be filled none um you know we we are decommissioning some of the uh uh coal and and and fuel oil things which is a good thing uh and we're trying to keep up with the AI demand to build an AI station takes two years to build a generation station that takes me five to seven years so I'm not going to be able to keep up with that demand so we're predicting that energy is going
018to be going north not South uh going forward with this type of program I I went on to the Lipa um Peg website and I went back five years or uh excuse me 2001 excuse me and the average price I'm sorry could you explain what an AI station is the AI issue State whatever yeah the AI station is that what you said to build an AI terminal a data center it takes two years what is that a AI it's it's basically data centers data centers are consuming more electricity in the United States than we ever anticipated uh they just uh Microsoft just bought uh Three Mile Island in down in Pennsylvania the one but melted in the 70s they now built that because they they're building 11 AI Terminals and that those three nuclear power
019plants are going to just power just those data centers because they're they they know that the utility is not reliable anymore they can't keep up with that demand it's literally sucking out all the energy out of uh out of the United States and it's going to cause it's going to be a supply and demand you know the the supply is not going to be there demand's going to go through the roof uh that's you know so going backwards with Lipa and and and Pegg in um you average in in 21 the average was price was about 10 22 we had Ukraine so it spiked you in that 13 cents 128 to be exact uh 23 was uh 10 1029 uh 24 was 1104 and then because of this uh you know sort of brutal last
020couple of months so far uh the price is in 25 or at 124 1203 so we put I put this out to bit already and um we're coming back to with prices for you guys uh at around 981 flat so you're a penny cheaper than the utility so that's what we're saying and we're saying this is a you know to go at this very slowly you know because this is the first time so we're recommending that the village uh start off with a not 100% fix I have a a sort of a strategy for the the township of what they should do and um you know in if we go forward uh I would recommend 50% hedge and then keep that 50% till May then in June when heating demand excuse me air conditioning demand
021comes on we put it at to 75 to August and then September when it cools down again you put it at 50 and then uh in December uh January and February of next year we lock it up at 85% and the more and more you get comfortable the more you're going to be put you're going to be locking in these prices but I wanted to come here and say just take this slowly uh all of my information is on the liop power.org website which I've put in my presentation and uh you know what we're basically doing here is we're trying to flatten out any like spikes in the market like any like like hiccups or any like you know if you can avoid a spike you want to do that obviously because the village wants
022to save money how were we were able to do this is you know Lia had the the electrical lines that basically went one way it was an Long Island was an an importer of energy come down go through New York City and take a left and go out to Monto and uh and in that there was different substations would would pick up the power and in that that thing there's a there's a company called Calpine energy Calpine energy is is the third largest Energy company in the United States uh they were just purchased by uh constellation so now they're number one so their Market capital is probably over a hundred billion company um they're massive they're they they're but they have five generation stations on Long own so they're they're local they're all through at
023Beth Page Stonybrook has a has a large generation station uh they're off the grid um JFK Airport if you're you know flying to there anding the Calpine has a massive generation station there JFK airport is completely off the grid reason that that it's also considered a military base so Air Force One lens there and like and like they have always have a couple of f-15s sitting around in there you don't see them but they're there and so they are completely off the grid they're producing too much uh energy so we get to get that excess energy that comes into the grid and they also can run the lines the PE egg lines both ways where the other companies cannot uh they can Import and Export power so they're coming in we've already put this out
024to bid and we had NRG bid on this they said they're not interested constellation said they're not interested the retail branch and then Calpine said yes we can do this and we can do it cheaper um I'm trying to think uh so those were the the Long Island generation assets uh and I have in my presentation you can see pictures of the of Stony Brook and JFK and what Lipa cannot do is it's it's illegal you're on an index rate and they keep you on it the way uh when you look at your utility bill there are three components on that utility bill the transportation the distribution and the supply portion I am only talking here today about Supply the the transportation the distribution that's a monopoly Peg owns that they they they own all
025the wires they own all you know everything under the telephone bones that's their ownership what you have title over is the power that's inside that line I try to compare it to people say what is a utility I said they're mailman you know they pick up a and they pick up B if you went to Florida and accidentally forgot your computer you would call up that restaurant say I want my computer back they would put that in a brown box and they would ship it back to you that's called UPS UPS does not own your computer you own that computer and it's identical to what a p egg is they pick up and they deliver and you have an opportunity here to take a local Energy company Calpine um I say local their assets are
