Town Plans Revaluation Next Year
by Alex Brooks
The Petersburgh Town Board meeting on Monday October 15 attracted only three Board members, as neither Jack Barnhill nor Dennis Smith were present. But Supervisor Alan Webster and his trusty duo of Town Board members, Amy Schaaphok and Denise Church, carried on. The primary piece of new business was a resolution to schedule a Re-Assessment of Real Property for the Town of Petersburgh.
Town Assessor Craig Surprise is planning to get the Revaluation started in 2019 and finish it in 2020. The Board seemed agreeable to the idea, but both Board members and residents in the audience had questions about it, and Surprise was not present. After a discussion in which Webster tried to answer as many questions as he could, the matter was tabled until next month when full details could be brought before the Board.
One of the first questions was how much it will cost. Webster said Surprise plans to do the Revaluation internally, so there will be no expensive contract with a commercial assessment contractor. There may be some expenses involved, but Webster was not quite sure what these would be. The Town passed a resolution to do a Revaluation some years ago, and it was never done. Webster said at that time, the Town set aside $9,600 in the budget to cover the cost of the Revaluation, and he thinks the currently planned Revaluation will cost less than that.
There were also some questions about why the previously planned revaluation did not happen, and whether any of the money set aside for the Revaluation work had been spent.
Webster said Surprise is planning to do some public information meetings to explain all the details, but no timeframe was offered on when such meetings will be held. The Board hopes to resolve all these matters at the November meeting.
Supervisor Webster said a Preliminary Budget for 2019 has been prepared and is available for Public inspection, and a Public Hearing on it has been scheduled for Monday November 5 at 7 pm at the Town Hall. He said the new F-550 truck discussed at last month’s meeting has been ordered, and is expected to arrive in six to eight weeks, so it should be in service for most of the snow season. He also noted that a meeting on PFOA issues will be held on Monday October 22 at 7 pm at the PVMCC.
Town Clerk Deidra Michaels said a Christmas Coat Drive and Toy Drive will begin November 1, and the annual Christmas Party is tentatively planned for Saturday December 15 from 4 to 8 pm. More details will be forthcoming soon.
Webster said he and Water Superintendent Ben Krahforst and the Town’s attorney and engineer have been talking with Taconic and with State authorities about waste water management from the Town’s Water facility. Before PFOA was discovered, the Town used to be able to allow excess water from its artesian well or from well testing or well maintenance activities to run into surface waters and from there down into the Little Hoosic River. But now that the water is known to contain PFOA contamination, all excess water from the wells has to be collected and treated before being released. Until now, Taconic has been carrying this water by truck back to its campus and treating it there. But Town officials are now trying to get a more practical long-term system set up, which will probably involve a large water storage tank and a mobile carbon filter unit, but details about the system have not yet been worked out.
Krahforst remarked that this issue shows how much more complicated and time-consuming water operations are when dealing with PFOA contaminated water, and said he believes the Town needs to have Taconic set up a fund to cover the cost of maintaining this complicated system for a long time into the future, in case anything should happen to Taconic and they aren’t here to pay the cost.
Krahforst also said the sediment at the bottom of the water tank will soon be tested for PFOA under a plan put forward by Taconic’s engineer, which does not require draining the tank. If the sediment is found to contain PFOA, the tank will have to be drained to perform cleaning and maintenance. But if it does not contain PFOA, the maintenance and parts replacement can be done by divers without draining the tank.
Public Comment
Alannah Fitzgerald described a problem she is having with Town Assessor Craig Surprise. She said he improperly denied her STAR exemption, which she has had for five years. She believes it was wrongly denied, and she has tried to work out the problem with Surprise and feels she is getting nowhere. She said she is at the point where she would have to go to court about this, but she doesn’t want to sue the Town. She asked the Town Board to look into the situation to see if a lawsuit can be forestalled. Board members said they would look into it.
The Board went into an executive session at the end of the meeting to discuss ongoing negotiations with the Teamsters, who represent the Highway Department employees.