ECONOMIC
DEVELOPMENT/PLANNING/PUBLICITY COMMITTEE
Monday,
February 9, 2026 - 10:00 AM
Matthew
Stanley, Chairperson
Kenneth
Hughes, Vice-Chairperson
Chairman
Stanley called this Economic Development/Planning/Publicity Meeting to order at
10:22 am with the following Supervisors in attendance: Clayton Barber, Matt
Brassard, Chris Clark, Timothy Follos, Kenneth Hughes, Mary Lamphear, Tracie
McGill, Steve McNally, Clayton Menser, James O’Bryan, Timothy Pierce, Richard
Preston, Cathleen Reusser, Matthew Stanley, Davina Thurston, Ike Tyler, Joe
Pete Wilson, and Margaret Wood.
Department
Heads present: Mike Mascarenas and Anna Reynolds.
Deputy
present: Dina Garvey
Also Present:
Dan Kelleher - ROOST, Carol Calabrese - IDA, Elizabeth Lee & Cole Trager -
Cornell Cooperative Extension, and Nicole Justice-Green - Essex County Land
Bank, and Caitlyn Wargo - Adirondack Roots. Aurora McCaffrey - Essex County
Historian was absent.
***************************
The first
item on the agenda was the Industrial Development Committee with Carol
Calabrese reporting as follows:
STANLEY:
Alright just after 10:00 o'clock. We’ll get the Economic Development Committee meeting
called to order the Essex County IDA Carol is here, so if you want to come up.
CALABRESE:
Good morning, my apologies last week got away from us, we did not submit a report,
but I do have a couple updates and of course I'm here to answer any
questions you may have as well.
So, we
are in full swing operating three micros right now, this, I’ll say spring, but it’s
still winter. So, the town of Ti we are, we've held a training class of which
we had about a dozen businesses attend, and the applications are due on
February 17th. So, we give them 3 weeks upon completion of the
training class just so that their applications.
The Moriah
micro, we held a training class last Monday. We had about 5 businesses participate. Their
applications are due the 23rd of February, and we are going into Round 2 of the
Town of Jay’s micro. That the public meeting is tomorrow night. The training
class is scheduled for February 24th, and the applications will be
due, March 17th.
STANLEY:
Great, any questions for the Essex County IDA? Alright, thank you very much.
***************************
The
next item on the agenda was Community Resources with Anna Reynolds reporting as
follows:
REYNOLDS:
Good morning, today I have a resolution. A resolution accepting the Zero Emission Vehicle
Grant which is the EV chargers, 2 EV chargers. So, 4 with 4 hookups and in
the amount of $55,008.00 and then authorizing the County Chairman or
County Manager to execute the agreement.
STANLEY:
Can I have a motion for that resolution? Ms. Reusser, and Ms. Wood
RESOLUTION
THE COMMUNITY RESOURCES DEPARTMENT TO ACCEPT AN ZEV (ZERO EMISSION VEHICLE)
GRANT THROUGH THE NEW YORK STATE DEPARTMENT OF CONSERVATION IN THE AMOUNT OF
$55,008.00, AND FURTHER AUTHORIZING THE COUNTY CHAIRMAN OR COUNTY MANAGER TO
EXECUTE SAID AGREEMENT.
Reusser,
Wood
STANLEY:
Any discussion? Being none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Anybody
opposed? Motion carries.
REYNOLDS:
Thank you, so hopefully next month we can get the account set up as we are
still waiting for contract execution documents.
MASCARENAS:
Yeah, the timing of these couldn't be better our other ones are
getting a little expensive to keep fixing and, in all reality, the, they’re the
only ones I know of in the area is what I've been told. So, Town of
Elizabethtown, I think there might be the only ones here.
REUSSER:
My House.
MASCARENAS:
Well, yeah people like personal ones but for public use, I
think there's only ones in the immediate area,
so they're critical.
MENSER:
Yeah, Crown Point has some.
REYNOLDS:
We do have two referrals, today. One is for the Town of Wilmington, amending
the Land Use Code. The documents have
been submitted and I've reviewed. There are no countywide
or intermunicipal impacts, so therefore a letter of no comment may be
issued.
STANLEY:
Can I have somebody support a resolution for those referrals. Mr. Wilson and a
second, Mr. Tyler.
