DPW - COMMITTEE

Monday, October 16, 2023 - 9:30 AM

Robin DeLoria, Chairperson

Clayton Barber, Vice-Chairperson

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

Department Heads present: Jim Dougan, Judy Garrison and Michael Mascarenas.

Also present: Alice Halloran and Todd Hodgson.

News media: SUN – Alana Penny.

DELORIA: Good morning. We’ll call this October 16, 2023, Department of Public Works meeting to order. Stand for the pledge please. Mr. Dougan.

DOUGAN: Good morning. So, if I could let Todd give you guys a brief presentation on FEMA damages. Last month when I stood in front of you and I asked for a number of resolutions giving work to Reale I watched some of your faces and honestly I think not everybody here has seen all the damage. Some of the towns were damaged quite a bit on those July storms and others not so much and so I asked Todd to put together some pictures of what we’ve been doing and because I’m honestly asking to continue with this contract with Reale again with a number of other things so Todd along with Gary Rancour, Cole Fernandez and then Heather Provoncha have really taken on the FEMA stuff for me so I’d like him to just quickly show you some of these pictures, what we faced for damages and what some of the repairs have been before I ask you for another nine resolutions to get this work done. If we could let Todd do that, that would be great.

HODGSON: Good morning. I’m going to try and be real quick. This is just a quick update on where we stand with some of our FEMA projects. Some of those as Jim said are contracted out and then some of the resolutions that Jim has to go over with you after this. Some of this work we completed ourselves and/or work that is to be completed.

This is a partial list of the damages that we have. I’ll just flip to the next slide, the final list is about 28 damaged sites, total estimated cost at this point is about $2.8 million dollars. Expenses to date are just a little shy of three quarters of a million dollars that we spent so far fixing the damage from the July storms.

This is Highlands Road, this is just some of the damages that occurred there. We have some culvert washouts actually multiple culvert washouts that we did repair the shoulder, the aprons that are connected to those culverts. Some of those culverts were entirely washed out and removed so we ended up replacing those doing some in house engineering working with in this case, the term contract for AP Reale and Son that completed these damages because our crews were busy in other sites completed damages so that extended our construction capability. As you see in red there’s a number of sites where we were able to pull in mitigation that is repairing it back better than it was originally by either scour protection, upsizing the plate, installing check dam, things that would prevent future erosion and future damages. I’ll just make this point that FEMA estimates that for every dollar you spend in mitigation you are saving $6.00, that’s their experience so mitigation is very, very important on these projects so we’re not just putting it back we’re building it back better.

This is Vineyard Road which also quite a bit of money was spent on you can see fatten slopes there with a lot of stone these are repeat areas of damage that through mitigation will hopefully not have to touch again. As you can see there’s a check dam in the photo to the bottom right just that little check dam and the ditch line preventing erosion, preventing road side scour some rock type ditches to prevent this type of damage from happening again in this section.

Okay this is Bradford Hill we had an embankment failure a pretty good size one. When we went to our consultant to take a look at this he came up with an estimate of nearly $650,000, it was pretty expensive. We did some value engineering. We’re looking at coming in somewhere around $200,000 fix. This involves both mitigation and putting it back, the goal again for this site is to reduce future maintenance in this area.

Essex County Fish Hatchery – pretty extensive damage you can see in the photo there is a culvert that is sitting off to the side, that’s roughly a 12 foot diameter culvert so it’s a big culvert that got displaced and moved out of the way plus the road damage. This has been a repeat defender as well for us. We’ve been back multiple times putting the culvert and the road back together. This time around we are going to apply some mitigation to the road, to the culvert and also to one of the water intakes that was again damaged as a result of this storm. This is Essex County’s only large project meaning that it is greater than a million dollars so that will allow us and that is a long term project this is isn’t one that we even started, this is coming but is included in the estimate that I gave you earlier.

This is Terry Mountain, we also have repeat damages on Terry Mountain most of it is just this road scour as you see here but much of the damage comes from the fact that it does not have proper storm water controls. We do have the hurdle of DEC permits though because it’s on State land in other words, we don’t own the land that this road goes over so anything we do including putting gravel down requires a permit a revocable permit by DEC so there’s going to be some additional requirements we will have to abide by there again, we need to mitigate this area. This is an emergency services power site. It’s critical to the type of communications network that the county owns and maintains. Monthly we have to go up there to inspect and take a look at things so it’s vital to county infrastructure. So that’s really all I have. These are just sample projects we have many, many more like I said twenty-eight that we’re doing throughout the county and as needed I can give you an update on those. Some of these projects are in progress still. Some of these projects have been completed. The goal is to try and complete as many projects as possible before the end of the year that way we have just a direct reimbursement of the costs that we have incurred but some of these projects will take a little bit longer on the planning end and permitting in particular. Any questions?