026local but they're based in San Diego and Houston and um you can go forward and say KN that you have 50% of your power is is is locked in it's people I mean fuel oil is still common around here and you know the fuel oil guy comes around he says uh you know lock up in in August you know get a price and you can you you don't have to pay it doesn't fluctuate at all um during the winter time sometimes you win sometimes but this energy we're so undercutting uh P eggs rates right now even if it does go uh you know the other 50% is there's there's a tremendous amount of head room there I mean a penny is a big number in uh in the energy world and that's when we came
027in and we we saw these massive discounts and Ben being from shelter like this is my backyard we've already approved town of hem said is is moving I mean they 8 1 75,000 people they're they're mun they've moved Brook Haven we're doing all of their gas we have lindbrook we have um a couple of different um Board of EDS are all moving uh um Southampton has they're moving forward on this um West Hampton I them yester the mayor there they want to move up with this and um you know today being here that like would like for you guys to go forward on this um I don't know what else to say no I think that yeah I mean I know I'm coming at with like a lot of information I think you explained it
028very well so um this is nothing new this is you're not Reinventing the wheel here a lot of uh you know being up in the at Nik and on Albany uh with the mayor uh you know there was probably I guess maybe 152 200 people there more than half that room were my customers um we have large uh munities in there again I'm saying you know White Plains you know parts of Syracuse parts of Buffalo Albany we do their gas um and then I'll you know I'm not going to go through a whole list of different townships but we cover what's the next step that is it you're going to get the real pricing yeah I have like uh again it's just you know it's crazy like uh with P we do a lot of
029business in New Jersey like you I get information there by law I have to get it back in seven days Peg New York it takes three weeks to a month it's it's crazy how slow they are uh so I've already submitted the information and so I'm just waiting back from that but I can I can sort of guess uh on what uh I'm assuming you're sort of the size of Southampton I'm sort of guessing and um Southampton we have about an eight between 18 and $22,000 a year savings per year so and I'm going at that conservatively I think the numbers are going to be better um because I know where electricity is going so I put a conservative number in there um but you know typical contracts these are short exposures or you know
030between 12 and 36 month contracts uh these are not 10year contracts um you know and again you're only doing 50% um so the process is basically um you know once my numbers do come back uh first you pass a resolution to say we want to go forward with this um that does not bound you to a contract it says you're going to go forward with this once we get the the contract and everything and if the the numbers do come come good you know whatever and I I do have a a proper savings which I feel confident on uh move forward uh it's it's pretty simple um you know it's um trying to think whe whether to think about this um you know you're you're basically it's a you know a financial uh decision it's
031also an insurance decision um you know you're right now you're 100% exposed it's like driving a car without insurance so we're recommending you know take a look at the electric then maybe at one point take a look at at the natural gas that sounds good so we'll um anybody have any questions I I have a bunch of questions that just because I'm wrapping my head around this now so Calpine is a for lack of better words a smaller Energy company that's got five plants on on on and they produce power just like psng and like the normal customer like me I can't choose I just have psng but you're telling me that this company produces power and is looking to sell it and eastampton Village can work into some type of agreement through you to
032get that power through them or partially through them just for the um Power aspect of your bill not the other parts that you explained and it's cheaper and uh easier to budget for when you moved to East Hampton you know whatever that was uh and you you you moved into your home and you you first thing you have to do is you got to turn on the power so you call PC andj you say hey I just moved in I just did you have a choice with that you didn't you they were it was PC that's it now you have a choice you can go pcng or you can go Calpine and you're not leaving PSG at all psng owns all the infrastructure that's all equipment so if if a telephone pole goes down which
033we just experienced uh you know you're not calling Calpine you're calling PG it's their equipment so you know the the guy who changes the the wire of the telephone he has no idea that or she they don't know if you're on deregulated power or not um you know you're you're not leaving PSG like uh it's still this your your the power is coming from uh everyone out there if it's psng conis and Central Hudson whatever the utility might be they're all buying wholesale power it's called the iso the New York ISO that that's called The Grid and uh the grid is the the Clearing House you want it's a that's where it's all coming from and then you have these investor owned utilities if it's ConEd Peg whatever you they're going into uh that that
