PUBLIC SAFETY COMMITTEE

Monday, February 14, 2022 - 9:30 AM

Steve McNally, Chairperson

Ike Tyler, Vice-Chairperson

Chairman McNally called this Public Safety Meeting to order at 9:30 am with the following Supervisors in attendance: Clayton Barber, Stephanie DeZalia, Derek Doty, Shaun Gillilland, Charlie Harrington, Roy Holzer, Kenneth Hughes, Steve McNally, Noel Merrihew, Jim Monty, Tom Scozzafava, Matt Stanley, Ike Tyler Joe Pete Wilson, Davina Winemiller, Margaret Wood and Mark Wright. Robin DeLoria was excused.

Department Heads present: Brandon Boutelle, Dan Palmer, Judy Garrison, Sue Montgomery-Corey, David Reynolds, Daniel Woods, Heather Sheehan and Miriam Hadden. Kristy Sprague was excused.

Also present: Matt Watts.

News Media: Tim Rowland – SUN

McNALLY: I will call the Public Safety meeting to order, please ride for the pledge. Veteran’s Office – Noel Merrihew.

MERRIHEW: No report this morning.

McNALLY: Alright, thank you. County Sealer – Dan Woods.

WOODS: Good morning everyone. In the month of January, we had $1,020, in inspection fees and civil penalties there was two package checking procedures that were done in January and that was a total of $31,800, in civil penalties. There was 108 short weight items found at Walmart and 34 short weight found at Aldis in Saranac Lake. Other than that, I have nothing further to report. If anyone has questions?

HOLZER: Dan, how are we doing with short term rental registrations? Are you seeing any extra coming in at all? I know we’ve been sending people your way from our town and I’m just wondering where we are at?

WOODS: Right now we’re currently at 905 as of February and that’s an increase of 10 in the last month. We’re continuously adding every single month and we keep getting more and more compliance but we can’t always be 100% sure we have 100% of the people.

HOLZER: So, are we doing anything proactive with sending out letters from your office or the Treasurer’s office saying you’re operating a SPR, you need to register with the county?

WOODS: Absolutely. If there is ever anything found, we contact them immediately.

HOLZER: How often is that happening? It’s not to put you on the spot but I honestly think we have a lot of STR’s especially in our region Jay, Wilmington not so much North Elba anymore but I think we have a lot of STR’s riding under the radar and I think it’s important we make this as big as a priority as anything else, making sure they are registering and they are collecting the occupancy tax on behalf of the county.

WILSON: And you’re using the host compliance software that North Elba and Lake Placid uses right, the county is part of that so we’re continuously monitoring online for short term rentals popping up?

WOODS: We are. We are trying to stay on top of it as possible. It’s obviously another part of my job, I’m trying the best I absolutely can, everybody is trying to work together. Lois is great. She has been keeping on top of everybody of making sure more and more gets signed up every single month and I also work directly with Mike Diskin on that in getting letters out or physically going out and talking to the people if they don’t respond to those.

DOTY: Dan we’ve actually identified 20 that weren’t registered in the last month or so and I believe you’re aware of those. We are currently at 533 in the Town of North Elba.

WOODS: Okay, thank you. I have not been notified of 20 more myself maybe it has gotten to Lois and Mike but I have not received any emails on that.

DOTY: Maybe your notification will wait until our Code division has new registrants because I know letters have been sent out with fines.

WOODS: Thank you.

MONTY: This doesn’t have to do with the short term rentals but civil penalties, how are they arrived at Dan for my edification?

WOODS: So if there is a package checking situation I’ll go through, I’ll do a test, there’s randomized testing, the test gets performed, there’s 70 items in a certain lot. I will random generalization through the computer, it will pick 12, number 1-70, it will pick 12 out, you test them if there’s more than 2 MAV’s which is your maximum allowance variable, then that lot is going to fail. There’s a certain guidance within a certain weight of how much it can be off in its own category. Once it’s off and it fails the lot you then test all of them. Once you test all of them that are in that lot, all 70, then any that are short you pull off the shelf, any that are good I put back on the shelf. I don’t want to throw more away than we have to. I don’t like wasting the food. As far as the civil penalties, for a normal test it’s $200 per package is what I fine or $300 for a USDA. Now, that can be fined up to $1200 per package, $600 for the first $1200, everyone after so if there is 70 that are short, it would be $600 plus, 69 times $1200, could be the maximum penalty so there’s a huge difference between the maximum and what I’m actually fining.

MONTY: Thank you very much. That’s very interesting. Thank you.

