DCO Appointment, Georgetown Ambulance, Road Repairs Agenda Topics
(Randallsville, NY – Aug. 2014) Lebanon town board members will gather at the Smith Valley Community Center in Randallsville on Aug. 11 to discuss monthly business including a new dog control officer appointment, a contract with the Georgetown ambulance service, amendments to the road repair plan to 2014, the status of various code enforcement issues and violation notices sent out in last month, and consideration of legal steps with regard to the court appeal by Emkey Resources on the assessed valuation of one of its gas producing properties.
The meeting will be held at the Smith Valley Community Center at the corner of River and Randallsville Road in the hamlet of Randallsville. The public is invited.
Town officials will also discuss options for acquisition of a larger diesel fired generator through federal military surplus that would be able to start up automatically when power was out at the town office, and could function as an emergency power source for residents during outages, finalizing purchase of a new 2015 Stadium International Heavy Duty Highway truck the town took delivery of last month, and finalize payment of the bond on the previous 2012 Stadium International Heavy Duty Truck later this month. Town officials voted in July to put $90,000 towards the purchase of the 2015 International to reduce bonding costs on the $186,000 truck.
Town board members will hope to finalize an agreement with the Town of Georgetown on ambulance services that has been held up for two years by state requirements that necessitated additional legal and application steps to create a separate ambulance service for that part of the township in Lebanon.
A search committee appointed in July of council members Marie Morgan and Ron Jones, and outgoing Dog Control Officer Stephanie Lowe will report their recommendations for a new DCO to the town board for consideration. The town received applications from three candidates.
Code Enforcement Officer Donald Forth will report to the town board on the status of various code enforcement actions, violation notice letters and options for town officials to consider. Town board members voted last winter to change the code enforcement policy from just a complaint based system to one in which the code enforcement officer rides town roads and also will cite property owners for visual violations of local and state codes he can view from his vehicle alogn the road. This policy change came about after almost a year of discussion and in response to complaints from town residents who requested more consistent enforcement of town laws. Town board members posted several large notices in the Mid York Weekly and information was circulated for months before the first round of violation notice letters went out in July. The town has also had several properties in compliance discussions prior to that time.
Town officials will also meet with assessor Brian Fitts to discuss the pending appeal of Emkey Resources that is seeking a reduction in assessment that was denied it on Grievance Day by the town Assessment Board of Appeal for gas producing equipment connected to one of its gas producing wells in the township. Emkey has asked that its Parteko meter station assessment be reduced from $14,890 to $0 because it claims all associated equipment connected to cash flow evaluation of natural gas production should be exempt and not assessed separately. Town officials will discuss the wider implications of this given Emkey is also seeking a reduction in assessed valuation of its Compressor Station in the Town of Eaton that is presently in the state appeals court system.
Town Supervisor Jim Goldstein informed town officials last month that he has learned in consultation with county Real Property Tax officials, that the overall assessed valuation of the town has dropped from $80,589,861 to $79,335,368 and that this drop is directly related to the manner in which the state Office of Real Property Tax Services assesses natural gas production, a commodity, as real property, and is reflective of a drop in the amount and value of production that will require the town to raise taxes $5,476 just to keep the tax levy at the same level as 2014, which reflects a 1.5 percent increase. The state system runs two years behind production and so the estimated property tax levy for 2014 is based on 2013 production that was reported in 2014, and that the assessment is based on an average rather than actual sales figures of natural gas by Emkey Resources.
Supervisor Goldstein said that unfunded mandates like state retirement will increase, as will fuel and highway input and health insurance/workers comp costs, so he said that town may likely have to exceed the 2 percent tax cap in 2015 due to these factors and the declining assessed valuation of property.
Town officials also hope to get an update from Time Warner Cable on the schedule for finishing the build-out of the cable expansion at the Lebanon Reservoir area including Reservoir Road, Geer Road, Lakeshore Drive, Private Drive and the Lebanon Reservoir Campground. Estimates for expansion to other parts of the township under the 30 residence per mile formula is contingent on the willingness of those property owners to pay for the cost of bringing Time Warner Cable to their roads, TWC officials have indicated at past meetings.
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