034that basically swimming pool and um and getting their cup of water it's a so calapine is a wholesale generator and also a retail supplier so they're producing uh you know the the the the electrons that's going into the the the New York ISO and they're coming back here to eastampton at a fixed rate Peg is not allowed to do that they can only charge you for the the transportation and the distribution they're not allowed to charge you for the supply that's a pass through wherever the price of energy goes they don't care because it's a 100% pass through so if it goes down to you know pennies whatever great if it goes up into the you know $10 whatever it might go up to they don't care either it's just a pass through so what
035you're doing here is you're saying you have a choice you can say I can stay on a a dangerous index and it's a pass through or you can go to the largest Energy company a generation company in the United States Calpine um Calpine is is supplying PG their power to because they they have generation assets PC does not I mean they might have some type of investment in there but a majority of the power is caline as the the largest natural gas generation uh constellations as probably 50 or 75 nuke plants and then you know part of the grid system is also we have to buy renewable too so it's coming 15% of the the power that comes into New York must come from a hydro solar wind whatever it might be and those are
036sort of the rules the FK makes up for the different grids but you're going to be getting um a fixed cost where with P egg you do not but does the decision have to be the whole village does it or can it be h house by like could I right now get Calpine and the mayor and not have it uh this is a this is they they call it a commercial industrial account so for individual homes the answer is no um Calpine is a because they're going out here they're one of these type of companies they they go whale hunting um they they they the average home is between a th000 and 3,000 square ft um they have no interest in that um they now have interests in town of Hemstead I mean uh you
037know with um you know um Brook Haven they have interest in that and then we said if we do these deals we want to bring in the other different uh you know munies and they said okay you know we're good with that um they're also interested in bringing in all the different Board of educations too that's that's their their goal is to come here and uh you know not compete with PEG at all uh they're just going after the supply portion um so to answer your question is is allowed for a residential at one point I mean there I know the the the the township was looking at a Community Choice aggregation years ago um that sort of fizzled out that product um it's still around but not as strong as it is Upstate but
038um you know but the answer your question as a as a resident no I mean you could but I don't know who would who would do these little deals like that they wouldn't do it all right so why don't we follow through with yeah the estimate and the contract and then once we get that if it is a savings I mean seems like a no-brainer to me but yeah our goal is to basically put you in a in a large pool with the other I mean uh hopefully we're trying to time it with you guys who with with Babylon or something like that okay um that that's sort of our goal all right so let's just follow up and then we can do the resolution and the contract all at the same time does that
039sound good yes thank you any questions I mean they're not allowed to ask questions you can provide us with a bit of an analysis as to the other customers you have in a sense because I think to answer trusty Doyle's question is that this is really for the village of eastampton right getting our account to help us yeah the contract would be for the for the uh for the the township um excuse me for the village only I mean it's not you're not you're not responsible for you know if I do put you in a large pool but you're not responsible for it's only what whatever you consume that's your responsibility if you can give us some basic analysis of how you've helped other municipalities our size I'm sure that's I can't hear you that
040well if you can provide us with some analysis as to how you helped other municipalities the same size as ours that'd be great that's all yep not a problem thank you yeah it's just our municipality yeah all our buildings and great thanks thanks a lot for your time all right um is there anybody here for public comment oh yes come on up Ed if you want to leave now is a good time good morning I'm also disappointed about Hugh King gosh darn it say that again I'm also disappointed that he isn't here Gloria fry Village of East Hampton if I yelled really loudly you could hear me from cherl Road um I'm here to talk about Earth hour which is a uh Global 1hour long uh movement to help with our environment from 8:30 to
0419:30 millions and millions of people turn off their excess outdoor lighting why why is Earth our important it encourages people to turn off non-essential lights to demonstrate that they support the environment it raises awareness about environmental issues and how humans participate in the care of our environment and it's a small change but it can have a really big impact um what are the impacts of light pollution it affects human health artificial light disrupts sleep cycles increases risks for obesity depression diabetes and even certain cancers it imp acts our ecosystems a lot of wildlife behaviors are dependent on the light so it impacts migration reproduction and feeding and it affects pollinators and a lot of the other Wildlife that we depend on in our ecosystem um energy waste we just had that that uh presentation about
