001Oh my gosh. Thank you so much for introducing yourself to me. Thank you. Yeah, I don't know. I know how it is. [Music] Okay, getting ready for a sound check. Microphone number one. Mic number one. Check. Check. Microphone number two. Microphone number two. You said your name is Karen. Mic too. Not right because I have to explain myself. Oh my god, that is so funny. Microphone three. Microphone three. One, two, three. One, two, three. There's no public. Okay. Mic three. Mic three. The kids government. They're required to go to a town and a school. Microphone number four or mic four. Check. Check. One, two, three. Microphone number four. Microphone number five. Mic five. That one seems louder than the others. And microphone number six. Microphone number six. One, two, three, four, five, six. Podium mic.
002Do we need the podium mic tonight? Do we need the podium mic? No, we do not. Okay. Thank you. I'm testing the podium mic, but we do not need it. Thank you. [Music] Ber, anyone? Just put it out of the way a little bit. Someone throws me. All right. Three and four. This is mic four again. Mic four sounds better. Microphone three. Microphone 3 sounds better. Hello. I'm okay. Okay. Um, that should be all the microphones. Uh, link posting said everything's sounding good. Hopefully looks fine. I'm going to try to get that date timestamp out of there. Um, but for now, I'm going to mute here in three, two, one. Die by the woods. What? How are you? in this pursuit. Christian Dan. and couldn't get his hair to dry, right? I'm sorry. That work
003All right. But I like it. My [Music] You're right. Your hair Oh my gosh. Is there something Sure. Well, good morning or good evening everybody. Thank you for joining us this evening uh for our joint town board meeting. This time I'd ask you to stand and we will do the pledge. The flag is behind us. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. Thank you again for being here. We're very pleased. There's plenty of seats. If you're just arriving, uh, please come on in. Thank you again. We thank Mark Gordon for putting this on our streaming channel uh through YouTube. So, thank you Mark for your expertise in that area. Uh we
004just like to begin with roll call. I see that uh we have maybe we'll start with Jude and then go to Patty and go around the table for district clerk town school board school board trustee Tomatti Tom Pete Marston town supervisor Brian Graham superintendent Ashley Ter school board trustees Sar school board trustee Sherry Stein, school board trustee. Jake Roer, school board trustee. Roger Broker, school board trustee. And we do have some excused members from the town uh this evening. So, we thank everybody for being here and uh being present. Uh our agenda is uh established. We're going to start off by talking about our school resource officer program. Um I'll start and then maybe Pete, you can jump in. Uh, I just want to thank the town and the school board for working together to
005build in that type of security for our students here in Grand Island and our faculty and staff. Uh, making this campus as safe as possible is always uh the highest priority and we're very um honored to have uh Troy and Tom and Mike and Rachel all contributing to our school resource officer program. uh they are tremendous assets uh in many ways in supporting uh the uh teaching and learning process making sure that it's safe. So Pete, I don't know if you have anything else to add about SRO. No, I think it's a it's a it's a great partnership. Uh we are always on the lookout, I guess, for more SRO's, if you will, to uh create a bench uh you know, a backbench so we can fill in vacancies or retirements or illnesses or whatever.
006Uh so I think we'll just stay with it. So, we've been pretty happy to be part of it and uh I think it seems to make a difference. So, for sure. Uh I I also want to commend uh Peter Marston for attending our districtwide safety meetings all throughout the year. We have several of those and Pete has been at the table along with our school resource officers and many other uh members from the town as well as the school. One of the things that may be important to share with our community is a few years ago we purchased a product called Zero Eyes which is an artificial intelligent gun detection software that lays over the top of all of our external and internal cameras. today. Uh the reason why I'm sharing that is today our
007school resource officer along with our uh our privacy and security uh director who's Josh Nichols went to Kegabine to to test. We test the system all throughout uh the the uh school year on multiple levels. Uh and just so that the public knows uh during that test uh the Zero Eyes company uh is alerted when a brandished gun is visible uh on our campus that's on the outside of our campus or on the inside of our campus. Uh today uh they tested that system on the outside of the campus. They immediately picked up the um brandished weapon which was brandished by the school resource officer. uh that is uh verified by a human in uh Philadelphia and then I get an immediate phone call as well as text images are sent to my phone. Uh
008they also contact emergency services so that they have constant awareness of any possible threat or target on our campus. And Pete, I just wanted to commend again our school resource officers who work so diligently on projects like this to make sure that everybody in our campus is as safe as possible. And it's a it's a real testament to the collaboration between the town and the school. Yeah. Thank you. Uh back to your your safety meeting. It's pretty uh enlightening to me to see how thorough you guys are and how much you look into all these things, you know, from every topic, you know, and there's always so both always represents there and the things they cover. It's I guess as a parent, as a resident, I never really realize how deep it down the rabbit
009hole you go in so many things, but it's it makes you feel good as a as a parent. Yeah. You know, as a res. I also want to mention John Patrick had an opportunity to present uh for Grand Island at the University of Buffalo Safe Schools webinar. Uh it was more than a webinar. It was a a workshop at the University of Buffalo. And one of the things that John highlighted besides technology like this are the proactive measures that our school district is involved with to keep kids safe. Some of those proactive measures include uh mental health uh screenings that are done throughout the school district, uh proactive programs to uh reinforce with our students that this is an environment where children can feel joy, be valued, and feel positively connected to the school district.
