ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT/PLANNING/PUBLICITY
COMMITTEE
Monday,
February 13, 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,
Steve McNally, Noel Merrihew, Jim Monty, Tom Scozzafava, Matthew Stanley, Ike
Tyler, Joe Pete Wilson, Margaret Wood and Mark Wright. Ken Hughes and Davina Winemiller
had been previously excused.
Department
Heads present: James Dougan, Mike Mascarenas, and Anna Reynolds. Dan Manning was
absent.
Deputies
present: Dina Garvey
Also, present:
Carol Calabrese - IDA, Jim McKenna and Mary Jane Lawrence - ROOST, Bruce
Misarski - Housing Assistance, Aurora McCaffery - Essex County Historian and
Holly Aquino. Elizabeth Lee - Cornell Cooperative Extension, had been
previously excused.
TYLER:
I’ll call this Economic Development
Committee meeting to order, first up Carol.
**********************
CALABRESE:
Good morning, we’ve submitted our monthly report, if anyone has any questions
for me this morning.
GILLILLAND:
Restore New York, particularly the one in my town did that go in?
CALABRESE:
It was submitted, yes.
TYLER:
Thank you, Carol.
CALABRESE:
You’re welcome, thank you.
***************************
The next item on the agenda was Community
Resources with Anna Reynolds reporting as follows:
REYNOLDS:
Good morning, I have a few things for the agenda, today. First off are the
referrals. So, the first one is in the Village of Saranac Lake at the Traverse
Lodge it’s on the main drag there. I’m blanking on the name of it, but the
Traverse Lodge, a site plan review. They want to add a lean-to and some amenities
for the hotel. There’s not an impact to County property, so a no impact letter
can be issued.
TYLER:
Moved by Mr. Holzer, second by Mr. Doty. Any other questions? All in favor?
Opposed? Moved.
ACTION OF THE ESSEX
COUNTY PLANNING BOARD
ON REFERRAL RECEIVED
FROM THE VILLAGE OF SARANAC LAKE
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 February
13, 2023.
REFERRAL PROPOSED
ACTION
Village of Saranac Lake - Traverse Lodge site plan
review
Whereas, none of the referred,
proposed actions does not directly impact 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 7 in favor, 2 excused and none opposed.
REYNOLDS: In Ticonderoga, two applications were
submitted from New Leaf Solar. These are residential solar projects. The first
is 282 Airport Road. It’s for site plan review and an area variance, due to the
height and the location of the residential solar in the side yard. There’s no
impact to County property, so a no comment letter can be issued.
TYLER: Mr. Holzer, Mr. Doty, again. Any
questions? All in favor? Opposed? Carried
ACTION OF THE ESSEX
COUNTY PLANNING BOARD
ON REFERRAL RECEIVED
FROM THE TOWN TICONDEROGA
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 February
13, 2023.
REFERRAL PROPOSED
ACTION
Town of Ticonderoga - New Leaf Solar, 282 Airport Rd. site plan review
Whereas, none of the referred,
proposed actions does not directly impact 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 7 in favor, 2 excused and none opposed.
REYNOLDS: The second is 1817 Route 9N. The solar panels,
again, being located on the side year, area variance and a site plan review. No
impact to County property, so a no comment letter can be issued.
TYLER: Stephanie. Second? Mr. Merrihew. Any questions?
Concerns? All in favor, aye? Opposed? Carried.
ACTION OF THE ESSEX
COUNTY PLANNING BOARD
ON REFERRAL RECEIVED
FROM THE TOWN OF TICONDEROGA
The following motion was made by
Supervisor DeZalia.
Where, the Essex County Planning
Board has considered the following GML 239 referrals at its regular meeting on February
13, 2023.
REFERRAL PROPOSED
ACTION
Town of Ticonderoga - New Leaf Solar, 1817 Route 9N site plan review
Whereas, none of the referred,
proposed actions does not directly impact 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 Merrihew and passed on a vote of 7 in favor, 2 excused and none
opposed.
REYNOLDS: I’ve got three resolutions. One is for a budget
amendment request for the Department of State, LGE grant. The grant will expire
this year so we’re closing out our final claim. We have to have a budget
amendment for $14,998.11, remaining eligible costs. So, we can reimburse the
final invoices.
TYLER: Moved by Mr. Doty, second by Mr. Holzer.