042how much energy costs let's cut down the amount of energy that we're using um if there's unnecessary lighting around in our town it not only adds to the light pollution obscuring Stars it increases our use of energy how can people do this at home turn off unnecessary lighting um outdoor lighting there's often up lighting um it's great even if you have porch lighting that's on for safety put it on a motion detector or Shield it so it's not shining into your bedroom windows like my neighbor's porch light does not a lot of fun what can we do in East Hampton Village uh we could turn off Landmark lights encourage businesses to participate by dimming their lights addressing some of their unshielded lights there are a number of of uh stores on new town and Maine
043where you're driving along and you get this blinding light shining at you where it really wants to be going down onto the sidewalk as opposed to glaring in driver's eyes um and it also helps uh East Hampton Village demonstrate its commitment to the environment it's a really simple action anyone can do it it's one hour and once we take this one step people become more aware of how as individuals and a village we can really help to preserve the most beautiful Village in the United States what's the date March 22nd 20:25 8:30 to 9:30 p.m. Gabby maybe we could put something on our yeah that would be great thank you thanks thanks for doing that more public comment is there another public comment step right up um with the public hearing for introductory laws would
044that I have oh you can comment after the law that's what I was yeah yeah thanks all right um before we get into the public hearings I wanted to just make an announcement from our Highway Department they're having a public meeting referen the ms4 municipal storm water and that'll be held on Wednesday March 5th at 10:00 a.m. in this room so we've got that out there all right so here we go let's get into the public hearings introductory number four of 2025 a proposed local law amending Village of eastampton code chapter 278 zoning section 2787 fees procedure and other submission requirements changes to the notice provision requiring applicants to provide notice okay uh any comments from the public we did receive Lenny's letter yeah I was just gonna if we filed the letter um he
045had offered if we could if we wanted to read it for public that's great um so yeah this is this letter was U submitted um on behalf of Leonard arriman uh last week um dear mayor and Board of Trustees we understand that the village intends to enact a law that when a property owner seeks a variance from the zoning board of appeals the burden of notifying the neighbors by mail will be shifted to the applicant we have some suggestions to make that we ask you consider in terms of providing adequate notice of pending zba applications especially given the high percentage of second homeowners in the village mail notice of an upcoming public hearing hearing typically arrives just before the hearing date given the lead time between setting a hearing date and the actual date of
046the hearing and the typical delivery times for the certified mail since mail notice goes to the address that the neighboring property owners have supplied for their tax mail since mail notice goes to the address for the tax bills there's often a further delay before they receive actual notice as a result there is often inadequate time for an interested neighbor to review the plans for the proposed project discuss any issues with the applicant and hire a representative if needed to attend the hearing the result is last minute objections angst and possible delay for the applicant and more work for the zba members who may have to extend the hearing Beyond its original date on the other hand were you to require notice to be sent more in advance of the hearing date the result would be
047to delay hearings beyond the date they would otherwise occur we believe that a workable solution to these issues is to add a feature to the Village website that will list these street address of any Varian application when it is filed together with a one or two line summary of the application and to scan and post the filings when they are received rather than waiting until a public hearing date is set the ability to review the website to see if any nearby property is listed together with the ability to go to The Village's parcel information portion of its website and insect inspect whatever has been filed to date by the applicant would give neighbors early and useful access to variance applications that might affect them and encourage dialogue with the applicant at a time when it
048is most useful since the application documents are eventually scanned and posted for every application under existing Village procedures we believe the additional burden on the village staff would be minimal and more than offset by by the time and expense savings The Village will enjoy from Shifting the burden of mail notification to the applicants thank you thank you Bill do you want to address the board about that letter like is this problematic to do for our staff and is there a way that since they're doing the mailings is there a way we could give them I don't know like they want to it sounds to me that they want to post as the stuff comes in they want it posted on the web on our website let's say yeah so U good morning mayor Billy Haack
049excuse me for the Village um I did receive a copy of uh lens letter um so the short answer is yes I mean it's possible to do that uh the the idea here was to um shift the burden though to the to the applicant of noticing it wasn't to create additional procedures for Village staff so while technically it's possible um it's something I don't know if any other municipality does this you know has sort of a running tally for pending applications um you know available to the public I mean if if the objective is to reduce potential opposition from a neighbor you know an applicant is free to contact their neighbors before they submit an application or when they're designing it to get their feedback I mean it it this would require somebody to be
