ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT/PLANNING/PUBLICITY
COMMITTEE
Monday,
January 9, 2023 - 10:00 AM
Ike
Tyler, Chairperson
Roy
Holzer, Vice-Chairperson
Chairman
Tyler called this Economic Development/Planning/Publicity Meeting to order at 10:10
am with the following Supervisors in attendance: Clayton Barber, Robin DeLoria,
Stephanie DeZalia, Derek Doty, Shaun Gillilland, Charlie Harrington, Roy Holzer,
Ken Hughes, Steve McNally, Noel Merrihew, Jim Monty, Tom Scozzafava, Matthew
Stanley, Ike Tyler, Joe Pete Wilson, Davina Winemiller, Margaret Wood and Mark
Wright.
Department
Heads present: James Dougan, Mike Mascarenas, and Anna Reynolds. Dan Manning was
absent.
Deputies
present: Dina Garvey
Also present:
Jody Olcott - IDA, Jim McKenna and Mary Jane Lawrence - ROOST, Bruce Misarski -
Housing Assistance, and Elizabeth Lee - Cornell Cooperative Extension and Holly
Aquino. Aurora McCaffery - Essex County Historian was absent.
TYLER:
I guess we’ll start the Economic Development. Jody?
**********************
The
next item on the agenda was Industrial Development was Jody Olcott reporting as
follows:
OLCOTT:
I don’t have anything to add to the report, unless you have any questions?
TYLER:
Questions for Jody?
OLCOTT:
Those of you that are eligible for the Champlain Power Project, should have
gotten a copy of the letter for your files.
TYLER:
Thank you
GILLILLAND:
Hey, Jody, I know you were working with an entity in my town for the Restore
New York, I guess all the Restore New York in Essex County got dropped or were
passed over.
OLCOTT:
I saw that, that was unfortunate, because that was a great project.
GILLILLAND:
Yeah
OLCOTT:
It seems like right around us got awarded and we didn’t.
GILLILLAND:
Okay, thank you.
TYLER:
Anything else?
***************************
The next item on the agenda was Community
Resources with Anna Reynolds reporting as follows:
REYNOLDS:
Good morning, today I’ve got 3, 239M reviews. First is the Town of Wilmington
for a 5-lot subdivision. The proposed project is Ira and Cornelia Ballen,
located within the boundaries within Jay and Wilmington on the Crowningshield
Road and Bartlett Road. There’s no impact to county property there and
therefore a letter of no impact can be given.
TYLER:
Moved by Mr. Holzer, second by Mr. Hughes.
ACTION OF THE ESSEX
COUNTY PLANNING BOARD
ON REFERRAL RECEIVED
FROM THE TOWN WILMINGTON
The following motion was made by
Supervisor Holzer.
Where, the Essex County Planning
Board has considered the following GML 239 referrals at its regular meeting on January
9, 2023.
REFERRAL PROPOSED
ACTION
Town of Wilmington - Ira & Cornelia Ballen 5-lot
subdivision
Whereas, none of the referred,
proposed actions directly impacts a county road or county property.
Be It adopted by the Essex County
Planning Board that no recommendation or comment on the said referrals shall be
or hereby is made, and the respective referring bodies may take such final
action as they deem appropriate.
This motion was seconded by
Supervisor Hughes and passed on a vote of 9 in favor, and none opposed.
TYLER: Any questions? All in favor? Opposed? Carried
REYNOLDS: Quick comment regarding subdivision
review. We do not require subdivision review, here at the County, but if your
code enforcement officer, your planning board submit all the materials, I’ll review
it, just so that they have the back up in the file, in case anything happens.
So, again, it’s not required, but if you submit it, we’re giving to review it.
The second one is the Town of North Elba in
Lake Placid, site plan review, conditional use application and site plan review
was submitted by the Otters Lodge LLC for developing 17 Stagecoach Way. It will
be a bed and breakfast with living quarters for the staff. There’s no impact to
county property, so a letter of no impact can be issued.
TYLER: Moved by Mr. Merrihew, second by Mr.
Holzer. Comments?
ACTION OF THE ESSEX
COUNTY PLANNING BOARD
ON REFERRAL RECEIVED
FROM THE TOWN NORTH ELBA
The following motion was made by
Supervisor Merrihew.
Where, the Essex County Planning
Board has considered the following GML 239 referrals at its regular meeting on
January 9, 2023.
REFERRAL PROPOSED
ACTION
Town of North Elba - Otters Lodge, LLC conditional
use application with site plan review
Whereas, none of the referred,
proposed actions directly impacts a county road or county property.
Be It adopted by the Essex County
Planning Board that no recommendation or comment on the said referrals shall be
or hereby is made, and the respective referring bodies may take such final
action as they deem appropriate.
