DPW - COMMITTEE

Monday, June 21, 2021 - 9:30 AM

Robin DeLoria, Chairperson

Archie Depo, Vice-Chairperson

Chairman DeLoria called this DPW Meeting to order at 9:30 am with the following Supervisors in attendance: Clayton Barber, Robin DeLoria, Archie Depo, Stephanie DeZalia, Shaun Gillilland, Joseph Giordano, Charlie Harrington, Roy Holzer, Ken Hughes, Steve McNally, Noel Merrihew, James Monty, Jay Rand, Tom Scozzafava, Jeff Subra, Ike Tyler, Joe Pete Wilson and Davina Winemiller.

Department Heads present: Jim Dougan, Judy Garrison and Michael Mascarenas. Dan Palmer was excused.

Also present: Rob Wick. Alice Halloran was excused.

News Media: Tim Rowland – Sun Community News.

DELORIA: I call this DPW committee to order, stand for the pledge please. Mr. Dougan put you to the microphone so we can get you on record.

DOUGAN: Would you like to start with resolutions?

DELORIA: Sure.

DOUGAN: My first request is for a contract amendment with Town and County Bridge and Rail. This is for a culvert repair on Stickney Bridge Road in the Town of Jay. It’s roughly 13’ foot wide by 9’ foot tall corrugated metal culvert. We’re going to structurally line this to extend its life. We almost had to close the road a few weeks back because a sink hole started to develop so this should extend the life for a good 15-20 years if we do this structural pre line so it’s in the amount of $69,375.00 and it is coming from budgeted funds.

RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE COUNTY CHAIRMAN OR COUNTY MANAGER TO EXECUTE A CONTRACT AMENDMENT WITH TOWN AND COUNTY AND BRIDGE AND RAIL IN AN AMOUNT NOT TO EXCEED $69,375.00, FOR CONCRETE REPAIRS TO STICKNEY BRIDGE ROAD LOCATED IN THE TOWN OF JAY WITH FUNDS TO COME FROM BUDGETED FUNDS. Depo, Holzer

DELORIA: Discussion? All in favor, opposed – carried.

DOUGAN: Number two is for an ongoing bridge project. It’s for construction administration services with Atlantic Testing Laboratories. It’s in the amount of $8,914.00. It’s Tracy Road over New Pond Brook Bridge. This is to test the concrete and the soils as we put that bridge project back together, it would be coming from budgeted funds.

RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE COUNTY CHAIRMAN OR COUNTY MANAGER TO EXECUTE A CONTRACT AMENDMENT WITH ATLANTIC TESTING LABORATORIES, LTD INSPECTION IN AN AMOUNT NOT TO EXCEED $8,914.00, FOR CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS TESTING AND INSPECTION FOR TRACY ROAD OVER NEW POND BROOK BRIDGE REPLACEMENT PROJECT LOCATED IN THE TOWN OF NORTH HUDSON, WITH FUNDS TO COME FROM BUDGETED FUNDS. Giordano, Depo

DELORIA: Discussion? All in favor, opposed – carried.

DOUGAN: Number three is really the same thing but for the Ash Craft Brook project so it’s just up the road a little bit further and it’s Atlantic Testing Labs for construction materials testing, $9,144.00, it’s to come from budgeted funds.

RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE COUNTY CHAIRMAN OR COUNTY MANAGER TO EXECUTE A CONTRACT AMENDMENT WITH ATLANTIC TESTING LABORATORIES, LTD IN AN AMOUNT NOT TO EXCEED $9,144.00, FOR CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS TESTING AND INSPECTION FOR TRACY ROAD OVER ASH CRAFT BROOK CULVERT REPLACEMENT POJECT LOCATED IN THE TOWN OF NORTH HUDSON, WITH FUNDS TO COME FROM BUDGETED FUNDS. DeZalia, Winemiller

DELORIA: Discussion? All in favor, opposed – carried.

DOUGAN: Number four is for a roll off truck for solid waste as part of the ten-year solid waste equipment plan. Resolution authorizing the purchasing agent to award a purchase order to RR Charlebois in the amount of $197,600.00, funds are coming from budgeted funds, further authorizing the county manager or county chair to sign that purchase order.

RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE PURCHASING AGENT TO PURCHASE A NEW AND UNUSED 2022 WESTERN STAR 49X TANDEM AXLE TRUCK IN THE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WORKS IN THE AMOUNT OF $197,600.00, FROM RR CHARLEBOIS INC., WITH FUNDS TO COME FROM BUDGETED FUNDS. Depo, Giordano

DELORIA: Discussion? All in favor, opposed – carried.