050just randomly reviewing The Village's website to see if there's a list of an application that's in their neighborhood that that might affect them I think the chances are pretty low that somebody would do that I'm not saying it happen I'm sure maybe other you know nearby attorneys would be looking at it but I just I don't you know it's a decision for the board to make but you know I just don't think it's while I have you up there so basically the procedure is somebody files for building permit the building department rejects the building permit because they need to get a variance correct so then they file an application with all with everything right their surveys appli y submit it to the village and then it goes to you right review it's processed logged in
051and then it's referred to Tom I'm sure it's yeah myself the review process probably is different based on the scope of the job yeah right yeah well every application is different um I review it for completeness and to ensure that the board the zoning board ensure that the application has all the information the zoning board would need to make an informed determination so on average what is the time if somebody submitted it today yeah that you would have the opportunity to review it and then give it to Gabby to post it's about I would say it's I mean I review applications within about a month or you know three weeks to a month it's usually scheduled for hearing and the hearing is held about two months from submission and then you'd have a if it's
052the board doesn't have any questions and they close the record it's the decisions rendered at the next meeting so roughly it's about a three-month process so it's three Monon process roughly it can go quicker it most take longer it's average but most take longer so so right now it's taking three months from start to a granting of a variance yeah so we posted once you review it and it goes to Village Hall to get posted in the paper it we do a 14-day post prior to the hearing it varies but it's about 14 days yeah okay so does Lenny's office want us to extend that period or is this an alternative keep the time I I think the letter was to not extend it because that could drag out the time well that's what I'm
053thinking it's already three months and that's if there's no issues if there's an issue that the zba reviews it and says oh no you need to come back next month and then that month yeah if it's approved then it's the following month that you get approval so it's really the complaint I hear from residents is why does it take so long to get a variance that's the complaint I hear though is that I had no idea this was happening and now I have this horrible thing next to me that I'm living with for the rest of my life I mean 87% of our village is second homeowners when I've told you when I look at The Star online you're not reading these notices in the Star website so if it does go if Lenny arrian's
054my lawyer and it's going to him and then he has to turn it around it's a very small window where all of a sudden my neighbor's getting something that I can't I'm living in Florida or wherever else can't get there I don't agree the solution would be to put it on our our website because what are the odds that somebody's going to be checking the website if they're not checking the star um legal ads you know so but if we extend the time period that we post now we're going to be three months probably for a well it's already three months we're going to be probably add another it dep I mean some it depends on the the schedule and what's complete and what's not some you know we have an application coming up that
055was just submitted and it just turns out that it was you know it other items were incomplete so it got scheduled so yeah but on average it's three months I just don't know how we can make it and for and Billy sorry for three months those agendas are posted on the Village website correct when the agenda is scheduled it's posted to the website so those the in a sense the neighbors are aware then for three months with the agenda posted well not three months in advance that no no not in advance during the time frame that it's being scheduled discussed and voted on also have you heard of another municipality because I've never heard summarizing um an application for I think only in like the hearing notice you know that's I just don't know what
056would be the draw for somebody to go to our website that's if you don't know right we haven't you haven't received it in the mail yet yeah because of whatever the delay what would make you go to our website and check you'd have to know that the house next door to you generally was sold right but you could do that in the store too you could go to Legal ads what if even a even a transfer doesn't always correlate to an a zoning board application I mean I think it's just really uh shot in the dark to be looking at The Village's website and and see wait and see if there's an application submitted for for a neighbor I I agree with Billy if I could come in I think it's not so much the
057it's not so much the time of a zoning board application takes in general because um with my experience Carrie too is that we're talking about the time it takes for it to get noticed and the neighbors to know about it not so much the time it takes for it to happen because some applications take over a year that's not so much the neighbor didn't have the time to review the application right now I think we're talking about if an application comes to the village and it's the uh burden is set on the applicant that that applicant now has to get planed specs God knows whatever some of the files are gigantic to each neighbor you could have five six neighbors and that's a lot of work and it is on the applicant to do that