McNALLY: What is the percentage of reimbursement?

HODGSON: It’s 75% the State has not kicked in any which is disappointing in this round. They typically have done the 12.5% but this time. Any other questions?

DOUGAN: Thanks Todd.

HODGSON: Thank you.

DOUGAN: So as Todd said some of this work is still in progress, some of it has been completed and again, I just wanted all of you before I requested money again to see some of what we’re facing. I appreciate that you have been passing those resolutions and telling me to keep moving forward but I just felt you needed a little more information than you had before. There’s a number of towns who do have quite a bit of damage as well Crown Point, Schroon especially have quite a bit of damage a few other towns but not everybody saw this damage so as much as I requested this far I really wanted you to see that.

So, I mentioned already if we can go to resolutions that I have eight resolutions that are regarding more contracts with Reale. Some of them they have finished up, some of them are actually in areas where we’ve done a resolution before but I wasn’t able to provide enough trucks, towns weren’t able to provide enough trucks for us to get the material to Reale in an effective manner so we turned around and told Reale to move forward with that. Vineyard Road especially because they were costing us time and it wasn’t efficient without getting material done in a hurry. Todd’s picture of Vineyard Road you saw how fatten up that slope was so we made a decision that I would save money by actually having them add trucks to haul that material. We still purchased the material through our contractor but they hauled it. Would you like to do – all these resolutions will be done as one resolution when it goes to full board so I can do a quick description of each one of them or we can do one resolution or we can do each one as a resolution? It’s up to you Mr. Chairman.

DELORIA: Well, let’s quickly touch base on at least the town and the amount we are dealing with for each of them and we’ll pass them as one.

DOUGAN: You want to pass them as one?

DELORIA: Sure.

DOUGAN: So my first one is Vineyard Road. I’ve already given you a little bit of a description of that. This is the Vineyard Road site located very close to the transfer station. This was slope failure. We previously did a resolution for labor and equipment with Reale and we determined that I was going to need to add trucking. We were going to do all the trucking for all that riprap and stone that you saw ourselves with town help and we couldn’t get enough trucks to keep it moving at a quick pace so this one is for $40,144.00, that’s already completed those are going to be our final costs for that one.

Number two, again this is the other site on Vineyard Road. This was the one that’s very close to the Crown Point and Ticonderoga line. A much bigger area a lot more trucking. Let me also tell everybody our trucking of that material, they had to go to Peckham to pick it up which is in Chestertown okay? So, that’s quite a haul to get that material there that’s part of why we weren’t able to between town and county trucks provide the material. So this one is for $90,158.00.

Number three and number four are also on Vineyard Road they’re new ones. This is some ditching. Number three is near that Crown Point/Ticonderoga town line. We had Reale do the ditching it was a little bit of material there for shoulders but not a lot again, we bought the material, Reale did some trucking FEMA wanted to look at it as a different project they wanted to call one slope failure and another one ditch line so that’s why I’m presenting it to you as a different project. They were done basically at the same time. I mentioned Gary Rancour and Cole Fernandez they are out there watching these things and documenting each of the different projects for me and trying to make sure that we kept Reale moving efficiently so this third one is for $19,160.00. Any questions so far?

Number four is another ditch line, this one is next to the transfer station and same situation as I just described, it’s for $17,463.00.

Number five was on the Highlands Road, I’m sure Clayton will know where this is down near the railroad crossing. Your Highway Superintendent is actually who found this for us. We hadn’t noticed it, it was behind enough brush and down over the bank enough that we didn’t see it at first again, it’s a pretty significant slope failure. We hired Reale for labor, equipment and the trucking and then we purchased the material ourselves for $85,235.00.

Number six, again on Highlands Road in Chesterfield. This was another culvert that got washed out, it was right near the ledges. I think Clayton will know where that is and so we had some embankment repairs and we had to deal with both the inlet and outlet side of the culvert, labor, equipment and trucking was by Reale and materials were by DPW.

Number seven, again on Highlands Road right near the Shunpike Road that long hill, that long, fairly steep hill that comes down Shunpike Road had quite a bit of washout along the shoulder and the ditches so that was repaired. A little bit of material, a little bit of trucking same kind of situation, labor, equipment and trucking by Reale, material by us a total of $32,856.00. Sorry I’m probably boring all of you here with my monotone voice giving you all this but and number eight, that was Bradford Hill the picture that Todd showed of Bradford Hill. We are basically cutting that whole hill down so it won’t keep sliding off into the road, that hill has failed twice in the past twelve months luckily one of them was this FEMA event so we could get 75% of it paid for. Very little material on this one. This one was almost all equipment and labor. That one is still in progress. Those are my FEMA requests if you would like to move a resolution or if you have more questions?