McNALLY: Anybody else? Okay thanks Dan.

WINEMILLER: I just had a question Dan, do you know what happens if you pull the package off and it’s underweight, do you know what happens to that package?

WOODS: Every store has their own decision of what happens to that package. Now, I will take off the packages, I will take them off of sale, they are now in the hands of the company. I know Aldis as well as may Price Chopper they will take certain things and donate it to local food but I can’t control where that goes. There are certain stores that will donate that food because it can’t be put back on the shelf.

WINEMILLER: That’s what I wanted to hear, thank you.

WOODS: Absolutely, thank you.

McNALLY: Anybody else? Thank you.

WOODS: Thank you very much.

*****

The next item on the agenda was the Board of Elections, with Sue Montgomery-Corey reporting as follows:

MONTGOMERY-COREY: Good morning. We don’t have a lot to report this morning. I know that we received a list of offices for the primary and fall elections from the town clerks and those will be posted on our website shortly and we also distributed to all of you our annual report so there probably should be something accepting the annual report from the committee?

PALMER: Yes, a committee resolution.

McNALLY: We need a resolution accepting and placing on file the 2021 Essex County Board of Elections Annual Report.

RESOLUTION ACCEPTING AND PLACING ON FILE THE 2021 ESSEX COUNTY BOARD OF ELECTIONS ANNUAL REPORT. Hughes, Harrington

McNALLY: Questions or concerns? All in favor, opposed – carried.

MONTGOMERY-COREY: Dan, do we need to do anything in terms of the cyber security thing?

PALMER: No, we’re good.

McNALLY: Anything for Sue?

HUGHES: Is the 2022 election calendar out?

MONTGOMERY-COREY: The 2022 election calendar is out now on the State Board of Election website and I believe it’s on our website too, I’ll double check that but we can send it out to all of you.

HUGHES: That would be helpful. Thank you.

SCOZZAFAVA: When do petitions start, designating?

MONTGOMERY-COREY: According to the calendar it looks like March 1^st there was some question in terms of the redistricting but I think that’s been settled now so we will send that out along with a confirmation of that.

SCOZZAFAVA: And the filing date is April –

MONTGOMERY-COREY: April –

SCOZZAFAVA: It’s online now?

MONTGOMERY-COREY: It’s online, it’s like the fourth to the eleventh and then the independent petitions are later but we’ll get that out too.

McNALLY: Thank you Sue. Anything else for Sue? If not, thank you. District Attorney, Kristy Sprague has been excused. Emergency Services, Matt Watts is here.

*****

The next item on the agenda was the Emergency Services, with Matt Watts reporting as follows:

WATTS: Good morning. Everybody has a copy of our report. Is there any questions on that?

GILLILLAND: I sat in on discussions with Matt and Max and talked with the industry representative and stuff about where we are going to go with this grant fire building and the history of that back when we were trying to find a place for the fire building and we were going back and forth and we never got anywhere on a location. I did hear on the radio one day that the City of Albany had purchased a fire training trailer for three hundred plus thousand dollars so I called the Emergency Services Director at that time and said, why don’t you get a trailer? That’s a lot easier. You can hook it to a power unit and haul it to North Hudson or wherever and park in the parking lot and you do training there and you take it off there and you go to Newcomb or wherever. Subsequently to that, when the new Emergency Services Director came in and had a more positive thinking on it so it took a little bit, Max and Matt looked into this quite a bit, talking to these representatives on it and basically went back and kind of specked out a design of what they would want on this trailer to be able to do fake fires and fire training simulations that they want to go forward with it and so, I went ahead and asked Community Resources if they could check with the Department of State make sure that this would be a good and that we could shift from fire training building to basically fire training facility which would make it movable. The initial costing up there when we said, well what would this cost of course it has to go to bid and go through the whole process was just about $520,000?

WATTS: It actually came in at $549,000, we are down to $514,000 now.

GILLILLAND: So the grant is $500,000 from the Department of State. We are waiting on that alteration to come back and say that’s feasible from the Department of State. Of course these are Department of State grants and you know how long it will take us to get paid back for two or three years but anyway, so I just and I think Matt, we wanted to go to the board if anybody has any objections for going down this road you know, and it’s not hard fast to have a building somewhere I think this is a great opportunity because you can park it in big parking lots in any town and run all your people through all the fire training administrative, your current training, initial fire fighter and tactical training and stuff so that’s I just wanted to talk about.

SCOZZAFAVA: What do you pull it with?

