Transfer Station Issue Remains A Quandary
by Alex Brooks
The Petersburgh Town Board held its 2020 End of Year meeting and 2021 Organizational meeting virtually on January 13. These meetings were originally scheduled earlier and were cancelled because of a COVID spike in Petersburgh.
The Board appointed Charles Rawson as Water District Operator, in charge from now until the end of April, or whenever Michelle Todd obtains her full certification. Rawson was proposed by Tom Suozzo of Cedarwood Engineering in response to The Town’s request for temporary water operator support, and he is an employee of that company. He is a certified Water Operator, and he lives in North Creek, NY. The agreement is that Mr. Rawson’s time will be billed (by Cedarwood) at $75 per hour, including time on site, travel time, phone time, and office time when paperwork needs to be prepared. He will not, according to Suozzo’s proposal, do any repair work on the water system or enter any excavation to inspect distribution system repairs. Suozzo and Rawson made an initial visit on Friday morning January 15 to familiarize himself with the system. Deputy Water Operator Michelle Todd will do the day to day work. Rawson will supervise by phone and e-mail and occasional visits.
Supervisor Dennis Smith said the mixer which is used to keep the water in the District’s water tank from freezing in very cold weather is now operational. The mixer has been broken for several years. The new mixer was installed just before Christmas, but was not connected to its electrical supply until Monday January 11.
There was a brief and inconclusive discussion about transfer station arrangements. The Town of Petersburgh sent a letter to the Town of Berlin on Friday January 8 proposing to continue negotiations on terms for Petersburgh’s continued use of the Berlin Transfer Station, which got a very chilly reception in Berlin, according to Petersburgh Supervisor Dennis Smith, who talked to Berlin Supervisor Rob Jaeger on Saturday.
The letter proposed, in addition to leaving the monthly rent at $700 per month rather than raising it, that the expenses of the transfer station be split in a ratio to match the number of users from each town rather than the 50-50 split used until now, and also urged that the two towns jointly raise the price of tickets and permits in order to have users pay more of the costs of the Station.
Smith said the Town of Berlin is not open to continued negotiations about the Transfer Station. Heinz Noeding asked, “Why not?” Smith paused while he sought to find a diplomatic way to put it, then said, “They are not impressed with the Petersburgh Town Board.”
The letter also asked that Berlin continue to accept Petersburgh’s yellow garbage tickets until the end of January and have Petersburgh reimburse Berlin for all yellow tickets accepted during January, but Berlin rejected that idea also. Smith said Petersburgh will refund money to residents who return yellow tickets to the Clerk’s office.
Berlin is allowing Petersburgh residents who have permits to continue to use the transfer station as long as they pay the fees in blue tickets bought from the Berlin Town Clerk. Berlin has also indicated its intention to sell permits for the transfer station to Petersburgh residents for the following year when the permits are due for renewal in April (see Berlin Supervisor Rob Jaeger’s letter on page 2). This leaves the Petersburgh Board in a bit of a quandary – if they set up their own transfer station, it may have very few users if most are continuing to use the Berlin station, but if they do not set up a Petersburgh transfer station, they might have a problem if Berlin were to change its mind at some point about allowing Petersburgh residents to use the Berlin station.
At the regular Petersburgh Town Board meeting on January 18 Tom Berry said Petersburgh is continuing to move forward with setting up its own transfer station until it has some assurance that the Berlin station will remain open to Petersburgh residents. The original plan presented to the Board was to temporarily set up a station at the back of the Town Hall, using the old school bus garage as the office, but more recently Berry and Jack Barnhill have proposed to set up a transfer station at the old gravel pit on the west side of Route 22 across from the northern end of Armsby Road. In a Letter to the Editor in this paper on January 8, Barnhill described it as an “excellent” site, wide and flat with a concrete pad big enough for all the containers needed, a construction trailer to serve as the attendant’s office, and electricity on site. But it would be considerably more expensive, as the landowner is asking $600 per month rent.
The Town Board has not yet taken a vote on whether to go forward with its own transfer station, nor has it publicly debated which site the Town should use.
Regular Meeting January 18
At its regular meeting The Board approved automatic renewal of real estate tax exemptions that are income-qualified such as senior STAR. Normally recipients have to apply every year to keep these exemptions, but the State is urging towns to skip the renewal application process this year because of the pandemic, and Petersburgh agreed to do so.
Tri-Town Ambulance
A copy of a proposed agreement to create a tri-town ambulance service was in the Town Board packets and the issue was on the agenda, but there was no substantive discussion of the proposal. Concern was expressed that the project was dead because the Town of Grafton had not signed on to it, and Heinz Noeding asserted that the draft agreement presented had been changed from the one presented in December, and he didn’t know who had re-written it. The draft presented called for Berlin to pay $61,000 per year, Grafton to pay $59,226 per year, and Petersburgh to pay $35,000 per year.
WIIA Grant
The water infrastructure grant was on the agenda, but Heinz Noeding said it can’t move forward until the grant administrators receive a letter from Taconic committing the company to paying its share of the work contemplated. There was no further discussion on this topic.
Other Matters
Smith said Highway Superintendent Adam Beaudry would like to keep the health insurance he has been getting through the Teamsters Union. Both the Town and the Union were agreeable, but because the Highway Superintendent is not a member of the union, there is a problem of eligibility. The Union representative provided a memorandum of understanding between the Town and the Union which he said would solve the problem. But it didn’t mention health insurance. It said the Town grants time off to any employee of the bargaining unit to engage in a full-time, non-union position working for the Town, with the right to return to the union without loss of seniority. There was quite a bit of discussion about this, but the Board was puzzled by the document and not comfortable approving it. They tabled it and asked Town Attorney Dave Gruenberg to speak with the Union representative and make recommendations to the Board for later action.
At public comment time Katie Snyder said she had reviewed a quantity of vouchers paid by the Town of Petersburgh and found that some were signed by only one or two Board members. This is apparently related to remote meetings, in which Board members are not present to sign vouchers and must come to the Town Hall later to sign them. Supervisor Smith said at least three members of the Town Board are supposed to sign each voucher before it is paid. He appeared to be surprised that some of the vouchers didn’t have the required signatures and said he would try to make sure that doesn’t happen anymore.