Litigation Regarding Star Ridge Way

by Alex Brooks
At the Petersburgh Town Board Board meeting on Monday night, Planning Board Chairman Dave Miller spoke to the Board about the road in the Star Ridge development. He said there is litigation going on about it between the developers of the subdivision, Michael and Joan Buzerak, and the five lot owners, which he became involved in because he was asked to give an affidavit about the terms of the Planning Board approval. He said the original idea was for the Buzeraks to maintain the road until all five lots were sold, then turn it over to the lot owners to maintain through some kind of owners association. But all five lots had been sold ten years ago, and the road has not yet been turned over.
The Buzeraks have asked the Town to take over the road, but the Town has not agreed to do so, and Miller said he doesn’t think it should. He said the Planning Board approval required a road driving surface 20’ wide and a 30’ diameter turn-around at the end. He said the road was not built to these specs and has not been maintained properly since. Some of the culverts and ditches are not functional, and there have been problems with flooding in heavy rains in the last year or two. Miller thought the Town should do something to require the Buzeraks to bring the road up to spec, since he feels they are in violation of agreements they made at the time the subdivision was approved.
Town Attorney Kevin Engel said if there is ongoing litigation about this issue and a possibility that the Town might get drawn into it, the matter should be discussed in executive session, and the Board agreed to do that. The Eastwick Press was unable to reach the Buzeraks for comment on this issue before press time.
Seniors Funding Restored To Budget
The Petersburgh Town Board passed its 2010 budget at this meeting. The total is $2,400 higher than the figure reported in these pages at the time of the budget hearing because in response to a plea from Mary Lou Walters, President of the Petersburgh Sunshine Seniors, and others, the Board restored that amount to the budget line for Programs for the Aging. Last year that budget line was $4,200, and in this year’s preliminary budget it was 0. Walter said she thought reducing it to 0 was unnecessarily drastic and made the case for restoring some of it. She said the seniors, most of whom are in their eighties and have very limited incomes, have paid taxes to the Town for many years and greatly appreciate the Town making a small appropriation to support their activities. The Board was swayed by her argument and put the $2,400 back in.
Total appropriations are $912,751 minus anticipated revenue of $227,342 and an unexpended balance of $88,534, which leaves a balance to be raised by taxes of $598,718, which is 11,873 more than last year (2%). But Supervisor Schaaphok said the value of property in town has gone up since last year, so he expects the tax rate to go up only about 3 cents per thousand.
Survey
Supervisor Schaaphok said that when the Town was figuring out where to site the salt shed, they had some conversations with the neighbor who felt the Town might be pushing onto his property, which made him realize that the Town does not have a survey of its property. He asked surveyor Dave Bolster to give him an estimate of what it would cost to survey the Town property. Bolster said $2,000. The Town Board passed a motion authorizing Schaaphok to hire Bolster to do the survey.
The Board scheduled its end of the year meeting for  December 28 at 6 pm in the Town Hall.