Village Board Meeting Minutes - September 4, 2007

Minutes of the Public Hearing and Regular Meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Village/Town of Mount Kisco held on Tuesday, September 4, 2007 at 7:30 pm in the Frank J. DiMicco Board Room, Village Hall, 104 Main Street, Mount Kisco, New York.

Present: Mayor J. Michael Cindrich

Deputy Mayor Peter DiChiara

Trustee George Griffin, Jr.

Trustee Peter Grunthal

Absent: Trustee Anthony Markus

Also Present: James Palmer, Village Manager/Clerk

Whitney Singleton, Village Attorney

Mayor Cindrich opened the Village Board Meeting. He asked everyone to stand and recite the Pledge of Allegiance and asked everyone to please reflect on why we are here and asked for guidance in the decisions we make this evening that they will benefit all the people of Mount Kisco. He also asked that people remember in their prayers and thoughts the families of John Collum and Geraldine Claytor both whom recently passed away.

Public Hearing

Local Law re: Flood Damage Prevention

Mayor Cindrich noted that the Board was in receipt of the proper affidavits of service and the proper affidavits of public notice regarding this hearing.

Jeff Econom, Assistant Village Manager stated that this proposed ordinance was a change in our current ordinance. The specific change in our original ordinance which was adopted in 1987 and has been amended throughout the years are the new panel numbers on the new maps. We have a limited supply of these maps. However, the public is welcome to come into the Building Department and view the maps and we can make a copy of the area in question. He noted that the Village did not prepare these reports we are just the holders of the maps. If people ask if they are in a flood plain, we are not going to give that determination out. We will give them a copy of the map and let the design professional that they hire make that determinate because I don't want the Village to be held accountable if we give out wrong information.

Mayor Cindrich asked if a map could possibly be posted on a bulletin board somewhere in Village Hall.

Assistant Village Manager Econom replied that the maps have been printed on a large scale and seven maps cover the entire Village. It would be easier if the resident came into the Building Department and viewed the appropriate section there. These maps are primarily for Flood Hazard Insurance and if the Village so chooses in the future to adopt more stringent regulations we would have to go through a community rating service (CRS) and we would have to adopt additional policies which are more stringent than what we are using and that would enable us to get additional reductions in insurance policies. However, some of there policies are over board and I don't know if we would want to go that way yet. The new maps are primarily upgrading the old maps.

Trustee Griffin, Jr. asked if this ordinance affected the wetlands.

Assistant Village Manager Econom replied that it had nothing to do with wetlands. There are new wetlands maps, which are hanging in the Building Department the DEC has redone the wetlands maps and they are color maps and residents can come in to see these maps also.

Mayor Cindrich asked if this mandated or recommended that if someone is in a flood plain they would have to build on piers or without basements.

Assistant Village Manager Econom replied that the Building Inspector is the Floodplain Manager and it is his responsibility to review any project that comes into the Village. He is supposed to provide a required analysis for a proposed project in a floodplain. He noted that mortgage lenders are being very stringent about these requirements these days.

There were no comments from the public.

Village Attorney Whitney Singleton stated that this was going to involve the complete repealing of chapter 66. The proposed local law has been updated to reflect the new flood panel map designations and the fees. This proposed local law has to be adopted by September 28, 2007.

Motion made by Deputy Mayor DiChiara and seconded by Trustee Griffin, Jr. closing the public hearing regarding a proposed local law for Flood Damage Prevention, all in favor.

Motion Adopted

Mayor Cindrich Aye

Deputy Mayor DiChiara Aye

Trustee Griffin, Jr. Aye

Trustee Grunthal Aye

4) Village Manager's Reports:

F. Appointment of Deputy Receiver of Taxes.

Mayor Cindrich administered the Oath of Office to Lizana Milena Orrego, filling the unexpired term of Deputy Receiver of Taxes position to the first Monday in December, as well as the Deputy Registrar's position for the same term.

1) Communications:

A. Letter from the Mount Kisco Elementary School re: Annual Fall Car Wash.

Mayor Cindrich read the letter from Caroline Paasquale, 5^th Grade Coordinator/Parent, Mount Kisco Elementary School dated August 9, 2007.

Motion made by Trustee Griffin, Jr. and seconded by Trustee Grunthal approving the request to hold their annual Fall Car Wash & Carnival Fundraiser on Saturday, September 29^th, 2007 from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm and that the students are supervised and water usage will be kept to the premises, all in favor

Motion Adopted

Mayor Cindrich Aye

Deputy Mayor DiChiara Aye

Trustee Griffin, Jr. Aye

Trustee Grunthal Aye

Mayor Cindrich read the letter from Mr. Morrissey dated August 29, 2007. Mayor Cindrich requested that a letter be sent to Mr. Morrissey thanking him for his six (6) years of service on the Building and Grounds Committee.