ACTION OF THE ESSEX
COUNTY PLANNING BOARD
ON REFERRALS RECEIVED
FROM THE TOWN OF WILMINGTON
The following motion
was made by Supervisor Wilson.
Whereas, the Essex
County Planning Board has considered the following GML 239 referrals at its
regular meeting on February 9, 2026.
REFERRAL
PROPOSED ACTION
Town of Wilmington Amendments to Land Use
Code
And whereas, none of
the referred, proposed actions directly impacts a county road or county
property.
Be It Adopted by the
Essex County Planning Board that no recommendation or comment on said referral
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 Tyler and passed on a vote of 9 in favor, and none
opposed.
STANLEY:
Any discussion? Being none, all those in favor signify by saying aye.
Anybody opposed? Motion carries.
MASCARENAS:
Yep, quick explanation for new Board Members, this Committee acts as the Planning
Committee. You won't see these referrals at Full Board Meeting. Whatever comes
out of this Committee is the recommendation in terms of planning. What is there
a 30 day response time frame from time of receipt to time of getting it out?
REYNOLDS:
Correct.
MASCARENAS:
So, what this Committee says in terms of those referrals is what
happens.
REYNOLDS:
And Judy will issue the letter as soon as she can get to it. It is usually about
a week after and I know a lot of Planning Boards and Town Boards do rely on
that letter in hand, so if you need it immediately, she's very
nice and Dina, too, to get it out to you as quickly as possible, so
decisions can be made.
The
second one, in the Town of Willsboro, 3647 Essex Road for site plan
review and again this is a State road, that's 500 feet within a state road
so that's why it qualifies for County Referral. There are no intermunicipal or
countywide impacts so a letter of no comment may be issued.
STANLEY:
Can I have a resolution for that referral? Ms. Reusser, second by Ms. Wood.
ACTION OF THE ESSEX
COUNTY PLANNING BOARD
ON REFERRALS RECEIVED
FROM THE TOWN OF WILLSBORO
The following motion
was made by Supervisor Reusser.
Whereas, the Essex
County Planning Board has considered the following GML 239 referrals at its
regular meeting on February 9, 2026.
REFERRAL
PROPOSED ACTION
Town of Willsboro, 3647
Essex Rd. Site
Plan Review
And whereas, none of
the referred, proposed actions directly impacts a county road or county
property.
Be It Adopted by the
Essex County Planning Board that no recommendation or comment on said referral
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 Wood and passed on a vote of 9 in favor, and none
opposed.
STANLEY:
Any discussion? Being none, all those in favor signify by saying aye? Anybody
opposed? Motion carries.
REYNOLDS:
That is all I had today. I don’t know if anyone has any questions?
HUGHES:
I’m late to the game, I'm sorry. The EV charging station, I know we just
passed that in committee, they're being added to the parking lot and are
we are we supplanting or supplementing what's already existing on our
property?
MASCARENAS:
Yep, yeah what we're doing is looking at our current plan. Jim and I had a
brief meeting, on this last week. I would really love to get the fast chargers.
HUGHES:
Right
MASCARENAS:
And use this money to get the fast chargers. I'm not sure we have enough
electricity to support them. I think they need a 400 amp service in order
to support those charges. I'm not sure we Have that amount of power.
HUGHES:
Right.
MASCARENAS:
So, on the ones that are broke we probably look for replacement,
on the ones that are good we probably look for supplementing, but
it all depends on available electricity and what we can actually handle.
HUGHES:
Once we have are broke?
MASCARENAS:
We had one that's broke up at the Public Safety Building, currently.
HUGHES:
Ok
MASCARENAS:
So, we have repaired there out here, and we've kept up with that. Recently,
we had one go down up at the Public Safety Building. I've been
holding off knowing that, on repair, knowing that we have this grant fund
we don't get a lot of revenue in terms of usage on that.
HUGHES:
Right.
MASCARENAS:
The expense outweighs the revenue for having these stations but it's kind
of an important location for individuals that may have Interstate access coming
off the Public Safety. So, we will get a full report to the board once we
get the contract from the State and our investigation on what we can put in,
where we can put them in. We're certainly going
to utilize all $55,000.00; I can promise you that so whatever that
turns into in terms of charging stations, we’ll do.