010And I say all that because we're not perfect, and we're always striving to be better than what we were yesterday. Uh but it was really nice, John, that we were invited to share that information with the broader Western New York community and we've received some nice uh accolades uh for our participation in that and that goes back to how important it is that the town and the school work together on many many different projects. So uh I thank you for that. Uh anything else uh from anybody else around the table regarding SRO? good uh it partnership. Um it was really great uh as a school board working with the town to hire a replacement for Josh Nichols. Ch Josh was promoted uh to help us with cyber security and security overall on all of our
011plants uh our school buildings and physical plant. And to replace him, we hired a network specialist. And for the community to understand, uh, the district hired a network specialist for 4 days uh, a week and then we share uh, those services with the town for one day a week. I'm just curious how things are going. Actually, two good. Yeah, two good. He's amazing. Um, and he's really brought us I'm going to say brought us forward a decade. That sound about right, Tom. We're catching up. Yeah, we're catching up. Um, so I think we're going to have to have some conversations this year during our budget time about actually hiring a a uh individual ourselves to do it, but to keep the process going there and to kind of have him he's he's really good. Yeah,
012he's he's extremely talented. I think we we need to hire somebody a little bit more dayto-day uh to do the daily reporting and all the daily stuff. Um that that guy's a rockar. Yeah, we're pretty lucky to have him for sure. We've uh we've done some uh um grants for cyber security and a couple other things and he's been right in there. He helped us uh facilitate a new phone system at our at our town hall and throughout the town. Uh yeah, he's been a really really really huge asset. That that one's worked out really good. Yeah, that's that's good feedback. Does anybody else around the table have anything else to add to that? I do know that it's important. I think in every industry, cyber attacks are prevalent. U and I want to thank
013our board of education. I think it was a year ago where we added um a position to protect the district in every way that they can against cyber attacks. Um, I'm looking at Bob, I think we got a report recently from Josh that indicates that there are a lot of cyber attacks that come to the district and are thwarted or prevented from getting to teacher computers and student computers, but it is a a tremendous issue and I'm glad that this partnership is working out. Very good. Very good. Up next, shared services. Pete, maybe I'll start with you if you have anything to add. Um, well, I think we just talked about our two good shared services, the SRO and the IT partners. Of course, we're always looking for ways to partner wherever we can. We've
014talked about other venues in the past. Uh, and maybe there's some potential venues coming forward. We're looking in doing a little bit of different restructuring and maybe uh um chasing grants a little bit differently like that. So, Once we make those moves, we'll be in touch with you, see if that helps you guys at all. We can correlate that in there. There's a lot of stuff that I see on in the grant portals that can affect both the school and the and the town, but we just need some the right facilitators. So, that's kind of what we're working on right now. We'll play a little bit of catchup, but uh uh we got some ideas on how to go to the next generation. Seems like if you're not getting the grants now, then you're in
015trouble. We got to really start working harder to get them. Makes sense. I know that for the community, they may or may not be aware that uh the town and the school district work together to get the best possible price for diesel fuel. Y and uh that fuel tank is held on our campus and your your vehicles can come and get diesel from that system which is uh allows for both the district and the town to have the best possible pricing for diesel. Um I know that we come to you for salt and I think Dick is here. Dick, there's no doubt, right? This was a tough year for salt. Yes. But we appreciate the opportunity to work with the town and purchase ourselves from you. Uh and uh your response. Yeah, I was just
016going to ask you maybe to talk a little bit about that was a big initiative of yours. So that that's that's something that we we've shared with the school all along. Um school has many facilities uh sprinkled throughout the town. Seems almost geographically correct. Uh if there is some sort of disaster, whether it be a snowstorm, a flood, uh a massive power outage or anything like that. So um we We work together with the school and our safety team to make sure that the schools are, I guess, uh uh ready, you know, if we need to engage them and make that a warming shelter for that area or if it's a place we can evacuate people to if there's a flood, you know. So, we really, I think, found next steps to get our community
017ready in case in the rare event that something bad happens. So, and the school the school is definitely taking a uh So you guys have all the facilities, you know. Yeah, it's very helpful. Really good partnership. Yeah. Um, additionally, I want to say that our partnership with the town wreck is very beneficial for our students as well as the community. I know that the town wreck is uh uses our facilities quite a bit for different programming. Um, and I think that's a really great example of those shared services. Uh, and most recently, I think our director of facilities has been in contact with the town to see how we can expand or actually clean up some of the trails behind our um main campus here at at Grand Island High School to support cross country
018meets and things of that nature. So, I know that that maybe Phil Marino uh I think has been in contact to maybe borrow some equipment to uh clean out some trails. We have a very um robust uh cross-country program with a couple coaches who are outstanding. And uh the history behind our school district is we've had trails uh right within the woods at our school, but I think with ash trees that have fallen in and over drainage, there's been some issues. But it sounds like this project uh is is going to be able to move forward in the best possible light to extend not only cross-country opportunities but uh classroom uh opportunities for science students to walk through the woods and understand uh the habitats and the environments and ecology that are surrounding our school
019district. And I guess just when I think of shared services, that may not be something that comes uh to the to the forefront, but it's certainly an example of how the town and the school are working together for the betterment of the kids. I understand that they also visited Ohio. Oh, yeah. They were down there looking at some new opportunities. Yes. Uh our guys are they, for lack of a better term, they have a recipe to build trails. We've gotten pretty proficient at it, especially nature trails and stuff like that. And uh the fact that yours exist and they just need to be cleaned up, you know, brought back up. I think they can help you. No problem. So, and uh if you decide you want wood chips, well, Mr. Proper certainly get you on