RESOLUTION
AUTHORIZING A BUDGET AMENDMENT IN THE COMMUNITY RESOURCES DEPARTMENT,
INCREASING REVENUES AND APPROPRIATIONS IN THE AMOUNT OF $14,998.11 - DEPARTMENT
OF STATE LGE GRANT.
Doty, Holzer
TYLER: Any questions? All in favor? Opposed? Carried
REYNOLDS: Late in 2022, we received $5,000.00 for the Clean
Energy Community Grant Program from NYSERDA. This is a budget amendment request
resolution for the creation of a revenue account for the $5,000.00. We can
utilize it for authorized green and climate smart projects.
TYLER: Moved by Mr. Doty, second by Ms. DeZalia.
RESOLUTION
AUTHORIZING A BUDGET AMENDMENT IN THE COMMUNITY RESOURCES DEPARTMENT IN THE
AMOUNT OF $5,000.00 AND CREATING A REVENUE ACCOUNT FOR SUCH FUNDS - CLEAN
ENERGY COMMUNITY GRANT
Doty, DeZalia
TYLER: Questions? All in favor, aye? Opposed?
REYNOLDS: The third is the authorized for the procurement
agent to bid and award the Farmworker Housing Project. This project, currently,
is in the design phase. We have weekly meetings, every Friday to go over the
design of the project. The architect is keeping up with the pace. The project
has to be fully constructed by September 30th of this year. So, it’s
one year to be completed. So, I am just trying to get ahead of it by a month to
go out to bid in, hopefully, March, award it in April and start construction in
May.
TYLER: Moved by Mr. Doty, second by Mr. Holzer.
RESOLUTION
AUTHORIZING THE PURCHASING AGENT TO BID AND AWARD THE CONSTRUCTION PHASE OF THE
FARMWORKER HOUSING RENOVATION WITH MONIES TO COME FROM GRANT FUNDING
Doty, Holzer
TYLER: Any questions? Concerns? All in favor, aye? Opposed?
Carried
REYNOLDS: So, there is one more, resolution for Essex County
to be the lead agent for the new County Agricultural Center Building under the
Rural Development ARPA funds. We will have to do the environmental process. So,
this is the kick off to declaring lead agency. I will then fill out the full
Type 1 Action Forms and then at the next Board meeting, I will pass the next
resolution.
TYLER: Moved by Mr. Harrington, second Mr. Merrihew.
RESOLUTION NAMING
ESSEX COUNTY AS LEAD AGENCY FOR THE PURPOSE OF THE PURPOSED CONSTRUCTION OF A
COUNTY AGRICULTURAL AND YOUTH CENTER
Harrington, Merrihew
TYLER: Any questions?
DOTY: Anna, what makes that a Type 1?
REYNOLDS: Because it’s a contributing building to a historic
district.
DOTY: Okay
REYNOLDS: So, it’s new construction.
TYLER: Anything else? All in favor? Opposed? Carried.
REYNOLDS: That is all today, unless somebody has questions.
TYLER: I don’t see any, thank you ma’am.
REYNOLDS: Thank you
****************************
The next item on the agenda was the
Essex County Historian, Aurora McCaffrey reporting as follows:
MCCAFFREY:
Good morning, you have my report for the month. At the Museum, we are working
on our 2023 exhibits, as well as programs and events. The schedule will include
the antique and classic car show, a Juneteenth tour, Gallery Opening/Reception,
Film and Lecture Series, Historians Day and a special event celebrating the 75th
anniversary of the 46ers.
So,
we’re still finalizing specific dates for the films and lectures, but I will
have a detailed calendar for you next month with titles and presenters.
In my report,
I’ve included a list of our 2023 exhibits. We have a new display of development
and effects of the Adirondack Northway and in our Rosenberg Gallery will we
show the artwork of Steven Kellogg, who is a local children’s book author and
illustrator.
Then
we have some exhibits we are expanded; which are Adirondack Suffragists and ADK
Fire Towers and I have also listed our permanent exhibits. So, we’re really
excited, opening in May and looking forward to it. That’s all I have to add.
TYLER:
Any questions? Thank you, Aurora.
MCCAFFREY:
Thank you
*****************************
The next item on the agenda was
Cornell Cooperative Extension, with Elizabeth Lee having been previously
excused.
TYLER:
Elizabeth Lee has been excused.