HUGHES:
Thank you
STANLEY:
Now I know the Town of Jay just won a fast charger in last year 's round. We
had to go to NYSEG to make sure there was enough power grid didn't do
it. So, it's a process to make sure it can happen.
Any
other questions for Community Resources?
WOOD: Yeah, I
just want to thank Anna and Jessica for coming to Schroon Lake on Friday to
meet with 6-8 DEC members. We’re in the 7th year of trying to get a permit for
a 300’ sewer main. And it was almost a happy meeting, and I just
want to thank him publicly for coming down and being there face to face and
only 2 of all those DEC members were on a screen, the rest actually came
to town.
STANLEY:
It's a great time to remind all the new Supervisors, if you have any
infrastructure, water, sewer needs, Community Resources is a great resource for
you to use.
WOOD:
A great resource.
MENSER:
Along the lines I'd like to thank Anna and Hannah both who came to
see for well over an hour last Thursday, to talk about future projects that Crown
Point is going to have to do and how to lay things out from the beginning to make
it more successful.
CLARK:
I am not on this Committee, I wanted to thank Anna, personally for all
the help. We received a grant for our salt shed and she did
all the work really and I want to thank you very much.
REYNOLDS:
Thank you.
STANLEY:
Now, anybody have anything bad to say? (laughter)
FOLLOS:
I would like to thank Anna, for all your patience and all your help explaining
the bureaucratic maze that Wilmington is going through to amend our land use
code, thank you.
REYNOLDS:
You’re welcome.
STANLEY:
Anybody else? Perfect, I'll let you go.
REYNOLDS:
Ok, thank you.
***************************
The next item on the agenda was the
Essex County Historian, with Aurora McCaffrey absent.
STANLEY:
Up next we have a historian who has a monthly report but is not here today.
***************************
The
next item on the agenda was Cornell Cooperative Extension, with Elizabeth Lee
reporting as follows:
LEE: Good morning, everyone.
I would like to start by thanking Jim and Andrew from Department of Public
works, because we're almost moved in, we're getting
closer, we're nearing in on that. The staff has walked around
and it's looking great, we're really, really excited.
I hope you all have seen it and if you have it, we'll see you shortly
after we’re moved in.
There
are many of you that I have not gotten to meet you yet, attend a meeting with
you in your office. I'm trying to get around, and I will do that soon and if
you have any questions, we are happy to give you information that we have
about your towns in the food system in your town and happy to talk to
you about that as well as our senior programs and our youth development
programs. With that I want to turn the meeting over to Cole Trager, who
has an update on the Ag District.
TRAGLER:
Good morning, everyone, for context, for any of the new Supervisors our office
manages the Agricultural District for the County. So, What the agricultural
district is our statewide program for our farm inclusion so that farmers
are guaranteed the benefits of the Right to Farm Law And what the Right to Farm
Law does is that it sort of protects them from baseless complaints
that are not, it's sort of a foundation of legal insulation that
protects them from baseless complaints that aren't grounded in best
agricultural practices. So, if there are neighbors that have issues with smells
and sounds that are kind of normally associated with agricultural production,
what it does is, it protects farmers from individuals and also from
development pressure at the local level. So, as per Article 25AA Section 303-b
of the NYS Agricultural and Markets Law, the Farmland Protection Board met last
month to review the applications for inclusion. Our letter of recommendation is
included in the packet, but just for reference, I’ll briefly touch on the
parcels and applicants. These are Robert Alexander from the Town of Lewis, Timothy
Brearton from the Town of Elizabethtown, John Peck from town of Wilmington,
Cory Weidenbach from Town of Essex and Casey Galligan, also from the Town
of Wilmington. What we do is, we meet and go over the through the through the
parcels with satellite imagery. I conducted site visits for all operations in
December and beginning of January and as a Board, we determined that
these parcels do consist primarily of
predominantly viable agricultural land and that the inclusion of
these parcels to the Agricultural Districts would support the future viability
of their operation.