020the list. We can bring you truckloads. That's fantastic. I appreciate that. Yeah. For anybody else at the table regarding shared services, are there any additional comments or questions? Thank you so much. Uh so, next on the agenda, upcoming town projects. So, I guess the one I I'll probably drill down on is uh water meters. So, our water meters are I think 18 20 years old, Tom. Is that Is that right? Yeah. And they have a 15year life expectancy. So, they are overdue. Um it doesn't didn't take long to figure out that we don't really have the financial money laying around to do that. So, we looked into a couple different ways to do this and uh we've come up with a water fee that goes on the water bill to offset the cost of the
021new meters, which is something we plan to take on in 2026. We're bidding it out. Uh we're just starting now. We've got all our uh I guess informals with all our vendors and we're going to put an RP together and probably award for 2026. Also, uh this year the grant window opened back up for water replacement. So, it gives us the opportunity to hopefully um earn a grant which would save us a couple million bucks and maybe help our taxpayers quite a bit, you know, and our water users. So, uh we're been very diligent on that. We're trying to we're trying really hard on this one. So, we got our fingers and toes crossed. Hopefully, that works out. Um, we've looked at a ton of new technology with these things and uh, pretty impressive, you
022know, you can actually have leak detection. You could be out of town and know your faucets running and stuff like that. It's pretty it's pretty next next generation, you know. So, uh, but not all that, you know, it's all about what makes sense, too. So, uh, we're doing all our research now. So, that's that's probably the biggest thing that I know we got going on. you know that we're working on a little bit of but we're working on a lot of uh zoning you know because our zoning is pretty antiquated and we started a committee and started a process to review it all and kind of bring it into the next generation as far as you know what's what and where it goes and how big it should be you know so Tom anything you'd
023like to add probably the biggest one is the parks master plan not just parks but it's actually parks recreation senior services master plan. So we've got working to develop that plan. We have a meeting tomorrow but in the relatively near future there will be time for school board the public and other stakeholders to start kind of putting their voice in the ring about what they think we need what we're lacking where things should go. So that's going to be a pretty big undertaking that hopefully probably 18 months having a plan, but once the plan is done, my hope is that we can dig right into taking off the shelf and putting it in procedure. That's exciting. To Tom's point, that creates a lot of uh joint grant opportunities with the school do these things. We
024again we use your facilities now like taking the community book and the town book identifying the adaptive to identify holes in program. Like I said, it's not just a facilities plan. Wow, that's great. Does anybody have any comments about those projects? Can I ask a question about the water fe? Is that is that permanent? Is that the same? So, it's something it's something we put on. We assigned a number to it. Um, but that number is fluid. So, if we get a grant, we can lower the number. you know, is based on getting no assistance and and uh amateurizing this out over 15 years. So, that's the number we put on it. If we can get a $2 million grant, obviously we could trim the cost and then re redo it. So, the one So,
025it's a I I'm going to speculate say it's probably a permanent fee as long as we're paying water meters out, but the number could vary, you know, it could it could float. And the reason we didn't want to put it into our our water rate is because that's a lot harder. Well, if it's if it if it changes, we can we can change that. So, the fee that quarterly fee can only be used for water meters or it's going to cover the outcome water meters. Some infrastructure improvements we need to make to be able to read them remotely. Right now, a guy drives by in a van and that's how they're read. This will eliminate the need to drive around. So they're stronger so they're stronger signals but we need some infrastructure improvements and then
026the annual fee associated with the reading and building software. So it'll stay on to some extent likely forever but hopefully it gets reduced because the plan is we'll bond it and pay it off over the course of probably 10 years. And then after that the money that goes in will be in part to pay for the annual fees and in part to start building a way to pay for the next time all the waters need to be replaced, which is it's a little hard to hear you. Sorry. Pete said they were 18 months. They were 18 years old, but when they were done basically wholesale in 2007, there was no planning for when they need to be done again. And we're trying to prevent that. So try to create a mechanism. And as you know
027from financing, um years two, three, and four are the big numbers, right? After that they start to the first year nothing the second third and fourth year are the most uh financially strapping and after that it starts to wean down a little bit. So we can adjust or whoever's in town can adjust that number to facilitate. We certainly don't want to make it a revenue stream. We don't want to make it a it can't it can't be a revenue stream. We we we just want we just basically want to collect what it's going to cost us so we we don't have to implicate the water on you know the water uh cost per thousand. So that's been a little tricky, but I know there was a question on if a res could have opted out,
028right? I've gotten a lot of those calls. At this point, we don't know because we haven't gone with a vendor. I mean, it's something we're going to look into because I've gotten far more than one call about, you know, people excuse me, with concerns about exposure to EMS and stuff like that. But we don't have the answers to that yet. But once it goes out to bid and closer to actually implementing it, we'll have some answers about that. But I wouldn't expect there to be a chance to opt out. So my question would be is if they could opt out then how is the reader read and what difficulties does that put on the town to a program a program that they're rolling out to make it more efficient and better for the town. You
029know I mean I guess that's that's my question as a resident like we're all in or we're all out right. It's when we're rolling out programs. Um, what is that going to do to our town if we allow people to opt out, right? Is it negating what we're trying to do for efficiency and cost going down the road? Well, it sounds 20 years and then paying their retirement else. Yes. So I I would say if you're looking at an opt out program, I would as a resident like to see what the impact is to a program you're trying to fill out for more efficiencies, what that does to that, right? And what you have to put in place for those that you are making exceptions for would be the flip side of that. Thank you.
