Submitted by Jim Goldstein, Lebanon Supervisor
(Randallsville, NY – Oct. 16, 2013) Lebanon town board members voted unanimously to approve a resolution to pursue engaging the services of Delta Engineering to protect town roads as part of finalizing a road use law for the township at the monthly board meeting of the Town of Lebanon Town Board on Oct. 14 in Randallsville at the Smith Valley Community Center.
Town officials also read the resignation letter from former Town Board member Steven Wilcox who resigned Oct. 1, 2013 due to completing his move from the hamlet to Oxford. His town board council seat will be one of two council positions to be voted on by residents in the fall election. There are four candidates contesting the two positions.
Town board members voted 4-0 in favor of the resolution after reviewing the benefits of the original road use law drafted by Town Attorney Steven Jones, which the town board held a public hearing on in January, and why he recommended that the town reconsider pursuing the road use law with Delta once he discovered the additional legal advantages of the Delta law, which adds a critical engineering component to the law. The resolution had been tabled since the August meeting while town officials waited to meet with Attorney Jones to hear his comparisons of the two local road use law options.
Town officials also heard support for contracting with Delta from town residents Diane and James McDowell of Bradley Brook Road, Gina Sakal of River Road, Ron Jones of Billings Hill Road and Dan Saulsgiver of Lebanon Hill Road who were voicing adoption of this law as the best way to keep town roads safe from high impact industries like natural gas development.
In prior meetings, town officials had heard similar support from other town residents including Patty and John Grossmann of Vosburgh Road, who said that they had studied multiple road use laws and felt this was the best option, Susan Galbraith of South Lebanon Road and Brian Musician and Amy Yahna of Musician Road. Town Highway Superintendent Alex Hodge also voiced support for the plan.
Delta Engineering, Architects and Land Surveyors has offered to prepare a road protection plan for the township and has offered a group discount for three or more towns. Hamilton and Brookfield have already voted to pursue the Delta plan and Lebanon will join that coalition. The road protection plan includes a baseline road condition survey, a traffic count, adoption of a road use and preservation law drafted by attorneys Delta uses out of Albany who specialize in municipal law, training of local officials and compiling an ongoing database of work done to town roads.
Delta met with town officials and the public at a March 11, 2013 town board meeting and also had follow-up meetings with Supervisor Jim Goldstein and Attorney Jones to clarify specific questions raised by town officials and constituents. Delta will reduce their usual fee of $9,900 to $7,900. The road use law program devised by Delta is not only expected to protect town roads by requiring a developer to meet with the town first, discuss a plan and provide an upfront bond, but the costs of testing road conditions, repairing roads and future costs of enforcement will be borne by the vendors, not the town property taxpayers.
Delta currently provides road use law services to 52 towns and two counties in the Southern Tier of Upstate New York.
Carol King recommended an amendment to the resolution adopted by the town board that would pay the entire $7,900 in the road use law contract services agreement once agreed, negotiated and signed in this calendar year of 2013 in order to not make it part of tax cap considerations for future years. This was adopted unanimously by the Town Board.
In other town board action
*Town officials and residents heard from David Whalen of Time Warner Cable who explained the regulatory framework that Time Warner works around concerning any cable expansion, which includes working with the electric and phone utilities to place the cable between the phone and electric service locations around the same pole. Whalen said that Time Warner cable estimates a spring build for the Reservoir Road along the south side , Reservoir Campground, Geer Road along the west side, Lakeshore Drive and the camp sites to the north at no cost to homeowners. That build will pass 205 homes.
Whalen also discussed four other areas where expansion of services would be dependent on the willingness of property owners to invest in costs associated with bringing cable to their homes given the low density of homes per mile. He noted that the state requires 25 homes per mile minimum for expansion but did work up cost options for areas where a survey by Supervisor Goldstein revealed interest.
The four build areas and estimated cost per household to bring the service to those areas include: the South Lebanon Road, Musician Road, Campbell Road, Carncross Road and Bisbee Road area to service 34 homes at a cost of $219,200 or $6,447 per homeowner; the Lebanon Road/Fisk Road/Niles Road/Bradley Brook Road/Bartlett Road/Bird Road/Campbell Road/South Lebanon Road area at a cost of $278,750 to service 64 homes at a cost of $4,355 per home; the Armstrong Road/Church Road/Lebanon Hill Road/Lebanon Center Road/Geer Road/Reservoir Road/Briggs Road area of 81 homes at a cost of $299,780 or $3,700 per home; and the Rodman Road/Jantzen Road/Bastain Road/South Lebanon Road/Vosburgh Road/Smith Road/Reynolds Hill Road area of 48 homes at a cost of $207,666 or $4,326 per home.
