WAYS AND MEANS
Monday,
January 30, 2023 @ 10:00 a.m.
James
Monty, Chairman
Shaun
Gillilland, Vice-Chairman
Chairman
Monty called this Ways & Means Committee to order at 10:00 a.m. with the
following supervisors in attendance: Clayton Barber, Robin DeLoria, Stephanie
DeZalia, Derek Doty, Shaun Gillilland, Charles Harrington, Roy Holzer, Ken
Hughes, Steve McNally, Noel Merrihew, Jim Monty, Matthew Stanley, Tom
Scozzafava, Michael Tyler, JoePete Wilson, Davina Winemiller, Margaret Wood and
Mark Wright.
Department
heads present were: Michael Diskin, James Dougan, Judy Garrison, Mary McGowan,
Dan Manning, Michael Mascarenas, Chelsea Merrihew, Jack Moulton and Matt Watts.
Also
present: Emily Evatt, Nicole
Justice-Green, Jeanene Wilson, Michael LaVallie and Bill Tansey.
News
media: Alana Penny
MONTY: Good morning all. We’ll call the ways and means committee to
order and join me with the pledge of allegiance. Thank you. Roll call please Judy. Thank you.
This morning we are very fortunate to have a couple guests with us, this
morning to do a brief presentation, Nicole Justice-Green from PRIDE of Ticonderoga
and her assistant, Jeanene Wilson. Thank you for joining us. They are going to
give us a presentation on PRIDE, as you know they are going to be administering
the county housing rehab grant and also they’ve been very instrumental in
helping us, assisting us in the land bank application which it’s on your desk
now. This is the draft copy. We want you
to have it, review it and we are going to introduce it next month through
committee and run it so that final approval can happen in March so that we can
get it submitted to the State. I think
it’s a strong application. Ken Hughes
and Nicole kudos to them, they really put together a great application with
that being said, Nicole come on up.
JUSTICE-GREEN: Thank you very much supervisors for your
time. As Jim introduced myself, my name
is Nicole Justice-Green. I’m the
Executive Director of PRIDE of Ticonderoga and my colleague Jeanene Wilson who
is our housing specialist is here with us today and PRIDE of Ticonderoga was
founded in 1984. We are going into our
39th year of serving Essex County also Warren and Washington County
and we were founded by a rural preservation company grant that was initiated by
the Ticonderoga area Chamber of Commerce and actually Essex County. The Essex County Manager at the time and
Planner were one of the original founders of PRIDE. A rural preservation company is, we are
called RPC’s. There is a network of over
50 of us throughout New York State. In
1984, there were 5 RPC’s serving Essex County and today there are only 2, PRIDE
of Ticonderoga being one of them and the Housing Assistance Program of Essex
County, HAPEC being the other only two remain.
During
that 39 years of tenure, PRIDE has funneled over, these statistics are a little
bit outdated because we were recently awarded with six additional grants but
all total we funneled $15 million dollars of public money into our service
area. One of the largest chunks of that
money, as you can see is over $6 million dollars in housing grants.
So
PRIDE does a number of different areas of work.
We call them our four pillars and those four pillars of work are housing
grants, downtown revitalization, community development programs as well as
community assistance programs. We have a
number of current grant programs which I’m going to go over in brief detail
with you. The first being our home and
CDBG programs. These are our largest
housing programs that PRIDE administers and these programs go from anywhere
from $25,000 to the upwards of $75,000 to do major home rehabilitation for
owner occupied dwellings. In the past,
PRIDE has also administered four mobile home replacement projects and programs
we are not currently administrating them but if you have a constituent who is
in need of housing assistance, home and CDBG are the current programs that we
are administering.
Our
second program that we consistently administered has been our Restore
program. Restore serves the elderly
within the county. So you have to be 60
or older. These are emergency prepares
or accessibility modifications so, if a client who is at 100% of the area
medium income has an accident now they are no longer able to easily access
their bathroom in their home, we can quickly come in and make the ADA
modifications but we can also help them if their pipes freeze or if they have a
major electrical issue. These are quick,
faster grants than our major home rehabilitation grants but Restore Home and
CDBG can all be pulled together to leverage that funding so if we’re doing a
home rehabilitation for an elderly resident in Essex County we can pull money
from a store and home to do a complete rehabilitation.
The
lower programs are New York helping neighbors program and the direct donation
of a small grant program that PRIDE created about fifteen years ago, those are
rapid, emergency repairs. The reason why
we created that program was because as you all know, as State employees grants
meditate, take a very long time and in the meantime, if somebody has a tree fall on their house it
can take up to five to six weeks to get this, their project set up with the
state, in the meantime, there’s mold development, other serious issues, pipes
freeze in the meantime and so this program I’m able to go in 24 hours access
this, qualify the resident for assistance and get a repair person whatever the
repair happens to be into their home immediately to stabilize it. It could just be one single repair that they
need or they could be a client who is on the wait list waiting to access our
home funds or CDBG funds and so we know this after many years of service this
program was created by Shari Reynolds. We would have these issues where we
could not get the funding or assistance to these homeowners quickly
enough. So the cost of their project
would then will do what might have been a simple pipe replacement has now meant
mold remediation, you have to rip out walls and so this basically leveraged
multiple of these programs and filled these voids of service throughout the
county is something that PRIDE has consistently done which is why we created
this program. So, we don’t really accept
multiple donations for our administration because we are funded by the State as
a rural preservation company. When we accept donations they go to Neighbors
Helping Neighbors so we can do our work better and last, for our community kind
of housing projects PRIDE has a continued of care approach. So, when somebody
calls us they don’t necessarily just call us for housing, they call us because
they can’t pay their heating bill, they’re hungry, an accident has
happened. In Ticonderoga we are about an
hour from Elizabethtown where Social Services is, we also serve Warren and
Washington County, their Social Services offices’ are about an hour from
anybody who lives in the mediate area and so we, very often serve as an
extension of social services and just referral agencies to get people, they
know that they can come to us for help and pointing them in the right direction
of where they need to go and one of those consistent programs that we can
administer have been food and security programs. If you look through the packet, you’ll see
the list of all the grants that we have successfully have been awarded for the
past 39 years we use to run the Ticonderoga area backpack program where we send
food home with children over the weekends, that program continues to be
successful. It’s now its own 503c however, at the beginning of this school year
our local school secretary and superintendent called me because multiple
students were not eating lunch as school because the pandemic waiver for free
school lunches had expired and so PRIDE given that history of food and security
created another direct donation program called, In School Hunger to pay off
student lunch debt in our school district for the remainder of the school year
and so while these are smaller programs and you all are generally aware of our
housing programs, this is just part of PRIDE’s continual of care full
community, uplifting work that we do as a rural preservation company not just
with housing but we also have our New York Main Street revitalization programs
and these programs, New York Main Street has three facets to it and PRIDE has
consistently administered this program for over twenty years since it
began. There are large downtown district
grants for building renovations and that’s when an entire large main street or
hamlet, district spreads out this money, $500,000, among multiple businesses so
you think if you’re walking through Ticonderoga an you looking at all of our
downtown buildings PRIDE has literally, given money to every single business
owner and has touched every single building downtown either through facade
renovations, street scape enhancement, making the buildings themselves handicap
assessable, also making them energy efficient the apartments up above so if you
have a business space below and you have apartments above Main Street will give
you additional funds to rehabilitate the apartments. So, it’s downtown revitalization, historic
preservation as well as economic development and housing. We also have an anchor projects. PRIDE is currently administering an anchor
project in Ticonderoga called the La Chute restaurant project where we
partnered with Tom Cunningham with La Chute ventures to gut and rehabilitate a
100 year old restaurant. It’s a $500,000
grant. It’s going to be completed in the
next month and so instead of that money being spread out through the entire
district the State chose just to give that money to one specific business.