030There's always a flip side. Just curious. I liked how you used the word. I'm just curious. I liked how you used the word fluid that things are fluid. It was very good. I also It's water. I also noticed you said something about float. So, well done. Great. Under the radar. I picked up on it. Great. Um, so besides uh town projects and I guess one question I have, I know that sidewalks was a big project for many years. Is that still moving forward? Are we done with that project? Um, so the town center's been done. Okay. Uh, and you know, obviously as new developments come along in a se anything in a sewer district is required to have sidewalks. Anything new built needs to have sidewalks. Okay. So great. So that's already Yeah. How about
031new residential developments? Yeah, no, no, we get we we see things every day, you know, and sometimes they make sense, sometimes they don't. A lot of them take a long way to get there. Uh I can also say that right now it's not exactly a good time to be developer with the cost of money and everything else. So, everybody's kind of retreated to the back room and they're doing their engineering and their their this and their that. And uh but I expect if we see a a favorable um interest rate certain approach in the future that we'll probably see up all the approve ones are still moving forward slowly in the corner. Yeah. They're working on finalizing that Rivertown they're still at it. We're working on negotiating a couple of issues with them. Yeah. But
032they're so Rivertown's been kind Yeah. Rivertown's near the old hotel across town center behind the donuts. Okay, got it. That's Rivertown. Yeah, that was what we call G. That's on iteration number like 157. Okay. But they keep coming back. They want to put their mixed use. It's not even it's not mixed use. It's residential different grades and then as town. So, it's a bunch of different style neighborhoods and style buildings. Actually, got a multitude of different styles. Okay. We'll see how it goes. Before anybody asks, um, all these is still working. Okay. All right. All right. So, I figure put it out there now. Yeah. They uh um they're having some trouble securing the property. Uh they have some legal issues they're sorting out on the property itself. their site plan actually expires May 6th
033and they called us about renewing it so it doesn't go away. So that's that's good. That means they're still committed. Um if they if they weren't willing to do that then I would be concerned but the fact that they are means they're still plugging away trying to get them. That's great. Yeah. Thank you. Because if you do that somebody else will come. How about for anybody around the table? Any questions about new developments? All right. I see we have on the agenda conversation about the intersection near Kegabine Elementary School. Yeah. So, there's going to be some changes there. And uh uh Highway Superintendent Crawford and I had a had a a glimpse of what they were doing and how they were going to do it. And I'm going to tell you the first thing that
034I thought about when I saw it was this thing's a in a snow event, this thing's a maintenance nightmare. Um it's going to take quite a bit of I think it's going to take some equipment. And uh you know the town has this equipment. I think the school probably has this equipment too, but it's really tricky. Um they're actually talking about making the islands into a pedestrian sanctuary was the word they use. So um in essence, we have to cut bike paths through or walking paths through those islands. And that means that the piles are coming from every direction and then going through all these off ramps. The snow is going to be rather thick if it snows, you know. So, it's going to not going to just be out shovel and clean it up.