Most
of these properties are actually already engaged in agricultural production so it's
a little bit of a formality it's not just not really any changes in land use
that are happening, but there is one unique parcel that we want to highlight
which is Timothy Brearton, this parcel in Elizabethtown is unique in that it is
technically within the hamlet and just want to be clear that this is not that's
not a precedent that we're trying to set with the Agricultural District and you
know we're not, the purpose of the Agricultural District is not to protect land
that's inside the hamlet but, this is a unique circumstance and that this
production is all above ground in tunnels, essentially in raised beds. So, one,
there's no environmental impact and two, this farmer is contracted with some of
the other farms in the local area. So, he actually grows greens and other
crops to supplement some of the other community supported agricultural firms in
the area. So, the reason why we have approved this one is not
because it's someone's blown up backyard production, but
because it's actually a part of the agricultural economy
here. So that's the only really unique situation of these five
applicants but we did just want to highlight that to make it clear
that we're not setting a precedent about inclusion of claims in
inside the hamlet. I had a couple other points, but I just wanted to pause if
anybody had questions about those five applicants.
STANLEY:
Can we first get a motion to move the resolution authorizing the inclusion
of it's only the five?
TRAGER:
Five applicants, six parcels, yeah.
STANLEY:
Ok, six parcels to the Essex County Agricultural District. A motion by Mr.
Hughes, a second by Ms. Wood.
RESOLUTION
AUTHORIZING THE INCLUSION OF SIX (6) PARCELS TO THE ESSEX COUNTY AGRICULTURAL
DISTRICT
HUGHES,
WOOD
STANLEY:
Discussion?
HUGHES:
Cole, can you just remind us of that how often this process happens? Is there a
timeline, is there like a deadline that this has to be done by in a
certain year?
TRAGER:
The inclusion process happens annually and so this would have been the open
enrollment period that ran from through October and November of last year. So,
this was the 2025 applications and our goal, the reason why it's set up
this way is that we ideally get this process done before people are getting
into tax season, so that they have clarity on their agricultural district
status before going to their assessor and potentially,
because you're supposed to apply for agricultural district inclusion
before you move forward with your agricultural assessment process like the
agricultural asset is just distinct like it's completely separate from this. So,
there's no tax implications for the agricultural district but technically
you're supposed to do it before you do your agricultural assessment and if you
are you get out of a little bit of extra paperwork like if you jump the gun and
go straight to agricultural assessment without being the agricultural district
there's some additional paperwork that you have to do. It's not
a deal breaker but that's the sort of appropriate order. So,
the goal is to get this done by, the next steps are for me to file the short
environmental assessment forms and submit a request for resolution
for the following, for next month 's meetings and then ideally, we
would have that solidified before people would be going to their
assessor.
HUGHES:
So, assessors have, I think, a March 1st deadline for
exemptions. So, is that kind of is that the deadline you're kind of
working towards by moving this through?
TRAGER:
Ideally, but we do run into a situation every year
where we're pinched for time and so like this year, we're not
going to get that done before this happens. So, we have had
discussions about changing the open enrollment period or moving the open
enrollment period. What we want to do is
move the open enrollment period to actually to the spring because we've had a
bunch of problems, we’re doing farm visits in December and January to determine
agricultural viability and there's 20 inches of snow on the ground in
Wilmington.
HUGHES:
That's the point I was going to bring up. I think when you originally
brought this to our attention just as an FYI and it aha moment for me, like
that makes sense, as you said. We really want to wait till the snow melts and
so we can actually see what different soils are like, what the grounds are like,
but obviously everybody knows what the soils are like, because you have that
data so you didn't have to wait for the snow to melt in order for this Board to
make an educated and informed decision.
TRAGER:
Yeah, I mean we, to be blunt, we are using a little bit of imagination when
we're looking at a field that's covered in you know 2 feet of snow in
Wilmington and trying to determine its agricultural viability would definitely
be better to do that in the spring, but changing that time frame would require
us submitting a separate resolution. So, right now we just don’t have
the bandwidth to get that done at this point,
but that's something we're probably looking to do
moving forward so that in the future years we can have a timeline that works a
little bit better for the farmers.
HUGHES:
Agreed
STANLEY:
Any other discussion about this resolution?
FOLLOS:
Can you reiterate what the benefit is to the property owner of being classified
this way?