DELORIA: Okay so what we want to do is consolidate resolution one through eight FEMA July storm reimbursement work into one resolution?

DOUGAN: If you’re comfortable with that.

DELORIA: I’m fine with that.

DOUGAN: It’s going to make ways and means a little bit easier.

DELORIA: Yup, we can do that. Do I have a motion to do it that way?

RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE COUNTY CHAIRMAN OR COUNTY MANAGER TO EXECUTE VARIOUS CONTRACT AMENDMENTS WITH REALE CONSTRUCTION FOR REPAIRS CAUSED FROM JULY STORMS IN THE TOWNS OF TICONDEROGA, CHESTERFIELD AND CROWN POINT IN A TOTAL AMOUNT OF $385,348.00, WITH FUNDS TO COME FROM BUDGETED FEMA FUNDS. Barber, Wright

DELORIA: Any questions?

DOTY: Jim, help me understand about financing. At $2.8 million for everything, 25% leaves us between $620,000 - $650,000, will we allocate the county share then in next year’s budget or is there an area to go to fund balance? How are we handling this?

DOUGAN: You’ve already approved a board resolution. You’ve done a board resolution up to $2 million dollars thus far assuming $1.5 of it was coming out of FEMA and the other $500,000 was actually coming out of DPW, county roads the D fund, out of that fund balance.

DOTY: Oh, that’s right.

DOUGAN: So I’m going to need to do another resolution but not all these repairs are county road repairs so all these are but what Todd brought you the Fish Hatchery which is under A the general fund and also Terry Mountain which is also under the General Fund so I will be bringing another resolution for that and where we pull the batch for those dollars to get us to that $2.8 we’ll figure that out when the time comes. Mike just did talk to me and we’re going to meet on whether or not we’re going to bring all this in the budget, leave it in capital fund but we’ve got to understand that.

DOTY: Okay thank you.

MONTY: Those are the overall costs of those projects right Jim or are those our share of that, the 25%?

DOUGAN: Those are the overall, well, no the resolutions that you see for Reale are just Reale. Todd’s number up here includes all the materials that we bought. Todd’s number up here also includes some work done by us. So, honestly some work that has been done by us we’re still going to claim it that actually comes out of my current budget when I claim that so we won’t end up with a full 25% match because some of it, I won’t be asking you for an additional 25% to make the match because some of it is already going to come out of budgeted funds. That’s why I’ve really got three staff that this is 80% of what they are doing the last month in just keeping this tracked.

DELORIA: Did that answer your question Jim?

MONTY: Yes it did.

SCOZZAFAVA: Jim, I’m not being critical of you or anyone else but can they handle all this? I mean, what’s the timeframe on this stuff?

DOUGAN: These things here we are almost done Tom. It has been stretched a little bit without a doubt. This is the last year that Reale has this term contract. I think it was advantageous to have this, for us to immediately be able to move forward. The Halloween storm event we didn’t have this and we ended up with three different contractors doing this work just under the emergency declaration and the paperwork to clean it up after that event was difficult this is easier because we know the rates for equipment, we know the rates for labor and so when it’s time to rebid that this spring I’ll be asking this board to award to more than one with the low bidder being the primary and then having the ability to use bidders number two and number three.

SCOZZAFAVA: Thank you.

DELORIA: Okay anything further? Motion to approve the resolution all in favor, any opposed – carried. Number nine Jim Transportation.

DOUGAN: Number nine is regarding Transportation. It has taken us a little while to get a State contract for buses. We’ve had a contract with New York State DOT to fund these for now three years finally they came out with a State contract for it so we are wanting to order two of the Lot G buses is what we call them, those are the sixteen passenger two of which are wheelchair assessable buses that we use for our routes through Champlain North, Champlain South, MVS and we even use them for the Placid Express from time to time so those are our smaller buses they aren’t those real big ones that we tend to use for the ski trips and things like that so, it is 90% State and Federal funded. It is 10% funded by the county those funds are carried in the budget already for 2023 so the total amount of the purchase order would be $269,498.24, and that would be to Coach and Equipment Bus Sales, Inc. and that’s two buses.

MERRIHEW: I was just going to ask, do we surplus the buses after?

DOUGAN: We do if they’ve been purchased through State or Federal funds we have to operate them for at least five years and/or they have to have 100,000 miles on them so we will surplus them once that’s done.

MERRIHEW: Once they reach that?

