Town of HoosickDealing With Broken Equipment
Bucket Loader Died
By Alex Brooks
Highway Superintendent Bill Shiland was unable to attend the Board meeting on Monday evening January 11 because he was still trying to get the roads salted and sanded after the snow squalls that had come in that afternoon. Supervisor Mark Surdam said the Town’s bucket loader has broken down, so it was taking twice as long as usual to load the trucks. Surdam said the estimate to repair the bucket loader was $11,000. It is a 2005 model and was scheduled to be replaced soon. Funding specifically for that is not in the current year’s budget, but there are funds for new equipment that may come close to covering it. Surdam said the new bucket loader lists for $280,000 but with discounts offered by the vendor the price is $175,517 and after $19,000 is given for trade-in of the current bucket loader, the final cost to the Town would be $156,517. Surdam said putting $11,000 into a machine that old didn’t seem like good idea, but the Highway Department needs the loader to be operational right away. The Board agreed, and after briefly discussing lease options, it decided to go ahead and purchase the new machine.
Zamboni Died
Continuing on this theme, Surdam informed the Board that the Town’s ancient Zamboni died the day before the meeting. It had been running rough, and because of that Surdam had called in a company from New Jersey called Resurfix to come work on it. They are expected to come here Thursday January 14. The plan was to work on the carburetor to see if they can get it running better and to perform a full evaluation of the 1976 Zamboni JRD and give an estimate of the cost to rehab it, at a cost of $500 (plus parts) for the visit. Now that the vehicle has taken a turn for the worse, the workplan may need to be modified. Surdam said because of the age of the machine, they may not be able to get parts for it. This Zamboni was a hand-me-down acquired at low cost about ten years ago when another rink replaced it with a newer one.
One of the Board members Googled the normal life of a Zamboni, and it said 15-18 years. This one is apparently 44 years old. Surdam said if it cannot be repaired, the Town will again seek to find another used Zamboni that the Town can purchase from a rink that is upgrading to a newer one.
Surdam said other than that the rink season is going pretty well. He said, “We made ice, and we lost it, and now we have made ice again.” He said sign-ups for the learn to skate program were very successful, and as long as the weather cooperates, many kids will learn to skate this winter. The Board approved hiring Toni Hanselman to teach skating.
Surdam said the Town has executed a Volunteer Code of Conduct/Worker’s Compensation agreement with Tom Marciotta, who has taken a large role helping the Town with the pool and the skating rink over the past several years on a volunteer basis, bringing a wealth of knowledge and experience from his long career managing recreational facilities. Surdam said, “We thank Tom for bringing his years of experience and his time and energy to assisting us with the rink and the pool.” Marciotta is currently helping to train Ice Manager Nick Houghton, who was hired a month ago to make ice at the rink this season.
The Board passed a resolution to accept a donation of $1,500 from the Eddie Carknard Fund to be used to purchase ten new pair of ice skates for the rink’s rental program and for part of the cost of a new ice skate blade sharpening machine, and to make the necessary budget modifications to allow this use of the funds received. The Board expressed gratitude to the Carknard Fund for this generous donation and especially to Kathi Carknard for helping to arrange it and get it approved.
Youth Center Request
Lori Kempf spoke to the Board about the Youth Center. She said it has suspended its programs because of the spike in COVID cases in the Hoosick Falls community. She said the Board is keen to restart programs as soon as possible, but they don’t feel they can run programs right now and they don’t know when they will be able to restart. She said the Board wants to keep the building heated through the winter even though it is not being used to avoid damage to the building. Some years ago the gym floor was damaged because the building was unheated in winter. She requested that the money given to the Youth Center this year by the Town be used for building expenses (including heating) rather than staffing because of the constraints the Youth Center is under related to the pandemic. The Board approved the request.
Road Plan
Surdam said he would like to build on the good work done recently on the town-wide road assessment recently completed through the Cornell Roads Program. He said he believes the next step is to write a 5 year, 10 year, and maybe even 20 year plan for road improvements, and put a price tag on it, so that the Town can make realistic plans to improve the roads in the long term. He said the Board has heard a lot from the public about road improvements they want to see, but he wonders how the residents will feel when the Board gets serious about doing road improvements and puts a price on it, which might involve a tax increase. He suggested that Highway Superintendent Bill Shiland do the first draft of such a plan. He said Cornell might even be able to help the Town with its next steps on this project.
