July 16, 2008 Town Board Meeting Minutes

Present:
Knox - Town Supervisor
Coller - Councilwoman - came in at 7:13
Foster - Councilwoman
Jeanette - Councilwoman
Whiteford - Councilman
Eells - Town Clerk
White - Highway Superintendent

Guests:
Bobby Knox
Barry Jeanette
Marie Rocca
Fred Morrill

The meeting was called to order at 7:03pm by Supervisor Knox.

Acceptance of the Minutes:

A motion was made by Councilwoman Foster and seconded by Supervisor Knox to accept the minutes from 06/18/2008 as presented by the Town Clerk.

Jeanette - yes
Foster - yes
Knox - yes
Whiteford - yes
Coller - absent

Motion carried.

REPORTS

Town Clerk's Report:

We sold 12 dog licenses, 3 marriage licenses, 7 building permits, 1 certified copy and $189.00 in DECALS for a total revenue for the month of June of $422.00.

Supervisor's Report:

1. Financial records have been turned into the town clerk for the month of June.

2. I haven’t heard anything back from the NYS Prevailing Wage Board yet.

3. The Town received $7,803.86 from St. Lawrence County for Mortgage Tax; this went into the General account.

4. At the end of May I cashed in a $150,000 CD and put $50,000 into the Highway checking and rolled the balance plus interest into another CD for the end of July. I will do the same with General this month.

Highway Superintendent Report:

1. Our Capital Projects are scheduled to be sealed tomorrow and we will be moving on to prep work for 2009.

2. Most of the roads have been mowed; it has been behind schedule due to problems with the mower.

3. We have completed installing the large pipe on the Cassidy Road; and the clean up of the blast area. We have 1 small area that we will need to be drilled again.

4. With the heavy rains at times we have been grading on several sections.

5. Everything was quiet over our shut down week; with only 1 man called in for 2 hours for flooding on the Cook road in a seasonal area.

6. We had a 3 foot pipe collapse on the North Woods Road and it has been replaced.

7. We are hauling white rock from Harmers to be used in the fill sections on the Blanchard Hill Road and the Boyd Pond Road. We will be starting prep work next week.

8. We have had major repairs on the Mack truck; brakes and trunnion bushing and seals.

9. We have 3 boys for the youth summer program.

10. We plan on starting the pole barn soon; this will shift us to work that won’t require much fuel. Our fuel is now at $4.40 a gallon and is hurting our budget.

11. The men have all worked well and I thank them.

Assessor Report: Donna Goodwin

I am continuing to catch up on clerical work and checking out parcels with building permits. There is not much else at this time of year; I have encountered no problems. I am considering a change of hours after September and will submit my thoughts to the town board to see if this would be agreeable.

Legislature Report:

1. He let Tess and the board know that they do not support the consolidation of the registrar going to the county level.

2. The jail is on time it should be completed around September 16th. And there is still money in the contingency. The sheriff asked for 63 for the jail and he got 58, there needs to be 57 in place when it opens.

3. Supervisor Knox asked Fred about the letter he got about them having 1 assessor county wide, and that the Town of Russell would not be in favor of it. Fred said he is undecided on that matter, he needs to hear more about it.

4. We're looking into doing a local law that will be a tax incentive for people to do repairs to their homes with out them thinking their taxes will go up if they do. It will be for people who fix up their homes not for new homes, and the repairs should be between $3,000 - 50,000 to get the break.

5. The county has used their budgeted $650,000 for highway and they had to budget another $300,000 for the highway department.

Supervisor Knox stated that the board needs to decide on rather they will sign the 3 year contract with the county for snow removal on county roads.

Superintendent White stated that they would only have to travel 1 county road out of 4; he also stated that 30 miles of county roads are equivalent to 60 miles of town roads. If the county uses April’s gas price it would eat up our 6% raise fast.

Fred stated salt has doubled in price this year it will be $87.00 @ ton. Superintendent White stated we spent $25,000 last year it will cost $50,000 this year for salt.