035It's going to take some sort of pretty almost industrial piece of equipment. So, with snow like it's going to take a Bobcat with a snowblower or a utility vehicle snowblower, you know, it's not going to be something that you're going to go out there with, you know, your little walk behind deal. I could I could promise you if you buy it from me, I'm not going to warrant you. Hang over there. It's going to be pretty fixed. Got it. So, um I think we need to talk and once they finally once they they they kind of they didn't leave us with the plan. Mr. Crawford, you could speak on this, but they were still doing some engineering, so it wasn't finally tuned. But I think once we get the final plan, we should probably sit
036down both the town and the school to figure this out. Whose responsibility will it be to keep those walkways clean? Will it be the town or be the school or will we determine that seeing it will be new? Well, highway law will tell you that it will be the town's responsibility, but we have to take a take a look at it and see the final plans and hopefully it's something that uh we can address very economically. Gotcha. I I was I was just curious as because it's sort of kind of in So So I'll be honest with you, my concern is it's remote number one for us. Number two, it's inclement weather. We'd have to drive out with a trailer and a truck and a piece of equipment, unload it and do this and you're
037gonna have to snowboard it over off these islands into the main, you know, to the grass areas. It's going to be tricky, you know, and the highway department's got a few things going on usually when it's snowing. Not that you guys don't get the wrong idea. Uh that's not what I mean, but it might be a lot easier if you have equipment near there that we can we can partner up and do some things. get together. So, we have to talk about that when we get there. You know, it's it's it's a ways off. Let them do their final engineering and we'll do it. Um, they've also talked about a couple things uh as far as speed changes and a couple other things and we Jake and I have in our conversation talked to them
038about some other things more in the area, more globally in the area basically from the throughway right past Broadway things they should be looking at and things that maybe they can answer. that bridge that new bridge creates some other issues. And when you say they, this is a state road. Yeah. State. Okay. Yeah, it's good to know. Daniel, I was just going to say with respect to the roadway near I I would assume when it was presented to the school, there would have been there would have been multiple road design engineers, you know, looking at it as opposed to one. I I don't know. helpful to have all the information as to the engineering of that many road design itself. So they brought it to us, you know, we we basically called them out. We
039sent letters of concern. Uh I think most of the elected officials in the area sent letters of concern. Obviously sent letters of concern. They came back and said, "Here's our first iteration. This is what it looks like. Uh we're going to start with this and go from there." Am I that about right, Dick? They weren't really and they said, "We're going to do this part first. We can do this right away. We're going to work on that this summer and then we're going to look at some other things." Said, uh, uh, Mr. Crawford and I gave a pretty substantial list of other things that we were concerned about and they were taking that back to their to their team to put that on the table and see if they can come up with other things.
040But I think it's going to be kind of I'm going to speculate and maybe we're going to see one piece by maybe piece by piece here, Dick. Yeah, I I mean they they have their own design engineers that are working on it and um they will be updating us. We haven't gotten one since we got the original and uh I've spoken with them once about two weeks ago. U so they're continuing on their path and we should see something soon. Yeah. So again, my biggest concern was when I saw like once a year it snows really hard. This is going to be hard. This is going to be difficult to deal with. Of course, you guys just bail out and have a snow day, you know, but we still got to get this cleared out.
041That's right. You know, we'll call it snow day because we can't get that cleared out, right? And you can reassign the water meter guy. Yeah, there right. Yeah, you're fine. Just thinking brainstorming. Yeah. Yeah. All right. But, you know, in all seriousness, obviously the town took uh great action and supporting your concerns. uh in honor of the mayor family and um we appreciate your leadership in that area and I appreciate Phil Marino and Dick Crawford and Fleer Palace and John Fitzpatrick for uh working together to create a little memorial for Leah uh near Broadway there. So, a lot going on and thank you for your leadership. Anything else? Any other comments about that intersection? All right. So, I just want to give our our school board as well as the town board just an update.
042Uh we've been engaged in a little pilot study where we have three school buses uh that are in that have stop armed bus cameras attached to their buses. Uh Teresa Elise worked with Bob Merkel and a particular company to identify which buses might have a lot of activity where uh vehicles pass a stopped school bus. uh since we've started this pilot and I would say since February of 2020 uh 2025 or I should say February 24th 2025 we started the pilot and since then there have been 12 incidents of vehicles passing a stopped school bus yeah so of those three buses and only three buses have the cameras and this is really a pilot we're just collecting data we'll report back to the school board and the town what that data looks like at the
043end of the school year uh to better understand if this is an initiative we should continue uh adding cameras on more of our buses. Obviously, this is not an opportunity to make money uh but to educate the community and how important it is to stop school buses stopped. Um so today I want to thank Bob Merkel. He shared with me some of the data and actually shared a video of a vehicle that was very close to passing um a stopped school bus. Uh but what was more important than looking at the video was to see the technology behind it. So in this video that Bob and I reviewed today, uh a vehicle was approaching one of our buses. Our our bus was getting ready to stop. The stop sign was starting to come out. red
044lights were flashing and as the stop sign started to come come out the vehicle passed. Uh so we were able to see that the camera captured the license plate of the vehicle and the identification of the vehicle. Uh in the event that the school and the town wanted to move forward with this initiative, it was impressive technology to review multiple camera angles of of this incident. So, uh, even though Bob and I when we reviewed it, we weren't sure immediately if it was a true the true definition of passing a stop school bus just and reviewing that data, but ultimately 12 incidents since February 24th, it's 12 to agreed there. Um, I know this is very passionate council, so I won't take up too much time, but I also can tell you that we've worked
045with our town attorneys. We've looked at the sample languages and stuff we've gotten from your vendor. Um, they say it's absolutely, I'll say, doable, but we need to, he kind of said, we really should sit with this vendor to understand this a little bit better exactly how this process works so we can make sure that we we properly wire the law and make sure it works appropriately. Uh, Now we're just kind of guessing a little bit. Not guessing, but it's not completely right. He said, he goes, "When we get to the point where we need to do this," he goes, "I want to sit with the vendor, have a conversation with them." So I I I can understand that. That makes a lot of sense. So are we ready to roll with it with you