I love
these projects. You can create beautiful
housing for somebody and they can live in that home and you can make it
affordable but if they don’t have anywhere to work or shop or dine or live then
the community becomes debunked that’s why PRIDE has addressed housing, economic
development and then community development because of that whole approach is
what makes a community thrive and you know this throughout your own communities
not one approach works for every community which is why New York Main Street
has been a program that we have partnered with consistently and the New York
Main Street program and grant application process is actually very similar to
DRI which PRIDE helped coordinate with our town supervisor in our community
over the past year.
And
last but not least for PRIDE, we have done a number of historic and recreation
based grants including the Frazier Bridge which we restored in 2003. We have put in over $600,000 into the La
Chute trail corridor throughout Ticonderoga and we have also most recently
partnered with our town to revitalize our local ice rink and we found $25,000
in grants and donations since September 2022.
Now onto
the land bank. So, please let me know at the end of this if you have any
questions for me and again, my contact information is there. All the grants that PRIDE has received is in
the back of your packet as well as specifically for our programs that we are
administering throughout your districts if you have constituents that need
assistance, all of our applications are online so anybody currently is welcomed
to go online and find that information I put in front of you and they can
apply. The mission and vision of the
land bank is very similar to what PRIDE is doing with our housing and
rehabilitation programs. PRIDE has never
done affordable housing construction. What we do and what we do very well are
owner occupied rehabilitations. That’s
what we do CDBG, that’s what we’ve done with Home and that’s also what we do
with Restore and throughout Essex County you are well aware there is immense
blight. We see it driving in and out of
our towns, homes that were once beautiful or need a minor rehabilitation fall
into disarray and as they sit on the market and as they are not given the care
and need they just deteriorate further and further. So we have viable homes that could be housing
and then they go into tax foreclosures because either their owners cannot
afford the repairs or they just don’t have the capital to flip these homes when
people purchase them. So by pulling
these homes off of the tax rolls we have the ability to have the capital to
rehabilitate them and then flip them on the market for affordable homes for
people who are low to moderate income, even up to 200% of their medium income
because many people even if they are LMI and not able to qualify to purchase a
home they are very professional people, they have large families who still
cannot afford to live because of the affordability crisis so we don’t want to
necessarily price out working professionals with modest incomes so I did want
to make that clear. That this is just not for only low forty-five or below, 80%
AMI in Essex County is currently $48,000, for one person so that being one of
our lowest, we want to continue to assist people who are making upwards of
seventy, eighty to ninety depending on their home size and Mike even shared
that one of our county employees, who is a wonderful asset to this team, could
not afford to live here even on a good salary with a young family. So this is what we vision. It’s not only remediating blight but also
remediating the affordability crisis with the current houses in stock. We have many projects including one in Lake
Placid that is actually constructing new housing. This is going to take housing that is out,
already that is not been able to be addressed and we are going to be able to
remediate that using this wonderful priority of work that PRIDE has perfected
over the past 38 years.
Now,
that is not the end of my presentation.
I’m going to see if I can restart it and get back to the land bank but
what we seek to do as outlined on the next page. I’m going to try one more time at the
beginning.
So,
what we proposed to do as you know recently they presented the board with a
number of properties that they wanted to pull off the tax rolls. One of those homes was able to be pulled off,
that was in Jay, which was the first identified property and these homes have
sat on the tax rolls for multiple years not generating any income for the
county. We would work with the County
Manager to identify properties that we can actually rehab. We don’t want to take any property that’s
unaffordable that is going to cost us $500,000 to rehab and then not make money
back when we sell it to the homeowner so it would be very limited to this
process where we would find properties that can conceivably could be
rehabilitated and then sold with some investment coming back to the land
bank. So, if the property itself needed
$200,000 to rehabilitate and then we are able to sell it to a low to moderate
income homebuyer for $150,000, then that would be potentially a home that we
would present to pull off the tax rolls not a home that is going to cost $1.1
million dollars to rehabilitate and then we would potentially still only be
only to sell it for $150,000. Once the
Board of Supervisors agreed to pull that property off the tax rolls the land
bank would not be doing this independently then we would go through our
priority of work, we would establish a work scope assessment, we do an initial
building inspections and then we would bid this out just like PRIDE does with
all of our home rehabilitation projects.