TRAGER:
Yeah, so it’s kind of the first layer of legal defense for farmers. So,
if they are driving tractors early in the morning, they have roosters crowing
early in the morning, they're spreading fertilizer, they're spreading manure,
like they're doing things that are very much grounded in good agricultural
practices, but you know perhaps their neighbor doesn't enjoy having the
tractor running at 5:00 in the morning. What it does is, it sort of protects
the farmer from that kind of basic level of complaint. So, there's really like not
as long as they're kind of following good agricultural practices and there's no
environmental concerns and things like that then there's really no avenue for those
kinds of complaints to move forward and then the other situation where it's
really important is with municipalities and kind of
developmental pressure it's a little different here. But, if you
think about other areas of the State, where the sprawl and kind of
suburban sprawl is really pushing into farmland, one of the other points
in the letter of recommendation is about solar development, that's another
great example. Like we want to make sure that those agricultural resources are
protected and so what happens a lot of the time is you'll see farmland that
gets completely bought up and developed around it and then all of a sudden
there's sort of different, local expectations for that farmland because
now it's surrounded by suburban communities on all sides of
the property and what the Right to Farm Law does is, you know
if those individuals or those towns sort of want to have
different aims for that property long term then agriculture, it protects
the farmer from that and so the farmer isn't going to get
priced out or they're not going to be forced out for the through
development pressure.
TYLER:
By doing this is this help in the tax exemption process?
TRAGER:
They do, there's a little bit of extra paperwork in the assessment process if
you're not in the agricultural district, but you can still, a lot of people
actually apply for the agricultural assessment without being in the
agricultural district. Like you are supposed to be in the agricultural
district as a precursor before starting your assessment, but you can go right
to the assessment process and then there's just a little bit of extra
paperwork to fill out but, it's not it doesn't necessarily,
being in the agricultural district streamlines your assessment process but
it doesn't have any implications per se for
whether you're going to be approved or not.
TYLER:
Thank you for that, because we need a lot more tax exempt property in the
Adirondacks
STANLEY:
Any other discussion about this resolution? Being none, all those in favor
signify by saying aye. Anybody opposed? Motion carries.
TRAGER:
There's two other details that I wanted to point out from our meeting with the County
Agriculture and Farmland Protection Board; that's one, there is increasing, I
don't know what the long term implications are but, there's obviously more
conversations about solar development in Essex County. There's a couple
different projects that are at various stages of completion and
planning, etc. and we do. Many of these properties are, many of
these developments are targeting properties that are in the agricultural
districts because they're you know pieces of farmland that are either kind of
coming out of production or haven't been aggressively farmed. You know we want
to be clear that there's a way that solar development can really damage the
long term agricultural viability of those properties and there's a way that
solar development can also really contribute to the long term agricultural
viability of those properties. We are working closely with Community Power
Group which is the development that's going on the town of Essex and that
developer in particular has been extremely accommodating of, well there's a
bunch of local interest that the developer has been accommodating of, but
specifically because that property is in the agricultural district there are
some ecological changes that they're making to the property in terms of reseeding,
putting in beneficial species, working with contract grazers to graze the
vegetative cover instead of blowing fossil fuels to mow that off for the next
30 years and so if you are if there are solar developments that are
happening in your town, please let us know. We're happy to work with the
developer and submit some recommendations that help us all achieve the best
land use outcomes.
WOOD:
I am woefully ignorant for someone who supports solar development, but in
your planning and in your agreements do you include stipulations for
decommissioning or whatever the proper word would be so that things that are
replaced or just, there is no longer a profit for a company to be made that
location and lifespan of these things is expired, do you work that
into your contracts?
TRAGER:
Yeah, I mean that's pretty, I would think that would
be pretty standard. It's not something that we do,
like we're not in contract, that like the town is, you know, would be
in contract, so we're not mandating, but I think you would certainly
want to have decommissioned included in your in your approach, but the
decommission doesn't have as much to do with like the long term agricultural
viability or we're you know we're more concerned about the vegetative cover and
soil quality and things like that, but yeah I would think that it would be
wildly remiss to not have decommissioned at the front of that conversation.
WOOD:
Thank you
MENSER:
I can kind of respond to that, Crown Point has had basically three
new solar farms put in recently and there's a decommissioning
bond that is put in place, from the very beginning to take care of it.
WOOD:
Thank you
STANLEY:
Any other questions for Cooperative Extension? Alright, thank you very
much.
TRAGER:
Well, yeah sorry I had one more final thing and I'll let you go. I just wanted
to point out, next year 2027 is the five year anniversary of the Farmland
Protection and Food System Plan, that was approved by this body in 2022. So,
one, that's something incredible to celebrate we've had a lot of wins that came
out of that document and that document is also helped our office and a handful
of other offices generate millions of dollars of funding that ultimately helps
the the farmers, farmers markets, retail businesses and so
it's been extremely impactful in terms of generating funding that comes to
this County from the State and from the USDA. But I just wanted to put it on
everyone's radar that will be looking to elevate our reporting for that
progress, plan progress next year, so keep an eye out for more
information there. Thank you so much.
