Supervisor, Former Council Candidate Spar
by Doug La Rocque
The Brunswick Town Council generally opens their meetings with a public comment session, and while on occasion some important points are raised, it tends to be a bit mundane. Not so at the Thursday, November 11 gathering. Former Town Council candidate Jennifer Mann stepped up to the speaker’s podium to ask the Town to test wells for PFOA and PFOS contamination. Ms. Mann had offered to help Town residents have their wells tested for the two suspected carcinogens at a cost of $350 per test. She indicated that so far she has personally collected 20 water samples and sent them to a lab. She said one showed trace amounts of both PFOA and PFOS, but below the state maximum allowable levels of 10 parts per trillion.
Supervisor Phil Herrington said he was one of those tested, but was surprised the results were delivered to Ms. Mann and not him. Ms. Mann explained that as the lab’s customer, she receives the results. Supervisor Herrington then stated she needed “to be careful,” indicating that one of the other 20 tested was a relative of his, and he indicated Ms. Mann had shown the “hard copy” of the test results to a neighbor, prior to informing that particular property owner. Ms. Mann countered that she had permission to speak to the neighbors from this individual. Mr. Herrington’s answer was perhaps about PFOAs in general, but not to disclose actual test rests. Ms. Mann stated the paper she had shown did not have the property owner’s name on it, and she indicated just that the results were gathered from the neighborhood, to which the Supervisor stated she caused concern among these neighbors (one an area business) and he felt she violated the resident’s confidentiality.
After a few more minutes of exchanges, including another person who demanded the Supervisor apologize for his treatment of Ms. Mann, Mr. Herrington closed the conversation by repeating “you need to be careful.”
The Eastwick Press emailed Ms. Mann for a clarification as to whether she was asking the Town of Brunswick to pay for the water testing or simply to coordinate it. As of press time, we had not received a response.
Town’s Water is Fine
It was repeated several times during the exchange that the water supplied by the Town of Brunswick is fine. It is tested regularly for many substances, including PFOA and PFOS, and is non-detect.
Editor’s Note: The Eastwick Press is aware of the resident’s name, in fact the first name was disclosed at the meeting, but does not attach a name to anyone’s specific testing results without their express permission.
Budgets and Relevies
When the aforementioned discussion ended, the Board voted to modify the 2022 Preliminary Town Budget and then accepted it as the final budget. The change did not impact the fact the budget has no tax increase. The Councilmembers also approved a resolution to relevy unpaid annual vacant building registration fees in accordance with Town Law, and Water and Sewer Superintendent Bill Bradley indicated the water and sewer tax relevy was slightly higher than in the past, at $125,000. $18,000 of this he said was owed by two commercial entities.
Other News
The Councilmembers also approved a resolution extending Sewer District #3 to service the Hannaford Supermarket now under construction at the intersection of Hoosick Road (NYS Route 7) and Lord Avenue. Following the notification of all government agencies that might have an interest and receiving no response, the Council approved a resolution declaring themselves as lead agency on the required full State Environmental Quality Reviews Act (SEQRA) in connection with the petition of CVE North America, to rezone certain parcels of land located off Belair Lane for a commercial solar collector system. A public hearing was set for the Council’s January 13 meeting at 6:30 pm.