4) Village Managers' Report -

A. Level of Byram Lake and Water Distribution System.

Village Manager James Palmer advised that the level of Byram Lake as of 3:30 this afternoon was at 84.1%. At the next Board meeting he will have the statistics for the month of August. He noted that the Village did receive a copy of the water quality analysis that was completed by the Chazen Companies. Copies will be distributed to the Village Board and Byram Lake Committee.

B. Shred Mobile.

Village Manager James Palmer reported to the residents that the Westchester County Shred Mobile is now going to be available at all the County household chemical clean up days and we have a list of the County Household Chemical Clean-up Days on the Village's website and cable channel. The Shred Mobile is a piece of equipment that the County recently purchased which allows residents to bring important documents up to four boxes of papers to the chemical clean-up day to have the paper shredded. The next event will take place on Saturday, September 15^th from 9-3 at the County Recycling Center in Yonkers.

C. Primary Elections.

Village Manager James Palmer reported to the resident that there will be a Primary Election here in Mount Kisco and throughout the County on Tuesday, September 18, 2007. There is a Democratic Family Court Judge position that will be on the ballot. The viewing days for that will be September 11^th between 7-9pm.

D. Library Project Update.

Village Manager James Palmer reported that the Connecticut Test Wells had just finish drilling the geothermal test well today located in the northwester most section of the Library site. The well was 490 feet deep and they hit bedrock at approximately 40 feet. The PVC pipe has been fully installed and then the plan would be on Thursday to conduct the conductivity test and then the results from that should take about 7 to 10 days. We are on schedule to have the bid documents for the Library go out the first week in October. The construction budget will be completed around September 19, 2007.

E. Bid Results for Contract 2007-08 Roof Repairs.

Village Manager James Palmer reported that we just had the bid opening today for the roof repairs. We did receive three (3) bids and the lowest bid came in from Mellwood Contracting Corp for $111,300.00. Assistant Village Manager Jeff Econom will be reviewing those bids. We will be making a recommendation at the next meeting. This is for the replacement of the rubber roof, the slate roof and also the cooper gutters and that combined with the work that we are completing on the copula should make a significant improvement. The bid amount is well within what we had estimated in our capital budget for the roof repairs. This will be awarded at the next Village Board.

G. Executive Session to discuss pending litigation, personnel and real estate matters.

Motion made by Trustee Grunthal and seconded by Deputy Mayor DiChiara scheduling an Executive Session following the close of the Regular Meeting to discuss pending litigation, personnel and real estate matters, all in favor.

Motion Adopted

Mayor Cindrich Aye

Deputy Mayor DiChiara Aye

Trustee Griffin, Jr. Aye

Trustee Grunthal Aye

5) Board Reports:

Trustee Griffin, Jr. reported that the expenditures for the repairs to the two Fire Houses have been finalized. We are currently in the process of getting bids to repair the concrete in front of the Green Street Fire House. We are searching for a firm to repair the windows in both Green Street and Mutual Fire Houses.

Mayor Cindrich asked if there was any additional work that should be done in the Green Street Fire House.

Trustee Griffin, Jr. stated yes, and that it was major work and it was very difficult to do over there because of the set-up of the building. Eventually they are going to need a locker and clean-up area for Women Volunteers which they currently don't have. Their main concern right now was the ramp in front of the fire house and getting the replacement windows for the upstairs room. They have a problem with their floor tile which I think can be corrected. He added that any future requests for work done on the interior of any of the Fire Houses will have to be sent to the Village Manager's Office, reviewed by the Village Engineer and a Work Order issued by the Village Manager prior to the work being done. Clear notification on this prior notice requirement has been sent out with the payment for the work that had been done.

Deputy Mayor DiChiara noted that he had a meeting with the Village Manager and the Recreation Supervisor to discuss the improvements to be made at Fox Park. One of the items in response to a citizen's request is that we try to make the Fox Park Field comply with Little League regulations so we can have Little League Tournament Games at a field in Mount Kisco. Unfortunately, the lack of depth of the field is going to prevent this from getting there. We need to have 195 feet from the back of home plate and unfortunately right now it's at 175. Hopefully, we will be able to get to 185 feet which will make the field more acceptable for Little League play and will actually meet the regulations for the 8, 9, 10 and 11 years, but it will not meet the Little League requirements. We will try to make the field as user friendly as possible to make sure the field can be used by as many groups as possible. It's important to take some use out of Leonard Park which is being built up and over used.

Mayor Cindrich stated that when the Fox Park is completed he would like to have a ground breaking ceremony held on a Saturday rather than a week day. This would allow the parents and children to take part of the ceremony.