058however the village was doing it right um but if it was let's just say on the website then the applicant like oh my God I just got a letter from my attorney or from Gods whatever there's a village variance application I can click on the Village website all the paperwork is there it doesn't have to get sent back and forth because if if I submit a zoning board application and then I have to send the information to some address in Colorado because let's face it the address is on our tax roll all over the place then that paperwork sits there and that attorney has to send it to God knows wherever that could the application's happened already versus that a quick phone call or an email could say hey Billy guess what there's zoning board
059application and all the paperwork's on the website so that that attorney or that applicant doesn't have to wait for the mail or doesn't have to wait for checking the star I don't know but I I think that the you know you can't get around the legal mailing the the what gets mailed to the neighbor is just the public hearing notice yeah if that neighbor wants the file that's online that is online it's always online yeah so is there already once it's scheduled for hearing that that then the complete package is scanned and put on put online so then it's avable already yes but that's once it's scheduled yeah once it's scheduled yeah otherwise it would be you know we get sometimes we receive multiple surveys multiple plans right you know putting all of that you
060know continuously putting that on the website it's you know it's better to wait till it's complete yeah when it's complete and it's all the information like say could you does it happen that you put it up there and then the zbaa hearing is in 10 days uh I mean it it yeah so you might have just 10 days to to review it get to town and you know make a statement it can be very brief once once it's scheduled and it goes up there it can be a very brief period that you have to respond to it and then you have some colossal but how do we fix that the only way would be to extend the notice period the only way to be yeah to extend the notice period instead of doing 10 days
061delay 14 days or before the variance you know before the zba just so you'd be clear the Village Law is five 5 days so generally I will say this that the people who are building and needing variances or people who are new people to our village who are not living here they're buying a house they're moving in and we currently represent the people who are living here already yeah but I mean most people want to get in by summer so you know depending on when they buy their house you know and the scope of the work I don't know I mean what would be the answer to extend the posting but for how long we already do 14 days I mean what do you do we're proposing 10 huh so we're proposing 10 so the
062law the proposed local law the obligation to the um applicant would be 10 days so it's just 10 you know 10 days so they could that's their only obligation is to make sure that the it gets to the post office and they have the certified receipt stamped 10 days prior to the hearing so you can make it 14 days or 20 days or you know you can make it five days and still be in compliance with Village Law right but to K's point you know we're trying to get it sure make sure everybody has a fair shot at the hearing I understand I I just I don't know if you know put putting it on a website is gonna you know just when it's I don't think that's GNA help I don't know if that's
063going to really yield would help the on the website it's already on the website the notice is where we need to figure out so why don't we um keep it open obviously yeah let's think about it also maybe hear from the public yeah la I wanted to say something I mean I don't think any law office is going to want to extend the notice period but yes GL one thing to do when you post on the website might be to put something like CBA and then the the name of the road and what I would do I would on Shell Road I would do a Google automatic notification that if something shows up with that chain on there I would get an email smart like Google alert yeah well it's a good point we already
064put it on the website though how do we List It Is there a way to do the road or I don't know I'd have to I'm not sure it's by property address and by name of the applicant on the website so if you get your notice that there's an application you can go to the website you can look it up by the by the identifier that's on the notice so the notice is a Formula identifies the the the location the applicant it also has the tax map number okay so my question is right now we send out the village sends out the notice and if we we make the applicant send it out let's just assume it gets sent out on the same exact day as the village sends it out so what's the difference
065no difference the difference is what Carrie is it's nothing to do with this law it's she's hearing that you know people don't know that there's a hearing we're trying to figure out if there's a way to make people more aware no no I understand that but I'm saying is that like with our new code chains of changing it what if we didn't change it it's still the same problem it is still still goes out the same time that's what I'm saying it has nothing to do with the law it has to do the process you know it's the process so it seems like the only way to fix that is to extend the time right so let's think about yeah I like the Google alert I think that's kind of smart if there was like