AMP Report:

N/A

DCO Report:

N/A

CEO Report:

N/A

MARIE ROCCA: Historian

1. Marie asked Superintendent White why they have not shimmed and paved the Belleville road yet. She said he would get to it 3-4 years ago, she says the road is getting bad along the sides. White stated that the board and he decide what roads get done each year.

2. Marie stated that she hasn’t been able to do much with the museum, she stated she may get some volunteers to help pack up stuff. They will wait until after the Alumni weekend is over.

3. The museum board should pick paint color and flooring for the new museum.

COMMITTEE REPORTS:

Resolution #59: Audit

A motion was made by Councilwoman Foster and seconded by Supervisor Knox to pay the following bills:

General vouchers # 225-260: $19,402.43
Fire Districts #:                 
Highway vouchers # 144-164: $31,702.62
Capital Improvement #4-17: $6,514.21
Street Lighting #7:   Russell $412.24
                            DeGrasse 132.28
                                         $544.52

Jeanette - yes
Foster - yes
Knox - yes
Whiteford - yes
Coller - yes

Motion carried.

Highway:

1. Superintendent White is holding a bill from Graymont because he ordered washed 1A stone and it is contaminated with too much sand in it the cost was $3,400 he is trying to get them down on the price and keep it or they can cover the cost of hauling it back.

2. Barrett’s Paving Materials are coming with new stone tomorrow for the sealing.

3. Superintendent White asked the board to authorize the supervisor to pay the CHIPS bill’s prior to audit so they can get sent in. The board authorized the supervisor to do this as the bills come in.

Ball Field:

The fire department asked that the ball fields be mowed for their tournaments for the weekend; Carmen had them all mowed. Supervisor Knox asked the board when the other port-a-pot should be removed; 2 are being removed after the fireworks; the field is being used the end of August. They will decide at the next board meeting.

NEW BUSINESS:

1. Supervisor Knox asked Superintendent White if the town had enough fence posts to do the cemetery, White will check if not he can get some. The Cemetery Committee has $1,800 they can use towards the fence. They also will put $600.00 towards fixing the big monument out front of the cemetery. They will have about $3,500 to use towards fixing more monuments.

2. Supervisor Knox stated that Wheat’s Greenhouse will not be doing the hanging baskets next year for the town. He said the baskets will go up another $15.00 next year. He was wondering if the board wants to keep doing the flower baskets; due to the rising cost of fuel and time the maintenance man puts in to water them. The board stated they look nice and the town should keep doing them. Knox will check with the prison to see if they could do them for the town next year.

3. Supervisor Knox asked Superintendent White if they could remove the old cement by the end of the building by the Post Office so new can be poured.

4. Supervisor Knox stated that the Lib/Museum hired John Whitmarsh to stud up the walls; he will need help with hanging sheet rock John’s father may be able to help.

5. Supervisor Knox stated that he will get a quote for insulation from Cell-U-Spray out of Massena to do ceilings in new lib/museum. He already has a quote from AEON. The board authorized Knox to go with lowest bid. Knox asked if the board wanted to use copper tubing or plastic pecks tubing for the new lib/museum. They went with plastic pecks tubing. Also a drop ceiling will be put in the new bathroom so access to the plumbing can be easier.

6. Supervisor Knox asked the board how they feel about Carmen watering the plants at KUNOCO Deb asked him if the town would water their plants to. The board said that Carmen can drop water off to them but not water them or more people will want theirs watered also.

7. Supervisor Knox asked the board if they should make Larry Matthews aware that there are cracks in the existing new library floors that seemed to have appeared after the driveway was done at the church next door. Board feels it should be put in writing to Larry Matthews.

8. Supervisor Knox asked Superintendent White what can be done to slope the area around the new lib/museum to prevent water running inside.

9. Supervisor Knox asked the board if they thought sending the resolution already done supporting AMP being an entity to the Town Supervisors Association would be alright. The board agreed it would be alright to do.

10. Supervisor Knox stated that sales tax is going to be down; that the town should not count on 100% of the sales tax; the town is down 15,000 already.

Adjournment:

A motion by Supervisor Knox and seconded by Councilman Whiteford to adjourn the meeting at 8:50pm. All were in favor. Motion carried.