Hoosick Armory
Vice-President Marianne Zwicklbauer came to the Board meeting to present an update on plans for the Hoosick Armory. She said many of the activities in the Armory have been on hold since the pandemic came to Hoosick Falls, but they plan to come back strong as soon as control of the virus makes it possible. She said Hoosick Rising and the Hoosick Armory will probably have separate boards to run them, as their missions are different. She said the overall mission of the Hoosick Armory is to create a community building hosting a wide variety of community activities, to preserve and maintain the building, and to develop a strategy for long-term financial sustainability. She said they have recruited four new Board members – David Borge, Kevin O’Malley, Carol McDonald, and Fred Pirie.
Assessor
Assessor Tony Rice said income qualified real estate tax exemptions including senior STAR exemptions will be automatically renewed this year because of the pandemic, and so the recipients do not have to re-apply for them. He said if anyone has questions about this to give the Assessor’s office a call.
Naturae LLC
Town Attorney Schopf said the last letter he sent to the hemp processing plant in North Hoosick went out December 15 demanding that they stop work at the plant unless and until they install air handling equipment that will dramatically reduce the odor coming from the plant. He indicated that there has been no communication with the owners or managers since that time. Jerry McAuliffe was impatient with this problem dragging on. It was a year ago that two representatives from the company came in to talk to the Town Board at one of its meetings and described plans to install equipment that they hoped would take care of the problem. But McAuliffe said the problem continues. He said the neighbor in the house immediately to the east of the building is a 90+ year old woman who for three summers has not been able to go out in her yard or open her windows because of the noxious smell. Schopf said if they are continuing to operate without implementing odor mitigation measures, they are in violation of the Stop Work Order that has already been issued. McAuliffe was unsatisfied, saying the Town should “close them up.” Schopf said he could file suit against them to that end, but Mark Surdam said he thought that sounded a little premature and he is not on board for incurring significant legal fees to try to shut down businesses in the Town (Schopf guessed it might cost $5,000 to pursue such a course). Also, there was some uncertainty among those on the Board about whether the company is continuing to operate and whether they have made progress on installing air-handling machines which would control the odor. They left it that Schopf would contact the owners to warn them that litigation is contemplated and to learn what course of action they plan to control odor, and that Mark Surdam and Town Codes Enforcement Officer Fran Rogers will visit the plant in person to try to determine if the plant is still in operation and whether there is currently an odor problem.
Motocross Track
Surdam asked Town Attorney Jon Schopf if he had done anything with the model law from Pennsylvania he mentioned last month to put limits on use of motorized vehicles on private land. Schopf said provisions on that would be incorporated into the general rewrite of the Town’s Zoning Law, and he hopes to present a draft of that revision to the Board at its February meeting. Surdam said the Board will probably hold a workshop meeting on that draft once it is delivered to the Board.
Spectrum Franchise Renewal
Surdam said he received a phone call from a Spectrum representative and discussed the question of renewing Spectrum’s franchise agreement with the Town. He learned that the franchise is non-exclusive, so it doesn’t prevent other internet providers from operating in the Town. Spectrum also agreed to make the franchise 10 years rather than the 15 years they had first proposed. Spectrum will pay a $12,000 fee when the franchise agreement is completed. Surdam said his two concerns, about allowing competition among internet providers and keeping the contract to 10 years, have been answered, and he is prepared to go forward with the franchise agreement at this point. The board scheduled a public hearing on renewal of the Spectrum cable TV and internet franchise for 6:30 pm on February 8, prior to the regular Town Board meeting.
In other business..
• George Driscoll was appointed as the Town’s Veterans Service Officer, with an annual stipend of $250.
• Jerry McAuliffe said he has learned that the culvert under the railroad tracks in the area where it failed the flood of July 2017 should be at least four foot in diameter, maybe even six foot. He said the culvert that is there now has been so filled in with dirt that a cat would have trouble scrambling through it.
• The Board renewed for 2021 a contract with LaBerge to provide services to assist the Planning and Zoning boards.
• Attorney Schopf said E-Code had sent another large package of laws to be added to the online compendium of Town laws they are assembling, and he is in the process of reviewing it. Surdam said this is a significant, time-consuming project, but he feels it is worth it as a comprehensive collection of the Town laws accessible online to anyone will be a big step forward.
• The Board scheduled the annual audit of the books of the Justice Court for 6 pm on January 19.
• The Board approved renewal of $200,000 Bond Anticipation Note (BAN) of debt from the pool project.
• The Board scheduled a special Town Board meeting with both attorneys, Town attorney Jon Schopf and environmental attorney Dean Sommer, to discuss the Town’s legal stance in relation to ongoing PFOA contamination litigation. The meeting will be held at 6 pm on Thursday, January 14, but it will be held entirely in executive session, and the Board does not expect any public decisions to come out of the meeting.H