New Lebanon Town Board Action – Unreality Show

by Thaddeus Flint
“It’s a reality show,” said New Lebanon Town Supervisor Mike Benson at the August Town Board meeting Tuesday night. He was speaking about how Columbia County films all their Board meetings. If New Lebanon were to do the same, it might make for some compelling viewing. [private]Where else does a project which is not a project get put back on a shelf, a fountain which is no longer a fountain get re-dedicated as a fountain, “Back to The Future” is referenced in the closing of the dump and the Town itself suddenly get 40 years older in one night?
The meeting actually started off like some kind of B movie. Evan Hogan from the Cornell Cooperative Extension of Columbia and Greene Counties had come to speak about streams and flooding and “recent intense precipitation events” which “could be increasing.” The Town is no stranger to such problems. Right about when he was explaining some of the planning seminars Cornell Cooperative Extension is scheduling a storm thundered in, the sky went dark and the lights flashed off.
“Well, at least we know the emergency lights work,” said Benson before the lights flashed back on again.
Sidewalk Monster
The threat of floods is not so much on the minds of some residents as is the threat of sidewalks. The sidewalk project has turned into a kind of monster. It could cost anywhere from around a million dollars to over $3 million, nobody seems to know for sure. Some private land might be needed which could be acquired through eminent domain. Its benefits are disputed. Some say nobody will walk on it because there is really not that much to walk to. Others are promoting an “if you build it, they will come” philosophy which worked for Kevin Costner and a cornfield full of ghosts, so why not New Lebanon? Build the sidewalk and a supermarket will come walking out of the pot holes in the valley plaza parking lot.
Whatever happens it will probably be expensive. Benson admitted Tuesday that the financing for the project “has changed significantly” because NYSDOT Marcheselli Funding was no longer applicable. “That was a big surprise,” said Benson.
Resident and ex-Town Justice Darcy Poppey wanted the matter put to a referendum so the taxpayers themselves could decide whether walking from the high school to the OTB was a walk worth paying for. That petition went nowhere. It had the required signatures and was filed in time but, according to Benson, “We would actually have to have a project to put it to a referendum.”
“It had a project number,” pointed out Poppey.
Project numbers appear to be irrelevant. The project isn’t a project until it’s agreed that it’s a project. “We have a hell of a lot of work to do before we have a project,” said Benson, who added that if the project did become a project and it went to a referendum, he wouldn’t “have a problem with it.”
It doesn’t seem likely that that will be happening soon. “In essence we have voted down all three projects,” said Councilman K.B. Chittenden.
This monster, however, seems to have two heads. One is the sidewalk, and the other is the eminent domain issue. While the sidewalk sits on a shelf, the procedure for eminent domain might have been filed as “completed.”
“I can’t give you an answer until I talk to Andy [Howard, the Town’s Attorney],” said Benson. Poppey and other residents are now thinking that this might actually be the more important issue.
After the public hearings on the sidewalk there might have been an “Acceptance of Findings” which is necessary for government to take private land under eminent domain. “The petition would not be applicable to eminent domain,” said Benson, who cautioned that he was not an attorney so he was only speaking of what he understood the facts to be. “I really wish Andy was here,” he added.
Poppey, as well as brothers Mark and Greg Baumli, are concerned that residents might not have been properly informed that they had a certain amount of time to file an appeal to eminent domain. That period of time would by now have expired.
A public notice was printed in the Chatham Courier by the construction firm Creighton Manning.
Mark Baumli said he looked into that and found that the Town should have also posted the Acceptance of Findings, as well as a notice to residents of the time period of appeal, “near the main entrance to the Town Clerk’s office.” That does not seem to have happened. “We are asking you to re-post this,” said Baumli. This would re-open the time period for land owners to file their disagreements to having their land turned into a public right of way. Whatever the Town does now, it looks like the Baumlis are going on the offensive. “We will be in contact with our family attorney,” said Mark Baumli. This is understandable because the Baumlis have a property that could be significantly affected by a sidewalk running through the front yard.