Village Manager Palmer stated that the bids will be available within the next few weeks.

Deputy Mayor DiChiara stated that he has also had discussions with the Village Manager about Building Department issues and enforcing our Building Code and we will continue to follow-up on that.

Mayor Cindrich thanked Assistant Village Manager and Deputy Treasurer Patrice Hogan for their work with the flood issues that we encountered back on April 15^th. The Village of Mount Kisco will be receiving from FEMA a $75,000 reimbursement for expenses we incurred over that period of time. He thanked them both for staying on top of this, because when the Federal Government wants to assist us, we have to make sure that we do take advantage of it.

Mayor Cindrich wanted the public to know that the Village has reconfigured the intersection of 133 and 117. It has been an improvement the traffic going north on 117 is working very well and there is no left turn north bound into Shopper's Park. This is the first phase of an improvement that the DOT is doing and the second phase is going to be an improvement of the Green Street/117 Intersection.

Mayor Cindrich stated that we have provided a traffic signal for the Brookside Condominium complex and it also serves the entrance of the 333 North Bedford Road (the former Grand Union Property). He was pleased to announce that people coming out of Brookside Condominium for the first time in that condominium's history, residents can make a left hand turn. He thanked this Board and the efforts of many including himself who have made this possible and especially the Diamond Properties who actually paid for the improvement and it was done without any cost to the tax payers.

Mayor Cindrich stated that he has been spending a considerable amount of time doing a survey of the Village and in response to zoning complaints and as Deputy Mayor DiChiara has done and as Jim Palmer is doing and the rest of the Board we are bringing the zoning allegations of complaints to the Building Inspector for action. Quite often we get a lot of phone calls that are generally complaints, occasionally I get words of inspiration, often times I get other information that is inspiring that people care. He recently received a phone call from Tony Cerbone indicating his concern with the Barker Street Bridge. There is a considerable amount of ware and this is something we have to stay on top of. The Barker Street Bridge doesn't have truck traffic but I don't want to go through a Green Street scenario I want to do a preemptive strike if we see that the ware is structural I want to reduce the weight limit to the appropriate weight limit, do a survey to see what type of vehicles are crossing the bridge that have to go into that neighborhood and also the buses to the Senior Citizen Building. Since there is another way into that neighborhood for the apartment house we might want to consider doing that sooner than later. He suggested finding grant moneys to do this rehab and the same thing would go for the bridge at the entrance into the American Legion. These are important issues, but the preemptive strike is extremely important and we should stay on top of it.

6) Old Business - None.

7) New Business None.

8) Bills -

The following motion was offered by Trustee Grunthal and seconded by Deputy Mayor DiChiara to pay the bills, all in favor.

Be It Resolved, the Village Treasurer is hereby authorized to release payments to the vendors as listed on the attached abstract and totaling as follows:

General Fund - Bills paid prior to audit 68,970.94

General Fund 226,803.63

General Fund Claims $218,247.84

Water Fund Claims 5,052.37

Sewer Fund Claims 504.65

Library Fund Claims 638.77

Capital Fund Claims 52.50

Trust Fund Claims 2,307.50

Senior Nutrition Fund 1,839.05

Water and Sewer Fund 6,492.77

Water Fund Claims 6,491.77

Sewer Fund Claims 1.00

Library Fund 7,635.90

Capital Projects Fund 145,046.43

Trust and Agency Fund 27,404.02

TOTAL $415,221.80

Motion Adopted

Mayor Cindrich Aye

Deputy Mayor DiChiara Aye

Trustee Griffin, Jr. Aye

Trustee Grunthal Aye

9) Approval of Minutes -

Motion made by Trustee Markus and seconded by Trustee Griffin, Jr. approving the following minutes:

Public Hearing BLS Ambulance Service Agreement and

Regular Meeting August 16, 2007

Motion Adopted

Mayor Cindrich Aye

Deputy Mayor DiChiara Aye

Trustee Grunthal Abstain

Trustee Griffin, Jr. Aye

Trustee Grunthal abstained because he was absent at the 8/16/07 Village Board Meeting.

10) Non-Local Business - None.

Mrs. Antoinette Whalen voiced several traffic complaints. The Board advised her that they are in the process of review them with the Department of Transportation.

There being no further business to come before the Board a motion to close the meeting was made by Trustee Griffin, Jr. and seconded by Trustee Grunthal, all in favor. The meeting closed at 8:20 pm.

__________________________

James M. Palmer

Village Manager and Clerk

Public Hearing Local Law for Flood Damage

Prevention and Regular Village Board Meeting

September 4, 2007 1.

Created by pmaiorano. Last modified 2008-04-08 15:24:16.