STANLEY:
Thank you very much.
*****************************
The next item was the Regional
Office of Sustainable Tourism with Dan Kelleher reporting as follows:
KELLEHER:
Good morning, everyone, terrific to see you all. Today we have with us our
Annual Report for 2025 activities. On Page
five of the report, we have some of the highlight figures for the year. We
welcome roughly 3,036,000 overnight visitors during the course of 2025,
who cumulatively spent roughly $411,000,000.00 in the County. I want to
stress that these are just overnight visitors. We don't get the final
numbers on total visitors spend until August, when New York State puts out the
total visitor spending in Essex County. Right below those figures are data on
what percentage of spending in the County comes from people who don't live
here. So, overall, in 2025, 35% of every dollar spent in Essex County was spent
by someone who doesn't live here. Some different sectors performed differently;
our local businesses, you know when people come up and travel, they want to
support authentic experiences. So, our local business expenditure is actually
slightly higher at 42%. Below that, you can see data on how much visitor
spending contributes to each of the five regions in Essex County, as well as
other regions that we serve.
On Page
7, you can see some of the highlights of our program of work we sent
out roughly 1,400 or just under 1,500 unique emails last year to
our 330,000 person e-mail list. These include newly created emails
that are kind of on top of funnel, but then as we see people clicking
around on our websites, we can retarget them. So, if someone really
likes ice fishing in the Lake Champlain region, we can follow up with them
on an e-mail specific to ice fishing in that region.
We
also posted 2000 unique posts on Facebook, 1400 unique posts on Instagram, and
2700 posts on YouTube which generated 134 minutes of people watching our
YouTube channel. So, we're pretty excited about these metrics.
One of
the key data points that I just wanted to talk about for a minute was our
website traffic. Last year we had roughly 3.2 million unique visitors to
our website. I am actually going to highlight a stat that you're going to think
is is a little weird for me to highlight, last year we had 3.7 so we
were down roughly half a million unique visitors to our website and what's
happening is that's being driven by AI. So, people aren't going to websites anymore,
they're getting their data from ChatGPT which is giving them an itinerary or
getting it from Gemini, who is giving an itinerary. And so, this is
really changing how we do work. Just 2 years ago you would be focused solely on
search engine optimization which means you and ought to have really robust
content, you would want people scrolling around on your website. So, Google was
measuring your engagement and then you would want links from other websites and
news organizations to your website and that's how you showed up in
search. Today you still have to do all of that, but to integrate with
AI you also have to be the fastest data reaching that AI. So, if someone
searches where are the top 5 places to go bass fishing in the northeast, to
make sure we show up, we have to make sure we're on the five fastest websites
to get that information to the AI bots. We're happy to say that we.
WILSON:
Sorry, technical question, when you say fastest website do mean actual operational
speed or that it's appearing higher in the AI search?
KELLEHER:
Operational speed, so behind all the content that you will see when you visit
our websites is data that you will never see called structured data that
is optimized specifically to reach those bots that are scrolling our
websites and pulling information and then that structured data is not enough
just to have it, it has to be put on the fastest servers that
are integrating and optimized for AI that are connected to the
fastest fiber optics to get it into those places and
so that's where we're spending a lot of our time is on that
back end that human beings will never see.
WILSON:
So, that means infrastructure capacity then, if you need speed, which
means you're going to be putting, investing in this to keep
competitive right?
KELLEHER:
Yeah absolutely.
WILSON:
That makes sense.
KELLER:
So, since this went to print, I told you we were down 500,000 unique
website viewers, since this went to print, we've actually identified a
way to see how often AI is scraping our websites and providing information and
last year we saw 1,040,000. Instances where AI was scraping data off our
website and providing it to consumers. So, lost visit, lost eyeballs, on the
websites themselves but, the information is still getting out to consumers on
that information that Gemini and ChatGPT are giving to people.