****************************
The next item was the Regional
Office of Sustainable Tourism (ROOST), with Jim McKenna and Mary Jane Lawrence reporting
as follows:
LAWRENCE:
So, I just have a couple of things to go over before James reviews the World
University Games and a couple of other things.
First
and foremost, congratulations to Ticonderoga on the winning of the DRI. That’s
exceptional, congratulations. A lot of hard work, well-done.
We are
meeting with the Essex County Designation Development Committee on February 23rd.
That is Supervisor McNally and Supervisor Hughes and we’re going to start
creating a plan to really start working on the needs of the whole county and
how we can help support that, move that forward. So, there will be much more to
come on that.
Last
month, I mentioned that we were doing, working with the Google Business
Optimization for Small Businesses, so that when a traveler or community member’s
googles a place to eat in Ticonderoga, it comes up, as it should. A lot of
small businesses, it’s really hard to understand how to optimize that, so we’re
going to be doing two workshops and we’re going to be sending this out multiple
times. We want to get a lot of our businesses all over the county involved in
this. We have April 26th and May 17th, both days will be
9:00 AM and 3:00 PM. This is for Google, Yelp and Trip Advisor, but it’s really
going to heavily concentrated on Google. This is a really important thing for
small businesses, so we’ll be encouraging and your support would be great.
We’ve
been going to and have a lot of travel shows that we’ve been participating in.
We went to the New York Times Travel and Adventure Show, which was very big and
very successful. We went to the American Bus Association’s show in Detroit.
Again, it was a really good show. We got a tremendous amount of positive
feedback. We’re going to the Ottawa Vacation and Travel Show in April. We’re
doing the Adirondack Sports and Fitness Show, which also is in April and then
of course we well be doing the Adirondack Day, again, this year in the
legislative building and that’s May 8th and that, of course, if
highlighting all the Adirondack Region to the legislators and the decision
makers in Albany.
Other
than that, just want to welcome Supervisor DeZalia and Supervisor Stanley as
ex-officio members to the ROOST Board. So, we’re excited to have you onboard
and we’ll be in touch with the onboarding processes with that. Thank you for
agreeing to participate.
That’s
all I have, any questions?
GILLILLAND:
I don’t have any questions, but I just want you to know, you and Jim and your
whole organization, I mean you guys seem to be really flying on afterburner,
right now. I mean you guys, it’s just tremendous, between the FISU Games and
then the ski jumping this weekend and the Empire State Games and things and
other things you’re doing for the rest of the county. I think it’s absolutely
fantastic and I just want to make personal thanks. We are very proud of you.
LAWRENCE:
Aww, I can’t tell you how great that feels. Thank you very much, greatly
appreciated.
MCKENNA:
Is that for me, too. Thank you very much, we really appreciate that.
Well,
the FISU Games are history. You know we were talking about, really starting in
2016, even a little bit before that. So, you know it was this Board that
originally said, we have to do something to upgrade those sports sites. You
remember that, all of you that were here? That’s how it happened and you know,
you mentioned the ski jump this weekend. That wouldn’t happen without the
upgraded venues. So, we’re already seeing the results of that. Also, things
coming up, the World Synchronized Skating Champions happening later this year,
wouldn’t have happened. Also, the ECA Hockey Finals, you know D1 Hockey Finals.
They were challenged with the international sized ice, which was converted to
NHL size in that big rink. So, there’s going to be many ongoing benefits for
our county as a result of those games. Overall, the games were a tremendous
success and we certainly heard from feedback on how the Main Street in downtown
Lake Placid was closed, but that was for more security reasons than others at
that time. But, overall tremendous success, 58,000 tickets sold and you know
many events were sold out. Certainly, the opening and closing ceremonies were
big. Short track speed skating was big. Hockey finals was big. Curling was big
in Saranac Lake. Also, they did very well in Canton and Potsdam for the preliminary
hockey. The media coverage was substantial. More so in Europe and Asia than our
country, but with the rating for all those were phenomenal. EuroSport for
example, which is similar to like ESPN here at the States, although they
broadcast 56 counties, the snow conditions in Europe this winter have not been
great during that time, so they were supposed to do 27 hours of coverage on
EuroSport. They ended up picking up a lot more because they had no other
sports. So, we got out there, pretty much everything was associated, certainly
with the Lake Placid name, but also I Love New York and there was a lot of, on
those we had the apply to put some of our own marketing in there. So, there
were things running on the Adirondacks and specifically our region as possible.