DOUGAN: Number five, we’re at that Ash Craft Brook Bridge replacement project, this is for construction phase services for SRA Engineers. It’s in the amount of $22,980.00. This will include them providing a full-time site rep on this project. This project was funded by New York State Culvert New York and we have to follow all their requirements. DOT requires full time inspection so it will be coming from the project budgeted funds.

RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE COUNTY CHAIRMAN OR COUNTY MANAGER TO EXECUTE A CONTRACT AMENDMENT WITH SCHRODER RIVER ASSOCIATES ENGINEERS IN AN AMOUNT NOT TO EXCEED $22,980.00, FOR PROFESSIONAL ENGINEERING SERVICES INCLUDING CONSTRUCTION ADMINISTRATION SERVICES AND FULL TIME CONSTRUCTION INSPECTION FOR THE TRACY ROAD OVER ASH CRAFT BROOK CULVERT REPLACEMENT PROJECT LOCATED IN THE TOWN OF NORTH HUDSON, WITH FUNDS TO COME FROM BUDGETED FUNDS. Scozzafava, Giordano

DELORIA: Discussion?

SCOZZAFAVA: Jim, how long do you foresee Tracy Road being closed?

DOUGAN: Real close to Labor Day we should open back up.

SCOZZAFAVA: I never realized how much traffic that road gets until I deferred them over the North Hudson Road, Ensign Pond Road.

DOUGAN: We hope everybody realizes, I’m sure you and Stephanie realize we’ve tackled a bunch of other projects at the same time of that shutdown. We’re doing a bunch of reconstruction work on Tracy Road using Reale Construction and some of our people to do it so we’re trying to get a lot done that’s why there’s two bridge projects being done at the same time knowing that how difficult for people to go that extra distance.

SCOZZAFAVA: You put additional signage I see on the Moriah side where you come into the populated area.

DOUGAN: Yup.

DELORIA: Okay any other discussion on that? All in favor – opposed, carried.

DOUGAN: Number six, is again construction phase services for Schroder River Associates. This is for the New Pond Brook Project. It’s in the amount of $13,200.00, we don’t need full-time inspection it’s being funded by Essex County so our people are doing inspection every day and we don’t have to have a DOT certified inspector on the job again, it’s budgeted funds.

RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE COUNTY CHAIRMAN OR COUNTY MANAGER TO EXECUTE A CONTRACT AMENDMENT WITH SCHRODER RIVER ASSOCIATES ENGINEERS IN AN AMOUNT NOT TO EXCEED $13,200.00, FOR PROFESSIONAL SERVICES INCLUDING CONSTRUCTION ADMINISTRATION SERVICES FOR THE TRACY ROAD OVER NEW POND BROOK REPLACEMENT BRIDGE PROJECT LOCATED IN THE TOWN OF NORTH HUDSON, WITH FUNDS TO COME FROM BUDGETED FUNDS. DeZalia, Winemiller

DELORIA: Discussion? All in favor, opposed – carried.

DOUGAN: My last one for today is asking authorization for our transportation division to add additional bus route temporarily in Lake Placid to assist during their construction projects that they’ve got going on right now. This would hopefully, it will elevate some of the parking issues. They are going to open up a former train station as a place where they would like construction workers, some visitors, some of the business workers and business owners to park and then utilize the shuttle going back and forth to Main Street. It will run really from early July to just after Labor Day and it’s my understanding it will hopefully shorten the construction duration on Main Street for almost a year. Is that correct Mr. Rand?

RAND: Yes, it is. It will eliminate all the work for the following year

DOUGAN: The Village has agreed to pay for our wages and any fuel costs. We will apply to see if this is eligible for our State funding and if it is we can reduce the cost of the Village but if it’s not they’ve agreed to pay for all of them.

RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE ESSEX COUNTY DPW TRANSPORTATION DIVISION TO ADD AN ADDITIONAL, TEMPORARY BUS ROUTE IN THE VILLAGE OF LAKE PLACID FOR THE MONTHS OF JULY, AUGUST AND SEPTEMBER 2021. Holzer, Depo

DELORIA: Any further discussion?

WINEMILLER: I have a question. Is this a free shuttle for the people or will it be free?

DOUGAN: It will be a free shuttle okay. It will be a free shuttle to anybody that uses it but the Village will be reimbursed.

