Most of Planning Board Resigns
by Alex Brooks
On July 29, five members of the Petersburgh Planning Board resigned as a group, effective immediately. The Town Clerk received e-mails from Tim Church, Frank Sheldon, Paul Brundige, Robert Petry and Neil Geary. This leaves only two Planning Board members who have not resigned – Susan Dawes and Brandon deWaal.
No statement has been offered yet expressing the reasons for these resignations, but former Planning Board Chairman Frank Sheldon said members of the Town Board have expressed a desire for “new blood” on the Planning Board and he felt that they have given the impression that they are unsatisfied with the work that the Planning Board has done in the past. Because of that he thought it best to step aside and let the Town Board choose new people who suit them better. He said he does not think that the Town Board appreciates the service of the Planning Board members or the expertise that they have developed over many years on the Board. Sheldon himself has served on the Planning Board for 45 years, since 1975. Tim Church and Paul Brundige have also served on the Planning Board for decades, and Sheldon said he particularly feels that Deputy Chairman Tim Church’s hard work and energetic leadership of the Planning Board in recent years has not been appreciated. Anyone who has attended Planning Board meetings knows that the loss of Paul Brundige’s encyclopedic knowledge of land parcels in Petersburgh and their history will be a setback for the Planning Board.
The Planning Board is a 7 member Board, so it requires a quorum of four members at a meeting to transact any business. Petersburgh Supervisor Dennis Smith said the Town has posted flyers saying it is seeking applications for Planning Board members and members of the Town Board have been putting the word out that the Town would like to hear from anyone interested in serving on the Planning Board. He said so far this has produced one application, and he hopes to find a second resident willing to serve so that the Planning Board can at least get a quorum.
Petersburgh has been working on re-authorizing its Planning Board this year because it was discovered that the original enabling legislation passed over half a century ago was not done correctly. This re-authorization was completed at the Town Board’s July 20 meeting, and the resignations came a little over a week later. The only public event during this time when the rift between the Town Board and the Planning Board was apparent was the joint meeting held on June 29 to formulate the local law re-establishing the Planning Board. Over the objection of several Planning Board members, the Town Board gave itself the power to appoint the Planning Board Chairman and to remove Planning Board members for cause at any time. Although this latter power was aimed primarily at removing members for failure to attend meetings or failure to comply with training requirements, Planning Board members said that it might be used to remove a member whose opinions on Planning Board matters they don’t like. There was also discussion of re-instituting training requirements for Planning Board members. State law requires four hours of training per year, and the Town of Petersburgh has until now waived this requirement.
Planning Board members Tim Church and Brandon deWaal also vehemently stated at this meeting that Town enforcement of both building code and Planning Board regulations has been very lax for many years, and that the work they put into the Planning Board sometime seems a bit futile when overall enforcement is so haphazard.