Poppey and Mark Baumli also brought up another problem – where are the minutes from the Board meetings? Both said they can’t always get to every meeting so they would like to be able to read the minutes of the meetings they missed to see what, if anything, happened. This proves to be impossible. “They are six months past due,” pointed out Poppey. That almost doesn’t seem all that bad when compared to the Town’s website where the last minutes posted are from July 10, 2012.
The minutes are the responsibility of Town Clerk Colleen Teal. Admittedly she has a lot of Town clerking to do and with her deputy’s hours cut, some things might not be up to the moment. New York’s open meeting law, however, doesn’t care about that. Mark Baumli researched the matter and found that “Minutes of meetings of all public bodies shall be available to the public in accordance with the provisions of the freedom of information law within two weeks from the date of such meeting.”
“This Town is in violation of State Law for six months,” said Baumli.
Poppey pointed out that meetings could actually be recorded now. “We are at 2013,” she said. The courts already do it.
This is when Benson noted that the County actually filmed their meetings. “We could put them on TV,” he laughed. “It would save me from having to correct Trina Porte at each meeting.” Porte, who is on the Planning Board and may be running for a seat on the Town Board, often brings up various facts and figures that call into question the Town Supervisor’s competency. Benson usually has little problem in setting the record straight, but it is obvious Porte is an irritant to him. For example – at this meeting it was decided to seek out the cost of issuing bonds to pay for a new piece of highway equipment. Porte wanted to know what was the point of paying interest on a bond when the Highway Department had sufficient money in its unappropriated fund balance?
“Catastrophic event,” said Benson. Bonds are cheap and that way when the next hurricane comes along and wipes out all the roads there is some money to pay for it.
Benson would probably have liked this response to appear on the New Lebanon Reality Show, and someday that might just happen. A vote was taken, and all Board members, with the exception of Doug Clark who was absent, were in favor of getting some pricing on a recording device for Town meetings.
Such a device could have been useful for figuring out who was really responsible for closing the Town’s dump. Greg Baumli said, “Why can’t we just go back to 1982?”
“Do you have a DeLorean?” quipped Benson. Baumli didn’t actually mean go back to the future, he meant he wanted to know where along the way the Town had found itself facing responsibility for the dump after the County had agreed to take it over. Nobody would say. Different Town Administrations were to blame. “One was gullible, one was ignorant, one we don’t know why,” said Councilman Bruce Baldwin, who refused to say which previous Town Supervisor was which.
How the Town will pay for such a device – a meeting recorder, not a DeLorean – could come up later. Benson noted that some of the Town’s revenues were lower than expected at little more than half way through the year. Court fines have fallen off by a conspicuous margin. It would seem that the Town’s drunk drivers, speeders, dopers and other rapscallions are on vacation as citations for speeding, drunk driving and doping, amongst other transgressions have dropped. It was noted that a recent change in Troopers in the area might have had an effect on the number of tickets issued.
Or maybe it’s the water. One resident noted that the Indian Blessing Fountain doesn’t have any water coming out of it. The Town now has a statue of a head of an Indian just staring into his empty hands. A symbol of the times? No. According to Teal, the water was contaminated from time to time with E. Coli so it had to be turned off.
The Historical Society is planning on rededicating the fountain September 27 in honor of the Mohican tribe of American Indians that were present in New Lebanon before it was New Lebanon. It could appear peculiar to rededicate a fountain in a part of Town called Lebanon Springs and yet have no water coming out of it, especially since the Lebanon Valley Garden Club erected the fountain in 1940 “to bring the curative waters from the Warm Spring for the benefit of mankind.” The Board will look into what could be done about that before the ceremony.
The Historical Society will also try to have the date of 1818 on the Town’s welcome signs changed to around 1770. Apparently the Town’s Historian, Kevin Fuerst, has come to the conclusion that the Town is a bit older than previously thought, although he was unable to attend the Board meeting and explain his findings.
The next regularly scheduled Town Board meeting will be September 10. Those wishing to interact with their Town Supervisor earlier are invited to the Youth Commission’s carnival day this Friday in Shatford Park where Benson will be the star attraction of the dunking booth. “There’s going to be a long line,” sighed Benson.[/private]