066a set things so you could subscribe to when your street something's coming then you just get that email no it's not your street it's a certain distance away from your house correct right yeah it's a radius 200 foot radius usually is a couple houses you could do a few streets 300 I thought it was I thought the law Wasing that oh you changed think about it let's see if we get some feedback and um we'll go from there okay does that sound good yeah because I it's one of these things you can't whatever we do it's going to cause another problem in what I'm thinking okay so let's uh let's keep it open okay keep thinking Bill okay thank you thank you thank you anybody else want to be heard on this hearing or right
067we're going to keep it open next hearing introductory number five of 2025 a proposed local law amending Village of eastampton code chapter 77 beaches Article 2 Main Beach Pavilion parking lots lockers and Facilities anyone like to be heard all right can I get a make a motion to close the hearing second all in favor I hearing is closed introductory number six of 2025 a proposed local law amending Village of E Hampton code chapter 267 vehicles and traffic Article 1 General regulations Section 2676 parking prohibited in designated locations during certain hours anyone like to be heard I'm just getting some questions on this so this is for parking yeah so as you know we do the the music on Tuesday nights in the summer and we've received complaints from the neighbors that the sides of the
068roads are being ripped up torn up after these events we also do we have a big um volleyball tournament that the beach does we have a similar issue there we do the annual fireworks we have the similar issue there um and then the beach tournament that the lifeguards do we have similar issue there so it's three or four or five events a year that are causing the side roads Lily Pond Lane and and ocean and turbo to all have damage caused so what we've done there there the parking is already prohibited on those streets between whatever it is 8 and 5 or something like that but it ends at 5 so what we did is we extended it till 10 p.m. and what that'll allow the police to do during these events direct parking where
069it won't damage the lawn so they'll have the cars park in One Direction on one side of the street with all the tires on the pavement so that we're not causing damage to it's technically our property Village property but the homeowners take care of those properties and they do look beautiful and manicured and so we we don't want to be destroying our own property and and really causing problems for our residents so that was the plan so no resident will really have an issue with this most of the property or all of the properties on Lily Pond and the surrounding roads have they're huge properties and they have plenty of room for cars so very few residents will park on the street if they are by chance having an event and they apply for an
070event permit same as we always do we wave the parking for the residents even during the day if they're having an event during the day so it shouldn't affect any residents negatively it should only be positive and when you know we have a small Police Department so when we're having an event you have two or three police in charge of directing the parking and they can't be everywhere so this will stop people from parking on Lee until we direct it to be parked on Lee let's say until we fill up the Lily Pond area so will utility vehicles be exempt what what like you know like your plumber your landscaper no they're not exempt now right they can be ticketed according to this law yeah they could be ticketed now I mean the plumbers aren't
071coming after five what about psng and cable they have an easement to use that property so technically I don't think we can we can't yeah but this isn't we're not changing anything we do now if if a landscaper can't get in the driveway and he parks on the street we don't ticket them now especially unless they're blocking the entire Road I mean we understand you know service has to be done that's on the homeowner too like if the homeowner has their people wreck their ground their grass then like that's them but if we don't want it to wreck our grass for our events right mhm some things might be redacted but the original paperwork I saw had like fian and some other streets in there not just by the main Beach no fifan was never
072part of it it was it was all the roads that are in walking distance from Main Beach so you know I think they're definitely not fian I didn't see that one but I saw like a list and something request it was an original packet we got well if it was it shouldn't have been so I I like I think it people get upset when their loans Get Wrecked and you know it's expensive exactly you want to say something Chief the the idea of this working with the mayor and Marcos is to alleviate some of the issues as the mayor mayor put and by eliminating parking right now it's 10: to5 by extending it to 10: a.m. as the mayor said it it'll give us control of the streets and reduce the complaints of people and
073the damaging so if people Park in those areas without being directed just like if you're having a party without a permit you'll get get ticket if we're not aware of it so it will give us better control and it's a it's a a tool we're trying to alleviate for these events for the homeowners uh with the complaints of their of the uh the grass getting damaged so by doing that the plan is to take one side of a street whichever Street it is and it's only like pting Hill Ocean Avenue Turell Lee Crossways Lily Pond edges maybe Hedges just those Cottage those streets that are affected so we'll park at our Direction the vehicles on one side of the roadway with all four tires on the road on the asphalt portion alleviating any complaints from
