by Alex Brooks
The Petersburgh Town Board finally passed revised Subdivision Regulations and Road Specifications for the Town at its meeting on December 1, after a public hearing. The effort to rewrite these regulations and get them approved has been going on for several years so this action represents a significant milestone for the Town.
[private]Aside from generally modernizing and updating the subdivision regulations, the major change is the addition of road specifications and an enforcement mechanism. The previous regulations had neither.
The new regulations vest enforcement authority in the Town’s Code Enforcement Officer, with the assistance of the attorneys for the Planning Board and for the Town. This is where conflict arose; Code Enforcement Officer Martin Conboy has maintained that his authority and expertise do not extend to all of the matters involved in enforcing these regulations. The dispute has been going on since sometime last spring and has particularly involved conflict between Conboy and Deputy Planning Board Chairman Tim Church.
Conboy spoke with Petersburgh Town Supervisor Siegfried Krahforst for three hours on the day of the meeting and has also spoken with Town Attorney Sal Ferlazzo, who produced the final version of the new subdivision regulations. Town Clerk Deidra Michaels said the final version arrived by email five minutes before the public hearing.
The meeting started off well enough, with Conboy saying that many of his concerns had been addressed. He said, “I am willing to work with it, within my power.” But he was concerned about a subdivision plat he had seen which had a note on it prohibiting “trailers.” He said there is no such thing as a trailer because State Building Code considers mobile homes part of the broader category of “manufactured homes.” He went on to say that the Town does not have an enforceable mobile home law, which poses a problem for him since he is asked to enforce it.
There was extensive discussion between Conboy, Town Board members and the two Planning Board Members present, Chairman Frank Sheldon and Tim Church, about mobile homes versus manufactured homes and how they should be defined. The conclusion seemed to be that the new Subdivision Regulations are OK, and Petersburgh’s law about mobile homes needs to be updated, but the argument continued.
Councilman Neil Geary then accused Conboy of being “obstructive” because he is constantly bringing up new objections after everybody thought the disagreements had been worked out. Geary said Conboy should sit down with the Planning Board and lay out all his objections so they can be resolved. Conboy replied, “I tried that.” Tim Church disputed that, saying Conboy had ignored the regulations that were sent to him in April until a week before they were to come up for a vote. After arguing with Geary and with Tim Church, Conboy got into an argument with Councilwoman Denise Church, who also criticized him for throwing a wrench in the works at the last moment. This was apparently the last straw, and Conboy said he is not being respected or supported by the Town Board and he will be submitting his resignation. He started to walk out of the room, but he never made it to the door, as he got into a long discussion with Supervisor Krahforst while he was on his way out. For a period of time there were two or three conversations going on at once, and the room was not very orderly. But after a while Conboy said he wouldn’t resign after all, and everybody seemed to resolve to work out their differences.
The Subdivision Regulations and the Road Specifications were then passed by a 3-0 vote. Alan Webster was not present, and Denise Church abstained. Although she does not believe she has any conflict of interest, she abstained because Conboy said he thought she had a conflict because she is married to the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Board. Krahforst, Jack Barnhill and Neil Geary voted in favor.
Near the end of the meeting, Martin Conboy said, “Sorry it had to go this way. I am committed to working out these problems.”[/private]