Once the rehabilitation project is complete we have our final clearance
at that point we would list that home for sale countywide either using the
Housing Assistance Program of Essex County’s homebuyer waitlist or we would
create a new homebuyer waitlist in case they didn’t have a home buyer
identified on the list. And these homes
can be throughout the county so HAPEC may have home buyers throughout
Ticonderoga that would qualify but if this home was being rehabilitated in Jay
it might necessitate creating a new waitlist for home owners just in Jay who
actually could conceivably buy this home.
At that point, PRIDE would pass off this process to the Housing
Assistance Program of Essex County. They
have a homebuyer counseling service they’ve been administering for a number of
years with their HUD certified home buying counselor. They would go through the process of setting
up funding for this homebuyer, potentially assisting them with down payment and
closing costs assistance and then they would close on this home and as they
close on that home, the land bank would then come in and they would be the
final broker with the homebuyer and they would have their home. It seems like a somewhat simplified process
but both of our organizations, PRIDE with their rehabilitations and HAPEC with
their housing counseling and their home buying assistance, we’ve both work
together for the past 38 years, harmoniously by sending each other different
referrals. This is a program that PRIDE
doesn’t do but they do well and vice versa.
When we do our different rehabilitations that’s something that PRIDE is
very well known for because we do that quality work and we consistently
delivered on that.
Another
facet of the land bank administration is going to be all of the financing, all
of the administration of the waitlist, the websites, the applications and
that’s something that PRIDE would be in charge of as well and if you go to our
website, our most recent audit financials are available for the public. We also have a gold seal of transparency and
we’ve never had an audit finding in our 38 years of operations.
Within
the land bank application itself, this is the timeline that our housing
taskforce committee has laid out. The
first step being you, the county board, approving the application we’re turning
in. We’re hoping that that will happen
in the first quarter and then at that point we can actually submit our
application to Empire State Development who is going to be one of the oversight
agencies for the land bank and once ESD approves this, the county and PRIDE
will actually, hopefully will turn to a formal contract where we will formalize
our policies and procedures for the land bank and what each entities roles will
be as we administrate this process.
After that, the Essex County will go through the process as outlined and
questioned to determine the property acquisition which is what I just spoke to
you all about. Where we will look at
each property, see that it’s actually feasible to rehab and then suggest and
recommend the board pull that off the tax rolls and then we proceed. And we already have the one home, well, we
have the one home but the land bank doesn’t exist yet but our hope is that the
house in Jay will be the first property that the land bank is actually able to
rehabilitate and then sell to a qualified home buyer. Once that process is complete the land bank
will continue to do its rehabilitations, we’ll hand it off to HAPEC and we’re
hoping that by the end of 2023, if everything goes smoothly with the pre rules
of the State and funding as acquired, by the end of 2023 beginning of 2024, the
first house will be completed and the initial properties that we suggest for
the tax auction in June we’ll be able to pull off additional properties and
start this process over again.
The
land bank hopes to do three to five homes every year, three to start and then
slowly build in that capacity again, a lot of that is going to determine what
homes are in the tax auction. If there
are any that are feasible, if we’re able to pull those homes off or seek
reasonable donations of property again feasibility is going to be key because
we want the land bank to be successful.
On average, PRIDE does anywhere from ten to fifteen major home
rehabilitations a year, those are owner occupied so this process will be a
little more litigious because we’re actually selling the home to the home buyer
but I expect and feel personally given PRIDE’s track record of work that three
is incredibly reasonable. My hope is
that as years go on into year five to ten we are able to do ten to fifteen
homes a year if the inventory is there to do that.
I know
that all of you here are familiar with affordable housing at this point it’s a
very popular topic these days. Why is it
an issue in Essex County? We have a lot
of vacant homes affordability for second homeowners is prevalent throughout the
county especially where I live in Ticonderoga. We all know how expensive housing can be
and for somebody who is renting they generally are not spending 30% of their
income, they are spending 70% to 80% of their income on housing there’s no
money left over for them. So within the
county to be able to purchase a home and actual live and contribute to your
communities here there is a number of deleterious issues that affect people
deeply not just young families but the elderly also a huge issue. And our data bases, Jeanene, when we get
these calls for people who are seeking affordable housing or just help, it is
heartbreaking. You hear them speak to us
directly about not being able to purchase medication because they have a needed
housing repair or they are going to be evicted or not being able to pay day
care, which means they can’t work, if they even can find day care. So, this is a way in which the county can
have an additional lasting legacy of taking a real, well, vetted approach not
only handling blight throughout the county but taking that blight and creating
affordability for people who want to live and work here. We have other instruments including housing
development, the land trust that are all doing different work but what’s
currently not being done is dealing with this blight in a feasible and income
driven way.
And I
did want to just share briefly, personally with you all why this is so
important to me. Both my husband and I
moved here from Virginia about three years ago.
We have five children and I’m the Executive Director of PRIDE. I have two masters’ degrees. I am a full REC Scholar. I make a very good income. My husband is the Director of Fort
Ticonderoga and he also makes a very good income and we cannot afford to buy a
home in Essex County. It is only by the
good grace of my husband’s employer that we have employee subsidized housing
and so, both of us with Masters’ degrees, professional careers and a young
family who wants to give back to our community, we can’t afford to live here
and so I can’t help to think that people who drive our economies and our
everyday work, the struggle that they go through on a daily basis and so while
I am unable to benefit from this program I do hope that we are able to
seriously address this issue because it’s one that is near and dear to my heart
and it’s one that is everywhere throughout the county not just in Ticonderoga
it’s incredibly prevalent and it’s prevalent throughout New York State and I
think we have a really strong framework to effectively and financially address
this in a sustainable way that the county is going to benefit in multiple
ways. So, thank you for your time and
again, if you have any of your constituents in need please feel free to reach
out. That is my information and ask them
to visit our website.
SCOZZAFAVA: See me after the meeting, have I got a deal
for you.
MONTY: No. (laughter)
SCOZZAFAVA: So, back to the property ends up on the
county tax rolls so you go in and you check it out and see – who goes in and
checks it out and sees if it’s reasonable to rehab it? Do you have a contractor?