074homeowners damaging our property that they maintain and then we'll leave the other side open so it it has free flow for vehicular traffic emergency emergency vehicles and it was kind of a solution to again to alleviate complaints from residents up in that Main Beach area are you going to alternate week by week which side they Park on or is it always going to be on the no we're going to keep it for us for logistically and operational when they're coming down Ocean Avenue uh and it gets full at Main Beach we shut it down at Ocean Avenue and Lily Pond and we start pushing traffic down Lily Pond first now that direction will be always that side of the street which would be the north side of the street because it also when the concerts
075end it facilitates like the fireworks they head to the West instead of turning around and having a bottleneck on Ocean Avenue it helps they go that way and they can go up towards the light at the at the Exxon station so they're already faced in the right direction and then when they're coming in it's easier for us to park they don't have to turn around and start Facing East so would be in my opinion would be the best to keep it on the same side of the street and then when we go to a certain distance on Lily Pond they make a call and then they'll shut down Lily Pond and then we'll move it to S Lee and when they get that gets full then they they move you know some of the events
076it gets it gets pretty busy but we move from closest to farthest away depending on traffic and Vol okay sounds reasonable thank you yeah so uh anybody from the public no I make a motion to close the hearing second all in favor I hearing's closed all right next up we're going to go into resolutions and motions resolution number 41 of 2025 approve claim vouchers for the month of February motion to accept second all in favor I passed and carry resolution number 42 approve warrants as listed number 27 guarantees number 28 general fund number 29 general fund number 30 general fund warrant I make a motion to accept second all in favor I pass and carry resolution number 43 approve of departmental reports motion to accept second all in favor I passed and Carri number 44
077approv $250 registration fee for the contractor registry as per section 10713 B1 effective retroactive to February 1st 2025 motion to accept second all in favor pass and carry number 45 approve the engagement of pillo Hill to provide Legal Services relating to the creation and establishment of a village justice court for the village of eastampton designated a special project and thus outside scope of General Village Attorney Services for a flat fee of $50,000 payable from the assigned unappropriated fund balance I make a motion to accept second all in favor I pass and carry number 46 deem Surplus and approved disposal by appropriate sale of the fire department equipment listed in Jerry tur's February 11th 2025 memo motion to accept second all in favor I pass and carry number 47 approve agreement with pet brona plinton for
078consultant services at an hourly rate of $30 motion you accept second all in favor pass and carry number 48 approve sasus surveying company to provide consultant surveying services to accept second in favor pass to carry resolution number 49 approve the $ 14,28 128 quote to purchase six ongun lasers for the village ESU members from industrial strength Industries motion to accept second all in favor I pass and carry number 50 approved $1,457 64 Cent quote for the annual traffic Cloud subscription with all Traffic Solutions oneyear contract period March 23rd 2025 to March 23rd 2026 motion to accept second all in favor pass and carried resolution number 51 approved $4,189 79 quote for the annual net Cloud mobile performance plans with PMC Wireless motion accept second all in favor pass and Carri number 52 approved promotion of
079Sergeant Steven Shades to the rank of Lieutenant at an annual salary of 191,00 72773 effective March 1st 2025 motion to accept second all all in favor passed and carried congratulations to Steve we're going to do a formal um he was away on vacation so in our March meeting we'll do a formal uh promotion or standard formal promotion thanks Chief resolution number 53 approve new fire department member Kate castr motion accept second all in favor pass and carried welcome aboard Kate number 54 approved $2 an hour wage increase for part-time paramedics as listed effective March 1st 2025 motion to accept second all in favor pass and carried this is um you you're trying to keep up with the surrounding agencies most of these um the part-time people it's basically a big pool of people that work
080in different agencies throughout the entire County so it's really difficult to get people to come out east when they can get the same money without traveling working in Smithtown or patch hog so it's it's you know it's becoming a problem with traffic and obviously we all know the issues but so we're trying to keep up and so we can keep this staffed so we're Jerry's doing a great job but we need to help him a little bit next resolution number 55 notice a public hearing to be held on March 21st 2025 at 11: a.m. at the emergency services building one Cedar Street for introductory number 7 of 2025 a proposed local law amending Village of East Hampton code chapter 62 Article 2 alarm systems section 623 registration required B1 2 and 3 motion to accept
081second all in favor pass and carry resolution number 56 approved request from Paul Anderson for extended paid sck leave motion to accept second all in favor I passed and Carri is that it all right so we're going to ask for a motion to close and we're going to go into executive session I make a motion to close the hearing second he the meeting's closed and um we're going to go in executive session all right right that was a nice short one