DELORIA: Jim you said July start; it’s going to start after the 4^th of July weekend?

DOUGAN: Yes.

DELORIA: Okay no further discussion on that. All in favor, opposed – carried.

Alice, has been excused from Soil and Water.

TYLER: Yes, if there’s any questions on her report maybe myself or Jim could answer them.

DELORIA: Alright and Jimmy submitted his report as well. Does anybody have any questions for Jim on his DPW committee report?

WINEMILLER: I have a question Robin. I have a question for Jim and I was thinking of asking him this privately but I think other people may have the same question. I was noticing some paintball on a brown county sign, some kids had hit it with a paintball and I didn’t know if there was a way to clean that off or if that sign is just –

DOUGAN: We are going to have to see what they used. If it was paint ball or somethings we can’t clean off but it depends on what they use. Let us know where this took place and I’ll have my sign shop go out and take a look.

WINEMILLER: Okay.

MONTY: If it’s paintball soap and water will remove it because it’s paint mixed with baking soda.

WINEMILLER: Okay.

GILLILLAND: With this information released over the weekend from the State and the Town of Keene and me speaking for the county on the hiking shuttle issue and Jim was involved in the last call on that. I was just wondering Jim, can you just brief the board here on the anticipated route and anticipated schedule and when they want to start which maybe a bit too far but can you give us briefing please?

DOUGAN: Sure. As Chairman Gillilland stated, we’ve been working with DEC. The route that DEC has picked out generally goes from Marcy Field in Keene Valley, in between Keene Valley and Keene we’ll drive through the hamlet of Keene Valley on 73, we go all the way to malfunction junction where the bus will turn around excuse me, I missed the stop at Rooster Comb. We are going to stop at Rooster Comb on our way through. We may add a stop near Ausable Street.

WILSON: Ausable Inn near Adirondack Street, yes.

DOUGAN: Depending on your ability to find drivers correct, Mr. Wilson? So we’ll stop there then we’ll continue on to malfunction junction they’ll turn around there, they’ll off load or on load at the Ridge Trail and then come back down the hill and stop at Roaring Brook right near where the parking lot is. We’re still working with DEC to get some improvements made near Roaring Brook to provide a better pull off and to provide a little bit better turn around area at malfunction junction. The shuttle right now the proposed hours are basically twelve hours a day, seven to seven and it looks like we’re going to concentrate on Saturdays and Sundays for now. Just one bus each day per twelve hour shift and then when some of the bigger weekends once we get closer to the fall we’re likely to add more but it’s still developing probably it’s about a one hour overall round trip from when we leave Marcy Field to when we get back to Marcy Field. It’s our understanding that with some, the Governor opening the State back up that we will be able to allow full capacity on the buses but right now the regulations still require the masks on the bus but even though we can go full capacity. We’ve had a lot of conversations. Did I get everything guys?

GILLILLAND: Yes and they wanted to start with the weekend after the fourth of July but the limiting factors right now are Stewarts and drivers because as everyone knows, getting new employees is like fishing in a bathtub, there’s no fish in there and ROOST is also working the public information side of it to that as well.

DOUGAN: They’re working on wrapping the buses to make them very visible that is specifically the hiker shuttle. Based on the route that we discussed and the timing of it we, right now I feel we’re okay with our current driver pool. We’re still looking for more drivers but right now we’re okay for this and what Lake Placid has asked for while still maintaining our existing routes.

McNALLY: Is there any update on Trout Brook Road Bridge?

DOUGAN: DOT is up this morning to inspect it and if they’re okay with everything then we’ll be opening it up tomorrow or the next day.

McNALLY: Thank you. There is a picture in the report of Mr. Hodgson standing below that bridge and you get an idea of how much scour actually occurred underneath that. You can see concrete where it falls away and it’s up pretty close to his shoulder. It was quite a bit of loss of material from underneath that bridge.