JUSTICE-GREEN: We have a building and work scope
specialist. His name is Glenn
Shlader. He is who we send out to all of
our properties. Myself, Jeanene and Glenn will be going to all of the
properties ourselves to make sure that we are not proposing a project that we
can’t take on or that we’re not going to be able to conceivably generate any
income or get an affordable price for the homeowner.
SCOZZAFAVA: Do you do an environmental assessment, lead
paint and all of that?
JUSTICE-GREEN: First we would assess it and then based on
Glenn’s recommendations if it was feasible. We don’t want to pay for
two-hundred environmentals because that’s also not feasible. With a short list of properties that we see
that look like good candidates then we would in the interim get a Tier 1
assessment done for environmentals and then if the county then approved to pull
that off we would go in and we would have to go to the Tier 2 process where we
would have everything properly tested and especially figuring out the most
expensive parts which would be the asbestos and the lead which by the way, most
of our homes in the county are actually the average age of somewhere 60 years
so most of our homes are coated in lead which is a huge health and safety
hazard.
SCOZZAFAVA: So, a property ends up in the land bank so
now you own it?
JUSTICE-GREEN: Yes, now we own it.
SCOZZAFAVA: Do you go to bid? I heard you say you got to
bid and have them rehab it?
JUSTICE-GREEN: Yes.
SCOZZAFAVA:
Do you hire one general contractor or do you do the electrical separate, the
plumbing and heating separate?
JUSTICE-GREEN: We always generally hire one general
contractor. We tried to target minority
women owned business which is a mandate from New York State as a rural
preservation. We also get at least three feasible bids and these would all be
publically posted, legal affidavits on our contractor quarter for the State and
we do this anyway for our home projects but we would be doing the same for the
county projects.
MONTY: I think Tom, just to go back an answer a bit
of your question about the, how choosing the homes is going to be very similar
to the way we chose the Jay home. We’re
going to identify some properties with the help of Mr. Diskin that are on the
list. They’ll be presented to the Board
of Supervisors but by the time we get our application the task force will be
done and then they’ll be presented to each supervisor within their community;
is that a home that you might be interested in rehabbing.
SCOZZAFAVA: The house in Jay, did you do an assessment on
it?
MONTY: Yes.
Seth went and did it. While we were in ownership of it I believe the
last time, Mike correct me if I’m wrong, Seth went up and inspected it of what
the needs were for that home initially so that we knew is it going to be
feasible for us to put that into the land bank to rehab.
MASCARENAS: Yes, so we sent a contractor there, they did
an estimate on that home based upon what would it cost the county utilizing
prevailing wage rates and those types of things so that we could put in a
restore project. Where the land bank
would help you out in that regard, if that home was then agreed upon with this
board, to go into the land bank Nicole and her team would have the opportunity
to do that at a much cheaper rate. They
are not withholding to the same procurement that we are necessarily here at the
county so right now we’re in the process of having that home reassessed at a
private cost of what that rehabilitation would be if we feel like that makes
sense and the land bank, we are fortunate to have that approved by the State
then we’ll come back to the is board and ask that that home be transferred for
remediation to PRIDE of Ticonderoga.
Now, what a lot of land banks do too is they take care of a lot of the
blighted properties that’s a big part of what they do. I know when I was the
Planning Director the board was asking me at that time, what can we do about
all these zombie and blighted properties in this town and we did assessments
and we never came up with a real solution for the board to be able to handle
those. We now have a tool in our toolbox to be able to deal with some of these
blighted properties that are frequent flyers to
our auctions so, again, we’re not going to force any community to
participate in this. You’re going drive
that. We’re going to ask that you get a
resolution from your own town to have a property removed and put into the land
bank so the locals, this is going to be a bottom up approach not top down
approach. We want people to participate
who want to participate.
MANNING:
Mike, just listening to you while we do a physical evaluation of the premises
we are also going to do a title evaluation because most leads are cut off by a
tax foreclosure but there could be easements, rights of way, there could be set
back dilations, there could be a whole host of things that I’ve learned in my
days of handling tax foreclosures that pop up and you wouldn’t know it and it
would basically put an end to that particular piece of property if you waited
too long to dig these things out so those two things should be happening at the
same time. And I don’t know who does
that, do you do that?
JUSTICE-GREEN:
We consistently do abstract or title searches with our attorney at PRIDE to
make sure that when we’re doing either a home replacement or any sort of work
we have to actually place a lien on the property for a number of years to
prevent people from getting $65,000 in grant funding and then flipping the home
the next year which fortunately only tried to happen once and we captured those
funds but that’s a State sort of legal mechanism that we would be using for the
land bank to ensure that in worst case scenario, this owner doesn’t try to flip
this home that that would be caught upon the sale and part of what I talked
about with our financial monitoring is that we continue to monitor these
properties and make sure that they were the main residence of the homeowner,
that they weren’t trying to sell this property we would be able to catch upon
sale and that it would remain permanently affordable so if they did chose to
sell that home, it would come back into the hands of the land bank, we would
then be able to sell it again to another affordable home buyer.
MONTY: And staying away from short term rentals.
JUSTICE-GREEN: Yes, absolutely.
SCOZZAFAVA:
Thank you.
MANNING:
I have a quick question, I’m not well versed in the land bank my assistant
county attorney is handling all that stuff so it might be a stupid question but
a lot of these blighted properties are not capably not going to be
rehabilitated. Do you provide a program
for demolition and sale of the vacant property because that vacancy with maybe
some constructive home help because that basically would do the same thing and
maybe more cost effective.
JUSTICE-GREEN: Yes, so we on a case-by-case basis would
assess that. I think for the first three
years our goal is to really tackle feasible home rehabilitations to create
affordability but that is a mechanism of the land bank in that tool box
depending on the cost. If we did a mobile home replacement program which
currently is another mechanism that PRIDE as the land bank, would use because
we would be able to find these different pools of funding to fund the land bank
so if we got a grant that did mobile home replacements we conceivably wouldn’t
be replacing mobile homes we would be demoing and putting a modular on that
property and potentially selling it, if it was feasible and within the eligible
activities costs but that again, I’m throwing a lot of what ifs out there
because I haven’t looked at these properties but there’s a home that we’re
doing in Ticonderoga currently where it was cheaper to demo the property and
put a modular home on it, the cost being about $220,000 and then being able to
sell it further subsidize by those programs to this older woman, who needs this
home. So, I’ve done it and I’m confident
I can identify the properties that we can do that with as well as a title
search which also the property I just did a title search for.