Whalen said Time Warner Cable will be surveying homeowners in this area to see if there is interest in cost sharing for cable expansion. He also said that the same rules for cable installation apply for electric co-ops vs. public utilities and noted that utilities usually have 60 days to respond to a request and another 60 days to create the conditions to make a location or pole cable installation ready. He said that they anticipate a spring 2014 installation of cable and enough interest at the Reservoir area to green light the project but the actual expansion date is tied to the public utilities and their cooperation. Whalen said he will make a more specific proposal with address cutoffs per project area available for Supervisor Goldstein to share with the public.
No public dollars will be involved in any cable expansion although the 5 percent franchise fees charged on cable services are paid to the town to go against the tax levy. Grant funds are available through the state for rural cable expansion but Whalen said Gov. Cuomo has already earmarked those funds for other projects in rural areas. He encouraged the town to advocate through their state representatives for grant fund consideration for their community with regards to cable service expansion
*Accepted the Town Supervisor/Budget Officer’s tentative town budget as the preliminary town budget for 2014 and established a budget workshop on Monday, Oct. 28 at 7:30 pm at the Town Office, a public hearing on Thursday, Nov. 7 at 8 pm at the Town Office and copies of the budget will be available from the Town Clerk’s office, via email and via the town website. The town tax levy is expected to increase 1.4 percent below the 1.66 state tax cap.
*Approved the 2013-2014 ice and snow removal contract for county roads in the Town of Lebanon with Madison County where the town will be paid by the mile for ice and snow removal of county roads.
*Adopted a resolution to hold a public hearing on the proposal to establish and authorize a municipal ambulance service for the Town of Lebanon in response to state Department of Health officials insisting that Lebanon will have to establish its own certificate of need to contract for ambulance services with the Town of Georgetown rather than allowing Georgetown to include Lebanon and Nelson in its CON area.
The Town will hold the public hearing on Monday, Nov. 11 at 8 p.m. at the next monthly meeting of the Town Board at the Town Office, 1210 Bradley Brook Road in the township.
Town officials and Attorney Jones discussed their intent to continue to contract with Geogetown for that portion of the township. Lebanon currently contracts with the Southern Madison County Ambulance Corps (SOMAC), the Eaton Fire District and the Town of Georgetown through its EMS service. Recent actions by the state Department of Health has identified that back in the 1970s when the original CON was drawn up, Georgetown inadvertently left out portions of Lebanon and Nelson in its Certificate of Need and the state has now cracked down, prohibiting the Georgetown EMS from billing Medicaid for emergency ambulance services in Lebanon.
The establishment of a municipal ambulance service in Lebanon will allow Georgetown to be able to address this issue and continue to serve the township, Goldstein said. He also said that a committee which studied fire and ambulance response times in the township several years ago concluded to keep the service boundaries as they are for fire and ambulance contracts.
*Voted to continue an enforcement action against HR Refuse for an illegal junkyard in the Town of Lebanon on South Lebanon Road in consultation with Attorney Jones and Code Enforcement Officer Donald Forth.
*Voted to authorize the Town Attorney to submit the final completed audit of former Town Justice John Bartlett to the Madison County District Attorney for further action.
*Adopted budget fund transfers and corrections to the 2013 town Highway budget.
*Discussed progress as town resolution adopted in August to advocate extension of the FEMA flood event incident period from June 28 to July 8, 2013 for repair reimbursement was supported unanimously by the Madison County Board of Supervisors and is also been advocated for by State Assemblyman William Magee and U.S. Congressman Richard Hanna for the region.
The Town Board will meet for a budget workshop on Monday, Oct. 28 at 7:30 p.m. and will hold a public hearing on the proposed 2014 town budget at its Nov. 7 public hearing at8 p.m. The Town Board will take final action on the budget when they meet on Monday, Nov. 11, 2013 for the regular town board meeting. All three meeting will be held at the Town Office in the hamlet. The public is invited to attend.