So, there has not been that much media coverage on our, from our county,
worldwide, since the 1980 Olympics that happened during that period and clearly
there was many articles that we saw, that even though they used the name Lake
Placid, they said that international stature of sports in Lake Placid is back
and I think we saw that this past weekend with the ski jumping. I don’t know if
anybody went there, but it was pretty incredible that the Polish Sports
Association of America sort of got behind this, because they have a lot of
Polish ski jumpers and Mary Jane, would you say about 8 out 10 visitors to the
ski jumps were Polish and from all other this country, so the expose was pretty
phenomenal.
Other
than that, you know that organizing committee that put the University Games on
was at 150 people. They’re now down to 5 or 10 or something like that. So, that
winds right down and right off and you know we’re starting to gear up for other
things happening. We really appreciate the sport. I know I saw a lot of
supervisors at some of the events. I saw Charlie Harrington with his volunteer
coats on and everything and hockey, and you were in the rink most of the time,
weren’t you?
And
there were some great international competitors here. Japan, especially sent
their A team, where the World Champion Women’s Figure Skater participated and
many like that. So, overall we’re looking at it as a tremendous success and
really thank this Board for their support on the whole process. Thank you
TYLER:
Jim, are we on schedule to have an Olympics, a winter Olympics here, you think?
MCKENNA:
Well, right now, how the Olympics work is that the United States Olympic
Committee, it’s called the United States Olympic or Paralympic Committee,
they’re the organization that’s responsible for identifying bid cities for the
Olympics for the United States. They’ve already chosen Salt Lake City to be the
next winter Olympic bid city. With that said, there’s also been a lot of
continue talk, especially at the international level, the International Olympic
Committee has been talking recently about repeating sites and also they’re
figuring climate change into the equation. We’re situated pretty well in
comparison to other Olympic sites with climate change and there’s also great
examples. The 2026 Olympic Winter Games are going to be shared between Milan
and Portina. The distance between them, you have to drive is 280 miles. Similar
distance from New York City to North Elba is about 280 miles. So, there is some
potential out there, I think, in partnerships, long term, after the Salt Lake
City situation is solidified, looking at partnering with the metropolitan area
of New York might be the way for us to look at it in the future.
TYLER:
Thank you, any questions?
MCKENNA:
Thank you
***************************
The next item was the Housing
Assistance Program with Bruce Misarski reporting as follows:
MISARSKI:
Good morning folks. I submitted a report and it’s in your packet.
I just
wanted to highlight a couple of things. You know with the wrapping up of the
University Games, one of the great outcomes is we got a 60-unit affordable
housing project in Lake Placid. So, that building was utilized for the
University Games and now is getting cleaned up and ready for occupancy for
March 1st at that facility. Those are 60-units for affordable
housing, 12-units are being set aside, specifically for our Section 8 families,
but they started probably before Christmas with the applications, which they
had well over 200 applicants and then they started, then they put them in an
order, so that they can work through the waitlist and so that building will be
open for occupancy March 1st and hoping to see an easing, a little
bit of housing pressure when something that large opens in the community
there’s sort of a cascading effect where people are moving out of other units,
to frees up units and there will be some moving around. So, hopefully we’ll
have some good effects from that.
The
only other thing I wanted to mention was our Restore Program which is funded
and we are actively accepting applications. So, Restore is an emergency repair
program for elderly homeowners. So, if you have anybody in your community that
has an emergency repair and you can make an effect and repair that or alleviate
the emergency. We have up to $20,000.00 from that grant that we can get to
people and help with that situation. So, just reach out to us with you have
something that pops up. Any questions?
MONTY:
Bruce, I see on your report you added a new house to the Housing Trust, giving
you 22 homes?
MISARSKI:
Yes
MONTY:
So, are all those homes, have been sold and there are people occupying them?
MISARSKI:
Yeah, so those homes will always in the Trust. So once a family buys it, it
will say in the Trust and then we just keep adding to that number. So, yes,
those families are in the Trust. If they want to sell them and move on to a
different house, so those houses do get sold occasionally and they’re very
affordable when that happens.
MONTY:
Right, I understand that. I just wondered if that new house has been sold that
you added to it already?
MISARSKI:
The new one is a habitat house. So, the family, I believe is already selected
for it.
MONTY:
Okay, thank you.
TYLER:
Anything else? Thank you, Bruce.
Anything
else to come before the Committee? 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