WATTS: DPW would have a truck that we would be able to pull it with. It’s a fifth wheel. It’s a 53-foot-long trailer.

SCOZZAFAVA: They make it one unit or no? Like a motor coach?

PALMER: No, you pull it.

WATTS: No.

GILLILLAND: It’s a trailer.

McNALLY: Anybody else?

WATTS: I do have a couple resolutions one is to amend contract ES-20-0007 with PO #20191847 to a new total of $868,427.00, with funds to come from our SICG-19 grant.

RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE COUNTY CHAIRMAN OR COUNTY MANAGER TO EXECUTE A CONTRACT AMENDMENT WITH MOTOROLA SOLUTIONS IN THE AMOUNT OF $868,427.00, WITH FUNDS TO COME FROM SICG-19 GRANT. Tyler, Holzer

McNALLY: Questions, concerns? All in favor, opposed – carried.

WATTS: And the second one is authorization to go out to bid for string replacement of VRLA batteries at the Public Safety Building for battery backup in the dispatch center. It’s a three-year maintenance contract for the batteries, with funds to come from our SICG-20 grant.

RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE PURCHASING AGENT TO GO OUT TO BID FOR STRING REPLACEMENT OF VRLA BATTERIES AT THE PUBLIC SAFETY BUILDING FOR BATTERY BACKUP IN THE 911 DISPATCH CENTER AND FURTHER AUTHORIZING A THREE-YEAR MAINTENANCE CONTRACT FOR SAID BACKUP SYSTEM WITH FUNDS TO COME FROM SICG-20 GRANT. Tyler, Hughes

McNALLY: Questions, concerns? All in favor, opposed – carried.

WATTS: That’s all I had unless anyone has any questions for me?

McNALLY: Anybody have anything for Matt? If not, thank you.

*****

The next item on the agenda was the Sheriff’s Office, with David Reynolds reporting as follows:

REYNOLDS: You have my January report so if you have any questions on that, I can answer that, if not, I do have one resolution and it’s to accept our 2021 Sheriff’s Office annual report.

RESOLUTION ACCEPTING AND PLACING ON FILE THE 2021 ESSEX COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE ANNUAL REPORT. Tyler, Hughes.

McNALLY: Questions, concerns? All in favor, opposed – carried.

REYNOLDS: That’s it.

McNALLY: Anything else for the Sheriff? If not, thank you.

McNALLY: No Coroners here? Probation, Heather Sheehan.

*****

The next item on the agenda was the Probation Department, with Heather Sheehan reporting as follows:

SHEEHAN: Good morning everyone. So, you have my report and I’m here to answer any questions in you have any regarding that?

McNALLY: Any questions? Alright, thank you. We are too easy on you for some reason.

*****

The next item on the agenda was the Public Defender, Brandon Boutelle reporting as follows:

BOUTELLE: Good morning everyone. I have no formal report unless anyone has any questions for the Public Defender’s office?

McNALLY: Any questions? If not, thank you.

*****

The next item on the agenda was the Conflict Defender, Miriam Hadden reporting as follows:

HADDEN: I do not have a report this month but I’m here is anyone has any questions?

McNALLY: Any questions for Miriam? If not, thank you. Anything else to come in front of the Public Safety Committee meeting?

HOLZER: Well, it’s more of a resolution request. I’m asking the Board of Supervisors here at this committee level to adopt a resolution asking the State and Federal Government to suspend the excess tax that we have on gasoline products right now. I was in the convenient store industry as well as Chairman there for 22 years, three, four years of that I sold gasoline. The average consumer doesn’t realize that 60 cents a gallon is added due to State and Federal taxes okay? That’s only one part of it, that’s 60 cents a gallon. It does not include the county and State sales tax on top of that as home fuel prices are climbing to outrageous levels I think it’s a more of a statement we can do as a county Board of Supervisors asking our State and Federal reps to suspend a 90-day moratorium on this tax to help the average, blue collar workers out. So, I’m offering that as a resolution.

RESOLUTION ASKING OUR NEW YORK STATE AND FEDERAL REPRESENTATIVES TO SUSPEND A 90-DAY MORATORIUM ON EXCESS TAX ADDED TO GASOLINE PRODUCTS. Holzer, Tyler

McNALLY: Questions, concerns? All in favor, opposed – carried. Thank you. Anything else for the public safety? If not, we are adjourned. Thank you.

As there was no further discussion to come before this Public Safety Committee it was adjourned at 9:48 a.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Judith Garrison, Clerk

Board of Supervisors