This motion was seconded by
Supervisor Hughes and passed on a vote of 9 in favor, and none opposed.
DOTY: Anna, can you update me on Otters Lodge,
as I don’t believe there’s an active permit for that project within the Town of
North Elba, yet, but yet, you’ve given the okay?
REYNOLDS: So, it’s a pending, conditional use
permit. So, I’m reviewing it before it goes to a public hearing and approval.
So, I’m before the approval process.
MASCARENAS: Also, Mr. Doty, the 239 process
requires Anna to look at it in terms of impact to County property. So, she
doesn’t necessarily decide on the permitting process. She decides on whether
it’s within 500 feet of County owned property.
DOTY: That’s what I was confused about.
MASCARENAS: So, yeah, if there’s a county road,
if there’s a bridge, she’s going to comment on the impact of that, but that
doesn’t mean that all those other requirements go away. She’s just looking at
the impact to the County and that’s what they’re applying for.
DOTY: Very good, thank you.
TYLER: All in favor? Opposed?
DELORIA: Ike, I have a question for Anna. We’ve
got this situation in the lower quadrant of the county and we’re being asked to
submit a 239M, but I don’t think there’s a county road within 5 miles of this
particular spot, but in your filing, you know when you go online to where you
report, it talks about or near a State highway or whatever. If there is no
County highway within 500 feet, then are we required to submit this 239M?
REYNOLDS: It also includes state land, 500
feet.
DELORIA: That’s Newcomb.
REYNOLDS: Yup
DELORIA: So, your review process, does it
necessarily have to come back here or can we get in one and done by Friday?
REYNOLDS: Yup, that’s impossible. The State
requires, it allows us to have a 30-day review process, so if you submit it
next week, we’ll review it at the next meeting.
DELORIA: I’ll be in touch.
REYNOLDS: I have one more. The amendment to the
Village of Saranac Lake Unified Development Code, this will amend the Village
Code to allow cannabis facilities within certain locations and districts within
their village. There’s no impact to County property, therefore a letter of no
impact can be issued.
TYLER: Moved by? Mr. Merrihew. Seconded by? Mr.
Doty
ACTION OF THE ESSEX
COUNTY PLANNING BOARD
ON REFERRAL RECEIVED
FROM THE VILLAGE OF SARANAC LAKE
The following motion was made by
Supervisor Merrihew.
Where, the Essex County Planning
Board has considered the following GML 239 referrals at its regular meeting on
January 9, 2023.
REFERRAL PROPOSED
ACTION
Village of Saranac Lake Local
Law amending Village code
Whereas, none of the referred,
proposed actions directly impacts a county road or county property.
Be It adopted by the Essex County
Planning Board that no recommendation or comment on the said referrals shall be
or hereby is made, and the respective referring bodies may take such final
action as they deem appropriate.
This motion was seconded by
Supervisor Doty and passed on a vote of 9 in favor, and none opposed.
TYLER: Discussion? All in favor? Opposed? Carried.
REYNOLDS: The last is a resolution, a budget amendment
request for appropriating funds from the unexpended fund balance, for up to
$7,500.00 for the purchase of building materials and supplies to build partitions
in our office. We had planned this in 2022, but due to the bidding process and
time we submitted it too late in December. We’re asking to that this year. It’s
really for the door and entrance.
TYLER: Moved by Mr. Holzer, seconded by Mr. Hughes.
RESOLUTION
AUTHORIZING A BUDGET AMENDMENT IN THE COMMUNITY RESOURCES DEPARTMENT,
INCREASING REVENUES AND APPROPRIATIONS IN THE AMOUNT OF $7,500.00 FROM
UNEXPENDED FUND BALANCE AND AUTHORIZING THE PURCHASING AGENT TO PURCHASE
VARIOUS BUILDING MATERIALS FROM SAID FUNDS
Holzer, Hughes
TYLER: Discussion?
SCOZZAFAVA: Mike, was that budgeted in 2022, so we’re just
carrying it over?
MASCARENAS: Yeah, effectively, we’re in a 13th
month. Either resolution would work, either unexpended, unappropriated or doing
it carryover of last year’s funds, it’s not an issue. She’s been working with
Jim on doing that and it is a more cost effective approach to have Jim’s guys
go over and actually build these partitions. I don’t know if any of you have
been up to highway and saw what they built up there, it’s been a few years now,
but basically they’re going to build something like that. They’re not going to
be full enclosed offices, they’re going to be ½ walls or ¾ walls, those types
of things, so people have some level of privacy in their workspace and it’s
much cheaper to have Jim’s guys do that, so it makes sense.
TYLER: All in favor? Opposed? Carries.
Anything else?
REYNOLDS: No, thanks.