DOUGAN: Yup we do have to get DOT’s approval before we surplus them and that sometimes takes a little while but, yes, we would.

MERRIHEW: Thank you.

RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE PURCHASING AGENT TO PURCHASE TWO (2) NEW AND UNUSED 16 PASSENGER BUSES FROM COACH AND EQUIPMENT BUS SALES, INC. FOR THE DPW - TRANSPORTATION DEPARTMENT IN THE AMOUNT OF $269,498.24, WITH FUNDS TO COME FROM BUDGETED FUNDS AND FURTHER AUTHORIZING THE COUNTY CHAIRMAN OR COUNTY MANAGER TO EXECUTE SAID PURCHASE ORDER. Wood, DeZalia

DELORIA: Any further questions? All in favor, any opposed – carried. Number ten.

DOUGAN: I probably shouldn’t be asking this on a day I’ve asked you to spend so much money but I’ve appointed for almost four years now my appointment will be up December 3, so I’m asking to be reappointed in this position for an additional four years.

RESOLUTION REAPPOINTING JAMES DOUGAN TO A FOUR (4) YEAR TERM AS ESSEX COUNTY SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC WORKS BEGINNING DECEMBER 3, 2023 – DECEMBER 3, 2027. DeLoria, unanimous

DELORIA: Can I have a unanimous second on that from committee? Thank you. So moved, any opposed – carried.

DOUGAN: Thank you. It’s been my pleasure at times.

DELORIA: Okay there’s an FYI on the asbestos abatement, did you want to mention that?

DOUGAN: Yes, I want to give you an update we do have that out to bid, the asbestos abatement of the old jail and one room that we found doing a carpet replacement project here in DSS so those bids are due back on the 25^th and I would most likely if we’ve got a balanced bid of respectable bidders then we will be bringing that to you at ways and means. So that’s just an FYI.

DELORIA: Okay.

DOTY: Jim, you and I have been talking back and forth on a potential expansion of a bus route in Lake Placid. There’s starting, the phone calls are now with the cold weather coming. Do you know where that stands or I can expect that?

DELORIA: We’ve completed a survey. We’re trying to figure out how to make that fit within your existing route of Lake Placid Express. What we’re coming up with thus far is it may make the timeframe for a round trip a little bit longer but I have a draft of that done. I want to submit that to you and we will probably need the Village involved as well to see what we come up with. Our process when we do that, every one of our routes if we’re going to get our State transportation operating assistant funding we have to get them approved by them first so which means we have to do the survey which I know we’ve talked about. That’s been done. If we can generally agree that we take the route and delaying the overall round trip from say the municipal parking lot to the time you get back to the municipal parking lot, if we can change that a little bit then we think we can make that fit without adding a whole separate route.

DOTY: Does it screw up what you worked on last year with the live app so people can look and track it? Does all that change?

DOUGAN: No that would be a modification of that route. We prepared all that last year but without a position in my office to track it, it really hasn’t been launched. I was working with ROOST last year to fund some of that. A lot of things have changed in that process so it would be a modification to that program but it has not gone any farther. Mr. Hughes has brought to me a connection for another program that might allow us to have that on more of a national basis of putting our routes on it. We’re working on developing that as well. It would just have our routes it wouldn’t be a live document unless we pay the subscription fee or something like that but we are looking at that as an option as well.

DOTY: Thanks Jim.

DELORIA: Anybody else have anything for Mr. Dougan?

WOOD: I just want to thank Jim and his crew for all the help he’s given the Town of Schroon with these floods. Our damages wasn’t always clear cut, some of it was tangled with temporary repairs that were made from the Halloween storm that were washed out, some of our damage was tangled with North Hudson and the Johnson Pond Road and negotiating whose doing what, when and where again, juggling between 2019 and 2023 so he made things a lot easier for us in fact if it could be considered easy. I just want to have a formal thank you.

DOUGAN: Again, thank Todd and Heather and Cole and Gary just as much. I’m good enough to have some good people behind me. That’s all I’ve got. Alice, I’m sorry I’m going to give you about a minute.

HALLORAN: That’s all I need.

DELORIA: You can take three, I’ve got the gavel.

HALLORAN: Good morning. Just usual, wrapping up in the fall, certifying covered crops that needed to be in by last week. Two farm projects completed. One heavy use area and waste storage transfer on the ongoing. A bunch of hydro seeding and we still have a little bit more to do before we close up for the year on that. Several logging classes this month and on and on. Any questions?

DELORIA: Thank you Alice. Anything else to come before the committee? If not, we stand adjourned.

As there was no further discussion to come before this Department of Public Works committee, it was adjourned at 10:00 a.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Judith Garrison, Clerk

Board of Supervisors