GIORDANO: I have a resolution and before I give it I have just some background information. A couple years ago in June of ’19, Chairman Gillilland had put together a Solid Waste Task Force and the task force was tasked with reviewing both the current county and town solid waste requirements and the current county solid waste contract and then there was four options for future county solid waste strategy. So we had met a couple times at that time period and put forth a recommendation at that time to extend the contract with Serkil for two years while we tried to explore that. Covid happened, there wasn’t a lot of progress of course with everything else that was going on but actually over the last six months or so working with community Resources, I think everyone of you has been reached out by them or by myself to try to provide some data from your transfer stations those of you who operate a transfer station to try and collect some of that internal information but at this juncture with the contract extension coming to a close, Jim will be bringing up probably later in the summer the opportunity to go out to bid for the future but right now there’s an opportunity with CFA’s in July to apply for a Local Government Efficiency Grant so at this time I’d like to put forth a resolution to apply for a Department of State Local Government Efficiency Grant for consultant services in the amount of about $40,000.00, which would include a 50% match from either the county or towns and basically the point of this would be to work towards updating our solid waste management plan with whatever anticipated requirements may be coming from the State in the future like is occurring elsewhere around the county. Recommendations for each of our transfer stations and improve operations and also just to highlight other grant opportunities that might be available to continue to improve the way in which we handle our solid waste operations here at the county. If anyone has specific questions on the grant Rob is the one that has been jugging away at the data and saw this opportunity for us to apply and try to get a better handle moving forward.

RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE ESSEX COUNTY DPW SOLID WASTE DIVISION APPLY FOR A DEPARTMENT OF STATE LOCAL GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY GRANT FOR CONSULTANT SERVICES ON UPDATING THE ESSEX COUNTY SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT PLAN, IN AN AMOUNT UP TO $40,000.00, WHICH INCLUDES A 50% MATCH FROM EITHER ESSEX COUNTY OR TOWNS. DeLoria, Scozzafava

DELORIA: Discussion?

SCOZZAFAVA: This is a county wide solid waste system not owned by individual communities although they run them, I think the match should be Essex County should provide the match to the applicant.

MASCARENAS: Yes, I think you’re correct in that. That’s absolutely what we plan on doing unless something came out of the committee stating otherwise we would budget the $40,000. You wouldn’t know word probably until December anyhow so it allows us to get into next year’s budget cycle and plan for that match. If we get the money it would probably be a $20,000 award and we would match the remaining twenty so that makes the most sense and doesn’t create a situation where you have a little of an administrative burden and we’re billing towns for work that everybody is doing anyway, they are all still the same taxpayer so I’m in agreement with you if the board is in agreement with that?

DELORIA: Anything else on this topic? All in favor, opposed – carried. Jim, anything else for us?

DOUGAN: That’s all I had.

DELORIA: Does Rob have something for us today?

DOUGAN: No, he was just here for support as needed as part of that grant.

DELORIA: Okay if there’s nothing else –

MONTY: I’m not on this committee and unfortunately I have to step out for a while this morning I just want to bring up a little bit about the last broadband meeting that we had. The Adirondack group was a little different than the ADK Action group is looking to apply for a I can’t think of the acronym it’s a Federal Broadband money. There’s $260 million dollars that have been appropriated for New York State and we’re looking at doing a collaborate effort with as many counties as we can in the North Country, Franklin, Clinton is still up in the air, Essex County, Washington County, Warren County, Hamilton County to try to get some of that money brought back into our region to reach unserved and underserved areas. Stephanie was on our last call with us as well as I know Shaun was on the last one but what we’re going to be looking for is I’m going to be bringing a resolution to ways and means basically saying, Essex County support this allocation but I need to ask Supervisors is to go to your towns and come up with a list of roads that are unserved and underserved because we’re putting them in as okay, St. Armand has these roads, North Hudson has these roads, Schroon Lake has these roads, each town has roads in your communities that are underserved and not served. If you can get me that listing in a couple weeks it would be phenomenal so that we can package it up from Essex county and we’ve got Kevin Lynch and a couple other that are going to look at it and say, give them approximate cost so it’s needed to handle those roads. So I just wanted to give you an update on that. Thank you.

WINEMILLER: Is this for seasonal roads also or just, year round?

MONTY: You can put it down as a seasonal road it may not be looked at. The way it was is, roads within your communities. If it’s a road even though it’s seasonal it counts on your highway inventory, right?

WINEMILLER: Right.

MONTY: There you go.

WINEMILLER: Okay, thank you.

GIORDANO: Not broadband related, solid waste related just a thank you to Jim and his crew for taking care of some of the gouging pot holes on the Black Point Road, the Ti travel went off this weekend and they were very appreciative of the smooth surface and we had no accidents.

DOUGAN: I’ll pass that along to the guys. Thank you.

DELORIA: Okay, anything else to come before this committee? If not, we stand adjourned.

As there was no further discussion to come before this DPW committee it was adjourned at 9:50 a.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Judith Garrison, Clerk

Board of Supervisors