****************************
The next item on the agenda was the
Essex County Historian, Aurora McCaffrey having been absent and no report was
given.
****************************
The next item on the agenda was
Cornell Cooperative Extension, with Elizabeth Lee reporting as follows:
LEE:
Good morning and happy new year. I did submit a report and am happy to take any
questions. Without any questions, I just have a couple of things. I would like
to enter into the minutes, on behalf of the Cooperative Extension, our thank
you to Supervisor McNally for serving for a number of years and taking our
organization future and helping me out with the first six months of my job and
going forward, the next steps for us are really just continuing to build
partnerships with all the organizations in your communities and I will be
resuming visits to Supervisors who I haven’t met with individually. I got busy,
previous to the holidays, but I would like to meet with all of you in your
offices and learn more about your communities and am always happy to hear from
you. Thank you.
***************************
The next item was the Housing
Assistance Program with Bruce Misarski reporting as follows:
MISARSKI:
Good morning, I submitted our report to the Board and if there’s any questions,
I’ll be happy to entertain them.
HUGHES:
Good morning, Bruce, no questions, but I just want to express my enthusiasm and
optimism, I’m going to be serving as the liaison to HAPEC, which is a brand new
coordinate position and I’m just, I’m optimistic for our collective success
with you and Megan and the Board and the entire organization, so thanks for
having me and I am looking for to our first meeting.
MISARSKI:
Great, I’m happy to have you, thank you.
****************************
The next item was the Regional
Office of Sustainable Tourism (ROOST), with Jim McKenna and Mary Jane Lawrence reporting
as follows:
LAWRENCE:
Happy New Year that’s the last time I’m saying that in 2023. So, I just have a
couple of updates, we have two town supervisors, Supervisor DeZalia and
Supervisor Stanley have been recommended to join the ROOST Board as non-voting,
ex-officio members. It has gone through the governance committee and will be
approved by the Full Board in our January meeting. So, we’re looking forward to
having the Supervisors our Board and learning more about our program of work,
so thank you.
We
also working, looking forward to working with the committee on the designation
development strategy for Essex County. Jim and I have been working on that for
quite a few months and we have delivered that information to the Chairman and
we know that there’s a committee that will be put together, so we’ll be
reaching out to the committee after the games to coordinate the first meeting,
yay, to bring initiatives for 2023.
Also,
this is something that will be a benefit to all of the towns in Essex County
and businesses. We’re working with a 3rd party and we’re doing an
audit on all the businesses to improve their presence on Google Places, Yelp
and TripAdvisor and that is where many of our travelers find, not only our designation,
but businesses they want to visit, within the regions that they’re going to be
experiencing. This is going to be a really great initiative for these small
businesses. As part of this audit we’re going to have two workshops in the
spring for these businesses to attend. If these businesses feel that they need
some additional support, we will have one on one training available to them and
it’s not going to a huge lift. It’s really just understanding what should be on
those sites and how they should be listed, etc. So, that’s a great initiative
that we’re working on.
Other
than that, once we’re, obviously we’re submerged into the Lake Placid 2023
World University Games at the moment, but once we get passed that, which will
be in the near future, we’re going to be focusing on our spring and summer
marketing and management initiatives.
That’s
what we have going on and then Jim was going to talk about the games.
TYLER:
That allotment that the towns will be receiving?
LAWRENCE:
So, we usually have them out in March, we get the final numbers in February and
then everybody gets the check on later than March.
TYLER:
Thank you
LAWRENCE:
You’re welcome, any other questions? Thank you.
MCKENNA:
So, MJ’s going to allow me to give an update on the games. You know, the
biggest thing is, it doesn’t seem like winter out there, but the sports venues
are in good shape. The technical committee from FISU was at all the venues
yesterday and they came back with a report that said, everything is moving
forward with all the venues, all the outdoor venues, which include Gore,
Whiteface, Mt. Van Hovenburgh, ski jumps, speed skating oval, they feel
confident, regardless of the weather, there’s been enough work done in the past
in building up snow that everything will go off fine, that’s number one. Number
two, the delegations which are starting to arrive, meaning the nations and all
the other delegations are starting to come in, you can start to see people walk
around with their uniforms on and everything, but not everybody is concentrated
in North Elba, there is, you know, the preliminary hockey, which is about 500
people will be done in Potsdam and Canton and then the free ski and snowboard
is going to be done at Gore in North Creek, that’s about another 400 people.