046guys? That's the thing. And I guess balancing, it's not on wood. It would never be across because the nature of what we're dealing with being on it's res word got out that you pass a school bus and you're going to get a very unpleasant letter in the mail people probably stop passing school buses which is ultimately yeah I think I think the goal is compliance not not punishment so I think you know if we work together we I'm sorry what was the extension on the legislation if anybody remembers the enforcement was I I thought it was four or five years. Okay. I think we have that. Yeah, it's a great question. And that's our question. That's it's 12 a month, right? That's something we could do, but that's only on three buses, right? All the
047buses here at least. We also don't understand what how much So, we're not afraid to do the work. We need to understand how much work is involved right for the town so we can figure all that out. We can wire it all appropriately and you know what form does this comes with. Is this basically cooked and it's a yes or a no or is it us going through video to to and signing the ticket from the beginning, right? Uh so those those all change a lot of the legalities from what I understand. So we we need to again sit with your vendor and know what we're going to get from their end product so we can understand how to process. I I think this vendor is a little more manpower driven and costefficient than the
048prior one because the first level was AI reviewing everything before they was also the state got the ticket on the speed construction zone camp where it's entirely it's reviewed by AI and it's sent out this would be more my understanding is that transportation department would kind of do the initial review once somebody went through it ultimately from there to the town police station issue citation warrant there might need more manpower on the school as well potential potentially I I would say Bob we spent quite a few minutes ourselves watching a video today and questioning whether or not it was you know legit but as far as man power goes what's your understanding we wouldn't review any of the videos that they they would be uh reviewed by AI and the companies before they're sent to
049the town they'd have to be reviewed by an officer before a citation was put out. Yeah. So, a citation has to be issued by a police officer, not not by a system or computer AI. So, it needs human verification or authentication. Correct. Right. The district would not be reviewing any of that that footage for that purpose. But I you know I I just have to say that we are we are talking about potential life of a child and I don't know what type of price tag on that and I I don't want to be sitting at this table standing and giving a moment of silence for a child who was hit by a car that passed a school bus after having a conversation like this. So, um you know, I I really know we have
050to do our due diligence and we have to know what the system is and what it's going to cost us, but from the seat I am sitting in, there is no price tag um that is too much for the safety of our time. And that's just my opinion and I I know we have to have the correct legislature in place and we have to know what our system is and and what the time is. But we had 12 incences on three buses in a couple of weeks. What you know what's what's the likelihood it's going to happen? ask for those three buses only. Yeah, it's just the three pilot buses. How many are how many buses are out? Well over 30. Between 30 and 40. So, and I think Teresa picked these three buses because
051it was her understanding. They're the known offender routes, I'm assuming, right? Yeah. I was just going to say that. So, um, yeah. So, when Teresa worked with Bob to identify the buses, they were they were buses that had frequent concerns with vehicles passing in. So, I I can speak real quick on how the data was recorded. So, part of the system is uh they call it a panic button essentially. So, it's a button that the driver can press when they see somebody passing so that it's it's more isolated. So, currently in the pilot phase, the AI is not doing all the all the reviewing on the video, it's really essentially the the driver hitting the button. So those are all those 12 instances were when the driver initiated that button to say there was somebody
052passed it. So there's there's not a whole ton of evaluation going on right now other than just collecting that on how many times. Yeah. So ju just to reiterate, we are more than happy to you know whatever we got to do. We just got to understand how how it has to work in your bedroom so we can facilitate It doesn't. We're not saying we don't want to do it. Oh, no. You know what? I did not mean to imply that at all from the town. That's not what I was receiving. I'm just saying from my point of view and there has been some chatter um in the community and from others that, you know, there may be a price tag on it or a time that it is is too much for this um endeavor.
053And I, you know, for me there's not the whole fleet that would be well over a hundred ines just a short time. That's that's a lot. So I think it's important to understand how it works, what needs to be done, you know, what's involved. I know that uh other communities are doing it currently. I believe Niagara Falls. So Buffalo, Buffalo. So it might be a good idea to even touch base with how they're handling it and how it's affecting them so that you can get as much data as possible. I'm always going to be an advocate of it for the same reasons that Sue said as long as the legislation and the law, you know, and it should, you know, you're going to hopefully see numbers because you know of it all. I would agree.
054So you can get it down to more manageable. No, right. And that's another great question to ask for the town that are doing it, right? Are you seeing this reduction, you know, again with research? So thank you. Uh uh thanks for chiming in and sharing that information. So uh I know that internships is are important to you. So that's something we started last year at the school where we've invited uh uh people from their summer classes to come uh do their internship requirements at the town and uh so far I think we've had four and everything's gone really well and all all the departments who have had them and facilitated them were happy to sign back up and say we'll take more uh this summer. So just extending the uh uh invitation again. Looks like
055we have five departments already that we're happy to take people. That's great. So there's anybody whoever facilitates this, they want to reach out to me, I can kind of give them broadbased skill sets which would make sense for these departments and uh you know hopefully do it again. Yeah, that's great. And for our community too, our high school has an academy, national academy of finance and they're always looking for uh companies here in greater partner for internships for our students. Uh so that is something if you want to reach out to myself uh or our principal Hillary Cretz Harvey for more information if you're watching this or learning about those internship programs, we're more than willing to work with our community to give our kids the best possible opportunities in those internships. So thank you.