So, that's really
a high level look at our year, last year. The report just kind
of talks you through all the different mileposts we hit last year from
working on our Adirondack USA website which will launch launch next
month, to the rebrand the Lake Champlain Region Website, all of that is covered
in this report and with that I'm happy to answer any questions you
may have.
Speaker
5
STANLEY:
Before we get to questions, I need a resolution to adopt the 2025 ROOST End of
the Year Report. Motion by Mr. Wilson and second by Mr. Hughes
RESOLUTION
ADOPTING THE 2025 ROOST END OF THE YEAR REPORT
Wilson,
Hughes
STANLEY:
Discussion? Being none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Anybody
opposed? Motion carries.
Now
are there any other questions for Mr. Keller? Alright, thank you very much.
KELLEHER:
Thank you all.
***************************
The
next item was the Essex County Land Bank with Nicole Justice-Green reporting as
follows:
JUSTICE-GREEN:
Good morning, everybody, I submitted my report which should
be in your packet. I know we’ve had a bit of a long meeting and so I just
wanted to give one quick update you see if there's any questions in
my report. In particular, we are now in the process of
closing on all of our Land Bank properties. We're in a Government
shutdown which means the offer we just got on our new home on 175 at Portage,
that we had a ribbon cutting for is paused until we get out of our
shutdown. So, it's just something I wanted to let all of you
know as our elected officials that when a home buyer has a USDA or VA Loan or
an FHA Loan, in particular USDA, Government shutdowns means that these clients
cannot close on their homes. So, this is an issue that we had
with actually, the home in Lewis, with our last Government shutdown,
but that did close and so, hopefully in the next few weeks we have a really
exciting announcement that these folks are able to move into this mew home. But,
with that being said all of our Land Bank homes are completed under contract. We're
in the process of working with the Town of Minerva. the Town of Ticonderoga and
then the County Manager’s and Attorney’s office to determine the
properties that we're actually pulled off that were not from the
auction, the proceeds, so we can move to formally acquire those properties and
while we were at the auction which was as Nikki, has expressed, because our Program
Manager was able to attend a wild experience, we did get one property from the Town
of Jay, which we're excited to work on, but it did mean that while we had hopes
of being able to acquire multiple properties that was not feasible, given
the amount of money that these homes were going for. So, we're going
to circle back with our colleagues and kind of brainstorm again. So, we can
continue to do some of these really wonderful gut rehabilitations of existing
properties.
We
have land from the Town of Chesterfield and Westport and also existing land in
the Land Bank to undertake the placement of the new homes, through the Move in
New York. We're actually averaging the homes that will be
placing, after our last talk with the State, at 41 homes across the County. So,
the number has increased. So, we have plenty of work, but we would
like to do both and it's that time of year, if we're going
to get any completed this year, that we need to really line them up, given
how weather is.
So,
with that said and if you haven't had a chance Nikki can you please,
raise your hand. This is Nikki teReille. She's our Land Bank Program
Manager. She's also Nicole, sometimes you guys e-mail me or her and you think
that we might be one another. So, we're a team, we clearly hire the same names
in our office, but eventually the message will get to us. So, if you get an
e-mail from Nikki, please know that she is emailing you from the Land Bank and
from all of us and we're really fortunate to have her
and we're going to be hiring her some help this year with
all those homes that we're gonna be building.
STANLEY:
So, we’ll go to questions and comments, Mr. Tyler.
TYLER:
Good morning, I see Westport has been removed application and I must be I
didn’t get an email on that.
JUSTICE-GREEN:
Westport, isn’t removed from the application, but the State, submitted their
elevation levels, that entire lot is only buildable on one far corner, through
a private person's property and that private person is not cooperating with the
Land Bank. So, we still are proceeding with the subdivision and exploration,
but it probably will not get approved given the fact that none of the land that
we had hoped for, that we don't have to go through somebody 's property, like
the land near the neighborhood and the land near the fairgrounds, it's just
not buildable. So, before we fully pivot and use a different pot of funding to
place those homes, we have a lot of work to do with this private
property owner. So, we didn't want to officially pull it from all
development until we had clarity, and this individual is not the most
responsive or open to any of our conversation.
TYLER:
Let me know maybe I can help you with that.
JUSTICE-GREEN:
Absolutely, Labella can’t fully confirm all of the elevations
and the soil testing until the until the thaw which has been, we've had
a very rough winter this year for any of our testing. So, there may be an
opportunity for one or two homes, but right now that looks like the most
developable piece. We have a number of; we're actually
working with County Planning Department to see if there's any other work
arounds or easements that we could use to possibly avoid or continue
to use that land because it's a shame because it's a large
piece of land.