So, they’re spread out a little bit and certainly the Saranac Lake Civic Center
for all the curling events and the housing, you know, some hotels are being
used for housing for athletes, but also Paul Smith’s College is a big bulk of
where a lot of the delegations are staying. Also, down in the, what we call the
South Village, will be right at the Great Escape Hotel, right at the Northway
there and then Potsdam and Canton, everybody is staying in a dorm in Potsdam,
so that’s how that’s happening. The hockey, is you know, the final rounds of
hockey for both men and women will be done at the Olympic Center Complex, so
that, hopefully that will be the big games and the final men’s game will be
broadcast live in ESPN. There will be a number of things on ESPN, throughout,
both ESPN, their main station, plus ESPN 2, ESPN U and also ESPN+, in addition
TSN will be doing a lot of live, which is the Canadian ESPN. They will be doing
a lot of the broadcasting live, as well as Euro Sport will be broadcasting to
56 counties throughout Europe and somewhat live, although the time difference is
there and also Asia TV is engaged, too. So, we anticipate, outside of North
American there will be about 400 million viewers. We have inserted some Adirondack
ads, not Lake Placid centered, but basically region centered, they’ll be
broadcasting some of those.
All
Supervisors have a credential that will be printed today, there’s was a little
foul up, but we’re going to make sure to get those printed and out to everybody
in some fashion so you’ll have them for opening ceremonies and also Main Street
in Lake Placid will be closed and parking limited. The big municipal parking
lot is the transportation hub for all the athletes and all the officials, as
well as spectators. So, parking is at the North Elba horseshow grounds and then
a direct shuttle right in. There’s also going to be parking available at the
former Lake Placid Club properties, where the tennis courts were, sort of up
and back a little bit and also at the Lake Placid Marina, which will also have
some shuttles into town. So, keep that in mind if you’re going to opening
ceremonies or any of the other events that is concentrated in downtown Lake
Placid.
What
else? Any other questions?
DOTY:
Jim, I know you and MJ were good able reveling some problems with ticket sales,
QR codes and things like that. Do you know, will there be the availability for
tickets at the venue for those that aren’t pre-bought tickets?
MCKENNA:
Yes, but we encourage them to buy online. They can use a discount that’s,
Local40 and will get a 40% on the tickets.
DOTY:
Okay
LAWRENCE: Inaudible
MCKENNA:
I would also like to thank Jim and his department at DPW. It’s been really
good, from what I hear, from the shuttling that we’re able to accommodate,
countywide, as well during that time.
Any
other questions?
TYLER:
Just curious, Jim, security wise? Lake Placid only has so many police officers.
MCKENNA:
The State Police has been fully engaged about 2 years, or 3 years and they have
to all set up with Homeland Security and there’s also private security at all
the entrances and hotels and everything else. They’re fully ramped up for it.
WILSON:
One quick tip, when you go to use the code to check out, you have to apply it
when you put the tickets in your cart, not when you check out. So, usually you
fill up your cart, enter a code and check out, but you got to do it before
that, for each event you’re buying your ticket for, each time, you’ve got to
put the code in. I found that out, after a few hours of chasing my tail,
yesterday, so there’s a tip for you.
TYLER:
Anybody else?
MCKENNA:
Thank you.
TYLER:
Anything else to come before this Committee?
MASCARENAS:
I got one thing, quick. Only because you’re running on time. I had sent an
email to the Board and there’s no proper committee to run this through and I’m
not asking for a resolution. The Governor signed a notification in terms of
Real Property Tax, December 23rd, basically requires us to send a
second notice to all residents, regarding those exclusions on your taxes. It’s
really an issue for the town, but I think we can do it for you and we can make
sure that we’re all in compliance. I just need your permission to move forward
and do the work. We would have to have those notices sent to all residents, by
February 1st of this year. So, we don’t really have time to pass a
resolution. I just want to make you aware of the issue and let you know we can
help and we’re willing to do that. We would have Mike DePaoli in the printing
shop just print the notice on postcards, sent it to the some 23,000 properties
in Essex County that we need to send those to, that would be the cheapest way.
The cost is going to be able $12,000.00 countywide. We would then bill each one
of you based upon the number of properties that you have in your town and the
number of post cards you have to send, based on that. I know a couple of you
have strong opinions about this. Again, I am not looking for a resolution, I’m
just looking for permission from you, because you can certainly do it on your
own. Thank you
WINEMILLER:
Can we make a motion, should you do that?
MASCARENAS:
Like I said, ain’t going to matter, by the time full board comes around we’ll
already sent all the things out, so that you can comply. I just didn’t want you
to be surprised when you got a bill from us and saying, hey, we didn’t want you
to do that us.
TYLER:
Anything else? We’re adjourned.
AS THERE WAS NO FURTHER BUSINESS TO COME
BEFORE THIS ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT/PLANNING/PUBLICITY COMMITTEE IT WAS ADJOURNED
AT 10:32 AM.
Respectfully
submitted,
Dina
Garvey, Deputy
Clerk
of the Board