MANNING:
I think that’s important because I think a lot these properties now are so far
gone you are not going to rehabilitate them but to tear them down and offer the
property for sale.
MONTY: Well, in conversation that we’ve all had in
the land banks across the State they are going to tell you, the majority of the
work is demolition. While that is going
to be in their tool box we want to find some homes and get people in them.
DELORIA: Briefly the Ag Markets, the State 35 land
banks, is there a limit on the number of parcels that Essex County can place
into the Essex County land bank to be successful in creating them?
JUSTICE-GREEN: No, that would be fully at the discretion of
the Board of Supervisors how many parcels we are placing into our inventory as
well as potentially how long we would be holding onto those parcels. My hope is we only pick feasible ones so
we’re not holding onto those properties for long periods of time.
MONTY: And funding Robin and funding.
DOTY: Great Segway Dan as far as demolition on
lots. Just recently I identified a
foreclosure property and talked to Mr. Diskin about it as well in the Village
of Saranac Lake. It was a vacant home
site since 2015, naturally the heating system everything is frozen inside, so
would be my question to all of us around this board, it is very attractive for
a new modular because I see demolition I’m going to get inside and inspect it
within the next week or so but the amount of money that’s owed to the county in
back taxes in my mind, is very reasonable it’s $21,000, so I think as
situations like this come up we as a group, might be able to jump start this
effort and whether to forgive that $21,000, help a family move in, that would
be something I would approach and lastly, Nicole, I’d like to say it’s very
evident that you have a great passion for this work. So, I believe that home for you is in your
future. Thank you.
JUSTICE-GREEN:
Thank you very much.
STANLEY: Now we started this talk about the land bank
Ken and Jim did a lot of work trying to put this together and start to build
the framework for the land bank. It
really wasn’t until Nicole came on board and sort of gave a boost and we really
started to get some traction to this, this idea of a land bank and knowing that
we needed to have a Board of Directors to really oversee the land bank. I was originally sold on the idea that we had
to be able to control who was kind of on that Board of Directors after the
first meeting of listening to Nicole and her expertise, really sold me on the
idea that she brings a lot of things to the table that actually would help
answer a lot of the questions we sit around here asking and not really knowing
the answers to so, thank you for coming on board with us. Thank you for giving traction to this because
I know think it’s a reality because of you and the PRIDE of Ti to help create
an Essex County land bank. Thank you.
JUSTICE-GREEN:
Thank you.
MONTY:
And I think the answer to that, I think there is two members who are going to
be appointed from the Board of Supervisors that is going to sit on their Board
of Directors so we will have a direct voice down there with them but I agree
with 100% of what you said Matt.
JUSTICE-GREEN: One of the issues we get to resolve and we
will resolve, which we cannot until the land bank is actually approved by ESD
is the contract between PRIDE and the county.
We currently have two sub-recipient agreements with the county for
housing programs so this would be, the contract process would be something that
would be at the board’s discretion semi-annual, annual reporting, desk
monitoring PRIDE also goes through and independent audit every year and then
also program audits of our specific programs that we administer so I am a huge
fan of transparency and we have woven transparency into every step of the
process in order to make our work effective and efficient but also transparent
because it is not lost on me how important it is to be transparent when you’re
representing a public entity and public eye and we want to make sure that we
are representing your constituents and that we’re basically, everybody is about
approach and that everything is done in a fair and equitable manner. In addition to that, we are beholden to the
State at multiple levels and the Federal Government due to the grant programs
that we administer so we step one toe out of line, we lose our funding and we’ve
never done that and we don’t plan on doing it either.
MONTY:
And I had the opportunity to meet your Chairman of your Board of Directors last
Monday in Ti and I can tell you, they are super enthused of what Nicole has
brought from PRIDE of Ti to Essex County and they are looking forward to us
being a partner with them. I mean, they
jumped at the opportunity when it was suggested we put a board member or two on
their board they were more than pleased.
Are there any other questions?
HARRINGTON: Yes, as you people are aware Crown Point is
one of the towns that received State grants for a Main Street improvement
project and the town was wildly enough to make sure this young lady here is on
our steering committee and I am anticipating that we will be very, very
successful with this project.
JUSTICE-GREEN: Thank you.
I look forward to it.
MONTY: Nicole thank you. Thank you Jeanene for coming up with
her. I’m super excited. We’ve been at this process for two years. I
can see the finish line and Nicole and Ken deserve the majority of the kudos
for this, so again, thank you and I look forward to moving on with this. Thank
you. Resolutions, Judy.
PUBLIC SAFETY
Monday, January 9, 2023
Chairman – S. McNally Vice-Chairman – I. Tyler
1.
RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE COUNTY
CHAIRMAN OR COUNTY MANAGER TO EXECUTE A CONTRACT WITH THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY’S
OFFICE AND ADVENT FOR A TRAFFIC DIVERSION AND REDUCTION PROGRAM, AT NO COST TO
THE COUNTY. Tyler, Holzer
2.
RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING AN AMENDMENT TO
RESOLUTION #235 – OF SEPTEMBER 6, 2022, AUTHORIZING THE PURCHASING AGENT TO
AWARD BIDS, ISSUE CONTRACTS/AGREEMENTS OR PURCHASE ORDERS TO THE SHERIFF’S
DEPARTMENT TO PURCHASE AN EZ CHILD ID TURNKEY SYSTEM, IN THE AMOUNT OF
$7,999.00, WITH FUNDS TO COME FROM FORFEITURE ACCOUNT. Wright, DeLoria
3.
RESOLUTION RECOGNIZING SGT. ROBERT
DEFELICE, CORRECTION OFFICERS JOSH GENIER, WILLIAM ORR AND COREY COLE AND
MALLERY HANCE, RN FOR THEIR LIFE SAVING ACTIONS ON DECEMBER 18, 2022. Tyler, Scozzafava
4.
RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE PUBLIC
DEFENDER’S OFFICE TO ACCEPT A THREE-YEAR NYS INDIGENT LEGAL SERVICE GRANT IN
THE TOTAL AMOUNT OF $95,748.00, DISTRIBUTION #13 (REPLACES #10) IN THE AMOUNT
OF $31,916.00. DeZalia, Winemiller
5.
RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE PUBLIC
DEFENDER’S OFFICE TO ACCEPT A THREE-YEAR NYS INDIGENT LEGAL SERVICE GRANT IN
THE TOTAL AMOUNT OF $95,748.00, DISTRIBUTION #12 (REPLACES #9) IN THE AMOUNT OF
$31,916.00. Scozzafava, Barber
6.
RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE PUBLIC
DEFENDER’S OFFICE TO ACCEPT A THREE-YEAR UPSTATE QUALITY GRANT (#3) IN THE
TOTAL AMOUNT OF $300,000. DeLoria,
Wright
7.
RESOLUTION OF CONGRATULATIONS AND
APPRECIATION TO BRANDON BOUTELLE FOR HIS MANY YEARS OF SERVICE TO ESSEX COUNTY. Winemiller, unanimous
8.
RESOLUTION OF CONDOLENCE TO THE FAMILY
OF CAROLYN GOFF. Monty, unanimous
9.
RESOLUTION OF CONGRATULATIONS AND
APPRECIATION TO LOIS SAYWARD UPON HER RETIREMENT FROM ESSEX COUNTY SOIL AND
WATER CONSERVATION DISTRICT. Tyler,
unanimous
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Monday, January 9, 2023
Chairman – I. Tyler Vice-Chairman – R. Holzer
10.
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 FURTHER AUTHORIZING
THE PURCHASING AGENT TO PURCHASE VARIOUS BUILDING MATERIALS FROM SAID FUNDS. Holzer, Doty
HUMAN SERVICES
Monday, January 9, 2023
Chairman
– JP. Wilson Vice-Chairman - C.
Harrington
11.
RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE PUBLIC HEALTH
DEPARTMENT TO APPLY FOR AND ACCEPT A CDC INFRASTRUCTURE AND WORKFORCE FUNDING
GRANT OVER A FIVE-YEAR PERIOD, IN THE TOTAL AMOUNT OF $677,544.00. Harrington, Holzer
12.
RESOLUTION ACCEPTING AND PLACING ON FILE
THE ESSEX COUNTY COMMUNITY HEALTH ASSESSEMENT 2022, AND COMMUNITY HEALTH
IMPROVEMENT PLAN 2022-2024. Doty, Tyler
DEPARTMENT
OF PUBLIC WORKS
Tuesday, January 17, 2023
Chairman – R. DeLoria Vice–Chairman – C. Barber
13.
RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING A BUDGET
AMENDMENT IN THE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WORKS-FAIRGROUNDS INCREASING REVENUES AND
APPROPRIATIONS IN THE AMOUNT OF $80,885.00, 2022 CARRYOVER FUNDS. Holzer, Stanley
14.
RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE PURCHASING
AGENT TO AWARD A CONTRACT TO RAYVILLE PAINTING CORPORATION IN THE AMOUNT OF
$80,885.00, FOR THE PAINTING OF FLORAL HALL AT THE ESSEX COUNTY FAIRGROUNDS,
WITH FUNDS TO COME FROM BUDGETED FUNDS AND FURTHER AUTHORIZING THE COUNTY
CHAIRMAN OR COUNTY MANAGER TO EXECUTE SAID CONTRACT. Tyler, Stanley
15.
RESOLUTION ESTABLISHING THE DATES AND
LOCATIONS FOR THE 2023 HOUSEHOLD HAZARDOUS WASTE DAY EVENTS. DeZalia, Winemiller
PERSONNEL
Tuesday, January 17, 2023
Chairman – S. DeZalia Vice-Chairman – JP. Wilson
16.
RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE
RECLASSIFICATION OF DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SERVICES ATTORNEY TO AN ASSISTANT
COUNTY ATTORNEY AT THE RATE OF $82,000.00 A YEAR FOR CLAUDIA RUSSELL AND
FURTHER AUTHORIZING ANY BUDGET TRANSFERS FOR ALL BENEFITS AND COSTS ASSOCIATED
WITH THE SALARY. Stanley, Tyler
17.
RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING ROBERT MARVIN,
SURVEYOR TO SURVEY A PIECE OF PROPERTY TOOK IN FORECLOSURE, LOCATED IN THE TOWN
OF NORTH ELBA IN THE AMOUNT OF $3500.00.
Doty, Holzer
MONTY: Discussion?
GILLILLAND: What property is this?
DOTY: The Nice & Easy
foreclosed lot. Golden Ring.
GILLILLAND: Got it, thank you.
MONTY: Further discussion? No further discussion, all in favor signify
by saying aye, opposed – carried.
FINANCE/TAX
REDUCTION/MANDATE RELIEF
Tuesday, January 17, 2023
Chairman
– T. Scozzafava Vice-Chairman – N. Merrihew
18. RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING TO WAIVE THE
RELEVY PENALTY IN THE AMOUNT OF $138.38, ON A PARCEL OF PROPERTY OWNED BY
NADINE DENNIS, UNPAID SARANAC LAKE CENTRAL SCHOOL DISTRICT TAXES. Scozzafava, Barber
MISCELLANEOUS
19.
RESOLUTION TO ACCEPT, ADOPT AND PLACE ON
FILE THE 2022 ANNUAL ACCOUNTING OF MONIES RECEIVED AND DISBURSED BY THE OFFICE
OF THE ESSEX COUNTY CLERK. Scozzafava,
Winemiller
20.
RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE PERSONNEL
OFFICER TO CREATE THE POSITION OF MECHANIC INTERN IN THE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC
WORKS – HIGHWAY. Barber, Stanley
MONTY: Discussion?
HUGHES: Is this a paid internship or is this an
internship?
MONTY:
I believe it’s paid.