056It's great. It's exciting to hear five departments. That's great. Y notary school. What's what's going on? Well, this is something we've been working on on and off for a while. Um, we reached out to Bob before a list of people. We are going to put it off in the next month or two. It's going to we're going to facilitate it. So, one last call, I guess. If you got anybody else, let us know. Um, we're going to work on setting it up and getting it done before spring. So, the problem though for our community that we're trying to solve is that, you know, sometimes those who have the uh certification to be notaries probably We have a couple at the team. Yeah. Yep. Sometimes uh like I know we just lost somebody who had that
057certification in our office. So you're just trying to get people interested in this and to be able to in my time four people that were notaries have retired. Yeah. You know, so now we need to, you know, retrain. So how long does that take? Uh I don't think it's that I think it's a day thing. I think so. I'm not sure. Patty, do you know you're not required to class. You have to pass the test. Yeah. Yeah. So, it's it's a date. It's not there. We're just trying to set it up in house so they don't have to leave. And I know interacting with their students is important to you. You came to a session, maybe one or two that Hillary and I had with our students. Maybe you just want to talk a little
058bit about that. Yeah. So, that was pretty enlightening. Uh they asked me questions I didn't expect. Um they were tough, but I could actually I could tell by listening to them that these were uh discussions at the dinner table at home and their parents had talked about it. So, I I felt it was pretty interesting and I also felt that maybe the kids went home and educated their parents at the dinner table which was okay too. Uh I do have some on my books I think for the end of May for one of your government classes to come speak. Yeah. So I look forward to those. We're happy to be involved. I'm sure there's other town board members if they have time would be happy to do that. Um I think last fall I went
059to a second grade class at uh Kegabine and they were really tough there a lot and uh but it went well. That's great. You know and it's a good time. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, giving students an opportunity to share their voice, to express their agency and town government is a great idea. So, thank you for that. That brings us to town news. I think we've talked about most of it, Tom. Yeah, I think that's pretty much it. Um, you know, spring's coming. That's usually building season. and uh we get busy. Okay, so it's about it. All right, very good. Uh I I do have a little bit to share. Um want to thank Hillary Chris Harvey, our principal here at the high school, for working with a group of really dedicated people to share a
060film about Charles Dlopper here on May 17th. Is everybody around the table familiar with this project? Yes. Oh, you saw the film already. Excellent. So, um I believe at 6:30 doors will open and the program actually will start at 7 o'clock right in our Viking Auditorium. Uh it's free and I think Pete Gallivan from channel 2 will be one of our MC's, one of our hosts for that. Um it does butt up against Relay for Life, I think, but it should be there should be plenty of time for that event to end and this uh this uh film to be uh shown to our residents. It's a free event, so we're really excited about that. Does anybody have any questions about that film? I Yes. Really? All right. Did you hear that? Apparently, we're having
061popcorn, so make sure you turn off the fire smoke detectors. Um, so that's good news. Maybe we can go around and hear from the town board closing comments. So again, uh I think these meetings are great. I've been to many venues where um uh supervisors and other elected officials talk about their relationship with their school board and ours is so unique. Uh probably because our borders are so well defined and we're stuck with each other. That's okay. I mean they they are all extremely jealous of the of the of the uh the work that we've done with our school and the collaboration that we do. So I just whatever we can do to keep that going I think it makes sense. It's it's all the same taxp echo those comments. I think it's great that
062we not only have these meetings but with the IT partnership with all the things we do to try and put our heads together and have jointly. It's like Pete said I think our geographical borders force our hand a little bit but that's great and we do a very good job at it. So we'll keep at it. I think there's going to be lots of opportunities in the coming years to keep collaborating, working together just even with the internship there's somebody who has an interest in government probably one of these department perfect I I think we're I think we're going to school. I always enjoy these meetings because I always like to hear what's I love it. And I go home and I share it with my family because they don't watch or they don't come.
063So always enjoy and I always look forward to likewise. Thank you for being here. Pete, I very much appreciate how forthcoming you are and you say things in ways that just make it easy to understand and just the human element of it. It's just, you know, easy to listen to you. So, thank you for that. Thank you. [Laughter] Look on your face. She said July 25th we're having golf. Yes. Yes. Yes and no. Yes and no. It's a great question. It's not just scholarship for college also trades and trades. We even have military and life skills. So, it's really really robust. Awesome. Jude, anything about the fish? You want to apply? I know it's a different school, but it's a big partial. There you go. St. [Music] Testing. Okay, there we go. So, I know
064it came up at our uh previous meeting that we had regarding um town residents wanting more programming in the winter for community ed for students. And one of our biggest issues with programming is finding an instructor to run a program. I think that's, you know, really where on community ad we have difficulty is finding people to run programming. So if you are a town resident out there, this is a commercial, this is a plug, and you have an idea for a program for students in the winter that you would like to see run at one of our schools. Um, after sports, community ed has a priority. I believe that's the case. So um, what you would want to do is contact community ed. contact the office and ask for a course proposal. Course proposals are
065reviewed by our committee and um you would want to do that as soon as possible to be able to run something in the winter because we do it um we put a a course book out several months ahead of time and we would have to review your course. It could be something like um teaching students traditional gameplay of different uh games that we you know used to play when we were younger. You don't have to be an expert, but you do have to be an adult that's willing to supervise and willing to um have it advertised in our community book if it is approved. So, I just want to put that out there in case there's any community members that do want to have programming um in the winter for our residents that want to
066teach it, right? And um as long as we have enough people sign up then u the person teaching it would get paid or running it would get paid and then um it would appear in the course catalog and online for people anyone to register within the town. Thank you. So we're going into a very busy season here um especially at the high school especially for our seniors. There's a lot of our spring sports are starting, awards are starting for our seniors. Um so be patient with them as they enjoy their final days here um at Grand Island High School. Um just a few things I want to put out there. We are having another car show again this year for our Giza organization. The date is June 18th with a rain date of June 19th.
