Town Board Meeting, February 10 (Part 2)

This article appeared in the Townsman, February 19 edition

The Woodstock town board at its March 10 meeting will re-open the public hearing on a proposed amendment to the zoning law regulating development near wetlands, watercourses and water bodies. The town board opened the public hearing at an October, 2008 meeting, where the 26 page, single spaced document was greeted by many members of the public as too long, cumbersome and complicated, and created the unanswered question of who, the Town or the applicant, should pay for the additional professional services required to administer the law. The revised document on file with the town clerk does not appear to address those concerns, and in fact may exacerbate them by proposing to completely erase exemptions to the regulation, including postholes. Other elisions to the original document include description of applicant information required for planning board consideration, and other verbiage relating to purely administerial matters.

Perhaps a serious flaw is that the revision makes reference to sections that are not consistent with the recently codified version of the zoning law.

Dara Trahan, the Town’s planning technician, said in her introduction to the revised document, “I’ve been asked to highlight sections of the law that could be reduced in length.” Councilman Chris Collins, when asked about his input responded, “I work with others via open discussions i.e. we discuss changes, additions, deletions, edits etc. and weigh the pros and cons of every change and try to reach consensus on the best way to handle issues.” It is not known when or where the “open discussions” took place.

The town board also scheduled special meetings, one for February 23 at 4:00 PM at the Town Offices to continue a discussion regarding building rental fees, and one for March 9 at 4:00 PM at the Town Offices for another discussion regarding the proposed comprehensive plan.

In subcommittee reports, councilman Chris Collins, whose charge is to oversee land use regulation, cited the upcoming public hearing on the proposed amendment to the zoning law regulating development near wetlands, watercourses and water bodies, and the March 9 special meeting on the comprehensive plan, and left it at that.

Councilwoman Liz Simonson, in her charge to bring cell phone service to areas of the town not served, announced that she had contacted Verizon and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) with regard to her proposal to install antenna on the so-called RNN tower on Overlook Mountain, and has tried to contact ATT on the same matter. There has so far been no response. She had nothing to report with regard to her endeavor to “green” the Town’s fleet of vehicles or its buildings, citing a “rough month.” She cited again her discovery after careful analysis that the sewage treatment plant used $28,000 in electricity in 2008, which is $257.04 more than the $27,742.96 spent in 2007. She praised supervisor Jeff Moran for his decision to close the public room in the Town Hall for the winter, citing a $1400 savings in fuel costs.

Councilman Jay Wenk’s proposal to forward to the town attorney a sixteen-page law prepared by George (“Jerry”) Washington to address buried fuel tanks was stalled by concerns of board members that it was too cumbersome and that now was not the time to consider adding a “public health officer” position to the Town’s payroll. There will be more discussion on the proposal at a later meeting.

Councilwoman Terrie Rosenblum announced on behalf of the recreation commission their request for volunteers to help maintain the ice skating rink located at Rick Volz Field in Bearsville. With so much snow this year the Town’s maintenance department personnel had little resources for clearing the facility for the public’s use.

There was no second meeting of the town board in February so that members could attend the annual Association of Towns meeting in New York. The next regularly scheduled meeting of the town board will be March 10.