MASCARENAS: Yeah, that is correct, it’s paid.
MONTY: Further discussion? All in favor signify by saying aye, opposed –
carried.
21.
RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE PURCHASING
AGENT TO AWARD A PURCHASE ORDER TO ESSEX COUNTY SOIL AND WATER CONSERVATION
DISTRICT IN THE AMOUNT OF $22,300.00, FOR A 2018 DODGE RAM 1500 PICK UP TRUCK. Tyler, DeLoria
MANNING:
Placed on your desks, there is a resolution approving the TEVA New York
Statewide opioid settlement agreement.
You’re aware we executed previous agreements with Johnson & Johnson,
Janssen, Amgen, Purdue, these are litigation that is nationwide and there is a
statewide component with respect to opioid manufacturers, pharmacies and
pharmacists now there’s been a global settlement with TEVA. The New York State share of $550 million
dollars, Essex County although will be receiving a small portion of that, but
after they whittle it down with attorney’s fees, expenses things of that nature
we are going to get 3%. I haven’t been
given the exact figure but we’re under a certain time restraint. We need to pass a resolution approving the
TEVA settlement and it needs to be received by them by the first week in
February which is right around the corner.
So, with these exigencies in mind, I’ve been asked to pass this
resolution. It approves the statewide
opioid settlement agreement with TEVA and it also authorizes the County Manager,
the County Chairman or myself to execute participating three different
agreements so that we get in the mix. In
addition to this just so you and as a refresher, kind of off the record,
everybody knows this, Mike knows this these monies usually come in two
components. The first is that you can
use the first allocation can be used generally across the board, you can put it
in the general fund and you can use it for whatever you want. The other portion of it has to be used for
approved uses and a whole litany of approved uses as long as they touch opioids
you’re pretty much in good shape but that’s something very important to keep in
mind. In addition to all these settlements
that we are getting there is a statewide opioid settlement fund that we can
apply to should we have some approved uses that we need additional funding for
so keep that in mind. That hasn’t come
across my desk but I know public health is aware of that, I know mental health
is aware of that, I know the County Manager is aware of that but I wanted to
make everybody aware of that. And then
finally, we are going to have soon I am supposed to get something this week
with respect to CVS, Walgreens and Walmart as pharmacies and then Alergian with
respect to pharmaceutical companies. When
I say Alergian, TEVA they are sometimes scores of cities underneath them so
they are all being sued. So that’s
coming down the pike too so, we’ll be doing this again. So, I’m just going to read the beginning of
the resolution so you’ve got it before you.
It’s approving the TEVA New York statewide opioid settlement agreement
between participating subdivisions and TEVA; the execution of a TEVA New York
global payment opioid settlement sharing agreement; New York subdivision
settlement participation form; TEVA New York premium payment opioid settlement
sharing agreement; New York settlement election and release form; and all other
necessary pertinent documents required for us and to facilitate said
necessities in these matters. Don’t ask
me what’s going on. Don’t ask me exactly
how much we’re getting right now. I’m
not doing this litigation. I just saw
one other case, $350 million dollars, these are big, big law firms that this is
all they do but we’re lucky to be getting this money. So, I need a motion, a second and a roll
call. No roll call we are in ways and
means.
RESOLUTION APPROVING THE TEVA NEW YORK
STATEWIDE OPIOID SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT
BETWEEN PARTICIPATING SUBDIVISIONS AND TEVA; THE EXECUTION OF A TEVA NEW YORK
GLOBAL PAYMENT OPIOID SETTLEMENT SHARING AGREEMENT; NEW YORK SUBDIVISION
SETTLEMENT PARTICIPATION FORM; TEVA NEW YORK PREMIUM PAYMENT OPIOID SETTLEMENT
SHARING AGREEMENT; NEW YORK SETTLEMENT ELECTION AND RELEASE FORM; AND ALL OTHER
NECESSARY PERTINENT DOCUMENTS REQUIRED TO SETTLE ESSEX COUNTY’S INTEREST IN THE
CURRENT LITIGATION INVOLVING TEVA.
Gillilland, Merrihew
MONTY: Questions? Discussion? No questions, no discussion. All in favor signify by saying aye, opposed –
carried.
MANNING: Thank you.
MONTY:
I do have two acknowledgments. I’m
looking for a resolution acknowledging length of service for County
employees. We have one for Bill Whalen
from the Town of Elizabethtown, 25 years of service to Essex County.
RESOLUTION RECOGNIZING BILL WHALEN, TOWN
OF ELIZABETHTOWN FOR 25 YEARS OF SERVICE TO ESSEX COUNTY. Merrihew, Holzer
MONTY: Discussion?
No discussion, all in favor signify by saying aye, opposed – carried.
And
the second one is for Anna Reynolds, town of Willsboro for 10 years of service
to Essex County.
RESOLUTION RECOGNIZING ANNA REYNOLDS,
TOWN OF WILLSBORO FOR 10 YEARS OF SERVICE TO ESSEX COUNTY. Gillilland, Doty
MONTY: Discussion?
No discussion, all in favor signify by saying aye, opposed – carried.
I
think this is important for us to do especially with recruitment and retention
acknowledging our employees. Thank you
Mr. Gillilland for suggesting that.
Anything from the board?
MERRIHEW: Thank you Mr. Chairman. On behalf of a sub-committee, I’d like to
thank the participants, Meg Wood and Davina for helping me. We interviewed for
the position of Public Defender. The
conclusion of that, I’d like to offer a motion appointing Emily Evatt to the
position of Public Defender at an annual salary of $142,975.81, point of record
this is the published salary for the Public Defender position. We are very confident that Emily will do a
good job. She has been handling the
capacity off and on for the last year or so.
So, I would offer that for the board’s consideration.
RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE APPOINTMENT
OF EMILY EVATT TO THE POSITION OF ESSEX COUNTY PUBLIC DEFENDER AT AN ANNUAL
SALARY OF $142,975.81. Merrihew,
Gillilland
MONTY: Discussion?
No discussion, all in favor signify by saying aye, opposed. Thank you.
Congratulations.
EVATT: Thank you.