TYLER:
Thank you.
HUGHES:
Good morning, it was my understanding of the Federal shutdown that ended on
February 3rd. Just curious once that is all finalized and figured
out, what is the timeline to get the Portage, moving along again
because that's a great it's a great property.
JUSTICE-GREEN:
So, it's still a partial shutdown which is unfortunately affecting
the USDA, specifically and so it in a full shutdown it affects everybody, in a
partial shutdown it affects specific agencies that use the money tied to the
shutdown for their, you know whatever their programs are. So, USDA
is unfortunately one of them. What is basically, from what the
mortgage brokers explained to us, is their position in line. So, when you
first go into the shutdown the USDA has a number of closings and underwriting
that have been sent to them and then when they reopen, they start ticking down
the list and so, we are I believe like 8th on the list for Essex County. So, when
the last shutdown came, everything came back online it took about three more
weeks to get the clear to close.
HUGHES:
Ok.
JUSTICE-GREEN:
Once they review it and it's approved and the funding
is obligated, if they shut down again the closing can
still happen. So, we have to kind of get the underwriting
done in between those phases.
HUGHES:
Thank you
STANLEY:
Any other questions or comments? Alright, thank you very much.
***************************
The next item was Adirondack Roots
with Caitlyn Wargo reporting as follows:
WARGO:
Good morning, everyone, you have our report and just one thing to
bring to your attention before the meeting closes that is not in the
report. In response to the Section 8 freeze that was enacted just about two years
ago, the State came up with a plan for State funded vouchers, the
Housing Assistance Housing Assistance Voucher Pilot
Program, Adirondack Roots, applied for that on behalf of Essex and Clinton
counties last fall. There are two vouchers in Essex County, it's based on
population, so there's two vouchers of Essex County. We will be working with
DSS, those I believe, prioritize people facing homelessness, which is something
that the Section 8 Program, before the wait list was frozen someone who was
facing homelessness, their application went to the top of the waitlist. So, we
haven't been able to serve homeless people in two years. So,
there's gonna be two vouchers. Our staff is undergoing training. I
know that DSS team is undergoing training and at some point, in the
next few weeks to months they'll open applications and likely, there
will be interest in those two vouchers that we have.
I'm happy
to answer any questions.
STANLEY:
Any questions or comments for Adirondack Roots? Being none, thank you very much
FOLLOS:
Real quick question, in these documents there's many references to AMI,
what is the Area Median Income?
WARGO:
That is a great question, it depends on your family size, and I actually
don't have the 100% area median income memorized, but I would be happy to
get that to you.
FOLLOS:
Thank you.
WARGO:
I can tell you what it is for 100% for a family of 2 in Essex County is $64,000.
FOLLOS:
That works, thank you.
HUGHES:
Lee House, super exciting. What's the timeline for the LHITC funding,
potential?
WARGO:
From what we understand is, we were hoping for February, we hear it
might be March before decisions are announced.
HUGHES:
Okay, thank you.
STANLEY:
Any other questions or comments? Alright, now you are excused.
WARGO:
Thank you.
STANLEY: Is there anything else that before the
Economic Development Committee?
TYLER: It’s not 100% appropriate,
but I'm not on any of the other committees, but I'd like to
put a resolution of appreciation for John Tefoe, Town of Westport, 50 years in
the Fire Department.
STANLEY: So, that is a motion by Mr. Tyler, can
I have a second? Unanimous second, thank you.
RESOLUTION OF APPRECIATION AND CONGRATULATIONS
TO JOHN TEFOE FOR HIS 50 YEARS OF DEDICATED SERVICE TO THE TOWN OF WESTPORT
FIRE DEPARTMENT
Tyler, unanimous
TYLER: Thank you.
STANLEY: Anything else to come before the
committee? If not, it is 10:43, we are adjourned.
AS THERE WAS NO FURTHER BUSINESS TO COME
BEFORE THIS ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT/PLANNING/PUBLICITY COMMITTEE, IT WAS ADJOURNED
AT 10:43 AM.
Respectfully
submitted,
Dina
Garvey, Deputy
Clerk
of the Board