067last year it was very very successful and it also raises money like Jude's um golf tournament for scholarships and um for our seniors and we also enhance programs um for our NAF program for um actually we expanded into our tech department this year and um what's the other one I forget sorry um our emerging leaders program down into our middle school so you know the money really does go to help a lot of our students. So, um, if you're into cars, have a car, we'd love you to have you come out. I think last year we had 150 cars. Buy a car. Um, and I just really want to say that this is really insightful. And, you know, some of you may think that these are conversations that are had at our dinner table at
068home. They are not. We do not talk school or town at home. So, I took a lot of notes. It's really great to hear what's going on at the town and um, how it combines with the school. So, um, thank you all for coming and to Pete and Tom, thank you for coming. I wish we could have had more town board members here tonight. Um, because it would have been great to hear from them as well. So, thank you. No, I would agree. I think collaboration, communication are huge. It's really important between count and school um to initiate programs to help students to help the community. So, I really appreciate uh you guys coming. I really appreciate all the collaboration and I look forward to more of the same. Thanks, guys. Always appreciate the information
069and your willingness to work with us from shared services to inviting our students into your programs, help them out. So, thank you very much. This is not a collaboration that happens in every community. So, it's nice to work alongside of you and find those shared services that we can all help each other out and benefit the community. Thank you. That's great. So, just a few other news and notes. Obviously, uh we're really excited about the distinguished alumni uh event that's coming up on April 24th and 25th. Uh we're excited to invite Salvatore Andelina, John Robinson, and Carl Hartman. So, if you know Carllin Hartman, he was uh one of our distinguished uh basketball players here in the history of Grand Island. Uh he is associate coach with the Florida Gator in the Final Four. Uh
070so we're really some of us are really pulling for him over Duke and Auburn. Uh but that's really exciting just to get to the final four and one of our alum alum, you know, leading the way is fantastic. So on April 24th, we're having a meet and greet at the Bridge View and then on the 25th, these three amazing alum will uh present a keynote speech to our high school students. all the students from 9th through 12th grade will get an opportunity to hear from them. So we thank uh the committee and the hard work that goes on behind the scenes particularly with our alumni association which we do have a distinguished member of the alumni association here with us today Crawford. So we thank you for your support with that. Additionally I would like
071to throw a plug to Dick C. I'm like a Dick Crawford fan here. Uh, but I just bought my Lions Club spaghetti dinner tickets. Uh, they're on they saw that on Facebook, so I got my tickets and uh really uh easy system to navigate online. So, thank you to the leaders of the Lions for all that they do. And particularly, I will say not only for all they do in our community, but for our students. uh the special needs picnic that's held every year at the Buffalo Launch Club is absolutely tremendous and it's not just for our students but for the entire Western New York region. It's really quite uh you know something to behold and I thank the Lions for their leadership in that. Uh I'm excited about the Decloper film. So thank you
072Hillary for leading that initiative. And just looking around uh right now the board of education is working hard at looking at the needs of our district uh the physical plant uh the the schools of course the classrooms and you'll hear a lot of activity in the weeks and months ahead about the board considering a capital improvement project. Uh right now it's just in its infancy stage, but I would say by the end of the school year, the board will more than likely take some type of action, yay or nay, to move forward with a capital project. And then if the board decides to move forward, there would be a vote in December uh to support that initiative. So I thank the three board members that are on the committee. Uh that's Joy and Roger and
073Ashley. And then that information is being shared and will be shared actually one of the next meetings. I want to say might be April. Does that sound right? May 5th. May 5th. Yeah. Sorry. May 6th. Yeah, that's right. May 6th, a Tuesday, uh we'll have uh our committee members along with Young and Wright and Campus Construction present to the board in its totality. So, I thank the board for that hard work uh with respect to that. And then June to May 20th at budget vote and trustee vote. All right. That's a big vote. And that'll happen 8 8 a.m. start 8 a.m. 8 a.m. 8 to 9:00 p.m. And that's in our high school gym. And Jude is the leader of bringing everybody together to make sure that goes off without a hitch. So, thank
074you for your leadership in that. So, any uh other questions or final comments? All right. I want to thank you. I guess we'll adjourn this meeting and appreciate everybody's participation today. Thank you very much. Thanks for having us.