MONTY: Anything else to come before the board?
GILLILLAND: Yes, I would like to call for a short,
executive session to discuss a possible contract.
MONTY: Motion to go into executive session. Mr. Barber, second Mr. Wright. We are in executive session. Thank you.
THE
BOARD MOVED INTO EXECUTIVE SESSION AT 11:04 A.M. TO DISCUSS A POSSIBLE CONTRACT
AND MOVED BACK INTO OPEN SESSION AT 11:10 A.M.
MONTY: Alright, motion to come back into
session. Mr. Holzer, second Mr.
Doty. Nothing was voted on or decided in
executive session. I do know I have a
resolution from the floor from Ms. DeZalia.
DEZALIA: Yes, I’d like to do a resolution of
condolences to the family of Sue Montgomery-Corey.
RESOLUTION OF CONDOLENCE TO THE FAMILY OF
SUE MONTGOMERY-COREY. DeZalia, unanimous
GILLILLAND: I would like to propose a resolution that
Essex County enter into a contract with the Town of North Elba for the rental
of satellite office for the Supreme Court Judge, a single satellite office for
the Supreme Court Judge at the rate of $180.00 a month.
RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE COUNTY
CHAIRMAN OR COUNTY MANAGER TO EXECUTE A CONTRACT WITH THE TOWN OF NORTH ELBA
FOR THE RENTAL OF A SINGLE SATELLITE OFFICE FOR THE SUPREME COURT JUSTICE AT
THE RATE OF $180.00 PER MONTH.
Gillilland, Holzer
MONTY: Discussion?
No discussion, all in favor signify by saying aye, opposed. Anything else from the Board?
SCOZZAFAVA:
I don’t have a resolution prepared but I was asked by some of my constituency
within Essex County, not just the Town of Moriah regards to the car chargers,
the electric vehicle chargers that we have out here some of them work in other
places than Elizabethtown, some work in Elizabethtown. They can never get on them, on those chargers
and I don’t believe we charge to charge?
Correct?
MASCARENAS: That is correct, at this time we do not.
SCOZZAFAVA: Well, I think it’s time that we do, they’ve
been there a while and you know, you’ve got more people now that are driving
electric vehicles and I’m not pointing fingers at anybody but any time you go
by there, you cannot get in there to charge a vehicle. So, what do we need to do to correct it?
MASCARENAS: Well, let me figure out who they are.
SCOZZAFAVA: Well, regardless who they are. I’m just saying, like in Moriah we have
chargers, if you’re there for a certain time period you start paying.
MONTY: I agree Tom, they should be charged for the
usage.
SCOZZAFAVA:
Absolutely.
GILLILLAND: The ones that I did in Willsboro, we pay for
the actual charge of the electricity pumped in and then after two hours you
start pay parking fees per hour and that’s the way we set up.
SCOZZAFAVA:
I think we’re set up that way also.
MASCARENAS: We do have the ability to charge, just so
everybody knows. Dan Palmer had an
account that is in the process of being transferred into my name so I haven’t
even been able to log on to see what it even looks like but he did tell me we
have the ability to charge. Now our
charge is non-existent but we absolutely can come up with a rate that makes
sense.
SCOZZAFAVA: That’s the only reason I hadn’t bought an
electric vehicle yet.
MONTY: That and you’re cheap. (laughter) I think those charges, my understanding was
those chargers were put out there for people coming to do business with the
county at the time.
MASCARENAS: Yeah, the thought process is really that
anybody that has an electric car can use them. We were the only charging
station at the time from here I think to North Elba in terms of that. There’s been since many added throughout the
county but at that point in time there were none so we were able to secure a
grant to get that. I think we did have to be free for a period of time but that
time has since lapsed and we can now institute a charge for sure and let those
individuals know that are parking there regularly that they are expected to
move once their charge is complete because on our system you get an email or
you get a notification whether it be a text, an email whatever that maybe
saying you’re car is done, come get it.
It’s pretty simple. You know.
SCOZZAFAVA:
Thank you.
HARRINGTON: What would be the expense of a credit card
charging system?
MASCARENAS:
I don’t know the answer to that. We can
check into it. Currently, I think all
you have to do is have an account with us.
Is it Charge Point, Jim? Yeah,
our system is Charge Point so you just simply have to have an account you don’t
have to put in the charging system as far as I know.
SCOZZAFAVA:
I think they are all set up.
MASCARENAS: Yeah, they are all set up. They are ready roll. We just have to
institute a fee.
MONTY: Anything else?
GILLILLAND: Mike can you come back to regular board or
something with a suggested fee? Do you
think that’s enough time to take a look at it?
MASCARENAS: Yeah, provided that I can get into the
account. Currently, that’s my only
issue.
DEZALIA:
I might suggest that if it’s a county employee or state employee possibly that
is using them all day maybe we can think about something we can do with the
charge for employees or as long as it’s only a limited two hour charge and then
they can move their car so others can get in there? Not necessarily looking to charge our
employees to park here but that they have to be considerate that other people
may want to use them.
MASCARENAS: Yeah and I can tell you when Dan Palmer
talked to last about it that he was monitoring the bill and what the charge was
costing the county to allow for that service and it was less than a $100
annually in terms of who was using it and what we were getting out of it so it
wasn’t a significant amount for sure.
SCOZZAFAVA:
I don’t think the charge is the big issue, I think the issue is that nobody
else can get in there to charge because you know, even if you have a time
limit, I don’t know how long it takes to charge a vehicle?
MASCARENAS: It depends.
SCOZZAFAVA:
That is more the issue that no one else can charge their car.
GILLILLAND:
I just think that since it’s Charge Point, you can put in there a parking fee
after a certain amount of time then a parking fee comes in. I don’t care if they have to swipe their
whole card and then it we can still do a zero charge fee but you can’t let
them, after a certain amount of time and you’re no longer charging, you’re just
taking up space somebody else wants.
MONTY: Anything else? Nothing else, we stand adjourned.
As there was no further discussion
to come before this ways and means committee it was adjourned at 11:15 a.m.
Respectfully
submitted,
Judith
Garrison, Clerk
Board
of Supervisors