Village board advances nonprofit rental rates, energy tracking program
Deputy Mayor Kathianne Snaden presides over the Village of Port Jefferson Board of Trustees business meeting on Monday, June 26. Photo by Raymond Janis
The Village of Port Jefferson Board of Trustees held the final business meeting of its term Monday afternoon, June 26, during which departing Mayor Margot Garant was absent due to illness.
In her absence, Deputy Mayor Kathianne Snaden presided over a meeting marked by several notable goodbyes. Garant, Snaden and village attorney Brian Egan will all leave the board next week when trustee Lauren Sheprow takes over as mayor.
Trustee Rebecca Kassay recognized Snaden, who lost to Sheprow in last week’s mayoral election. Snaden’s four-year tenure on the village board now ends.
“You put your heart and soul into it — and it shows,” Kassay told the departing deputy mayor. Following these remarks, Snaden was greeted with thunderous applause by the dozens in attendance.
Garant’s fiancée, Traci Donnelly, delivered a short address on the mayor’s behalf. Garant thanked colleagues and constituents.
“I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to each one of you for the trust you’ve shown me over the past 14 years,” the statement said. “I hope and pray that the team of individuals who remain will continue working tirelessly to ensure the continued growth and success of our beloved village.”
Egan, who has served as village attorney since 2013, thanked the court clerks, village clerks, treasurers and professional staff with whom he had served over the last decade. In this final report, he paraphrased his favorite line from Lewis Carroll’s 1865 novel “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.”
“Lewis Carroll said it best when his advice to the white rabbit was — ‘Start at the beginning, then continue to the end; then stop.’”
Other business
The board agreed to extend the reduced rental rate for the Long Island Foundation for Education & Sports, a children and family services group which rents a room in the Village Center, until the end of the 2023-24 school year. The nonprofit will be charged $35 per hour during that period, a reduction from the pre-pandemic rate of $42 per hour.
The board also approved a resolution to track and publish energy usage data for village buildings. The initiative, Kassay explained, “moves us one step closer” toward receiving grant funds through the New York State Research and Development Authority’s Clean Energy Communities Program.
Kassay, liaison to the newly created village Tree Committee, announced the committee’s members had held their first meeting and established a set of objectives.
“Their first task is going to be exploring how to survey the existing canopy of trees” on village properties and public rights-of-way, the trustee said. The committee will also “examine the current tree code to see how it can be more effective and balanced.”
Sheprow and trustees-elect Loucks and Bob Juliano will be formally sworn into office this Tuesday, July 4, following the village’s annual Fourth of July parade. The reconfigured board will hold its reorganization meeting the following Monday, July 10, at 5 p.m.
Lauren Sheprow, mayor-elect of the Village of Port Jefferson. File photo by Raymond Janis
The Village of Port Jefferson is undergoing its first mayoral transition in 14 years. Outgoing Mayor Margot Garant, who has held the village’s highest post since 2009, will officially leave the office early next week, handing the reins of power to trustee Lauren Sheprow.
Sheprow, a write-in candidate who campaigned as an agent of change, defeated Deputy Mayor Kathianne Snaden in last week’s village election [See story, “Write-in candidate Lauren Sheprow elected Port Jeff Village mayor,” The Port Times Record, June 22, also TBR News Media website]. Throughout her campaign, she proposed several initiatives, such as new staffing procedures, committees and communications channels.
In an exclusive interview, the mayor-elect opened up about the transition process, unveiling her expectations for the office and offering some reorganization plans.
“Fourteen years is a long time,” she told TBR News Media. “Mayor Garant did amazing things in Port Jefferson, and I never want to take anything away from her and what she’s done.”
“I’m just excited to start something new and fresh, and see what we can do to help bring Port Jefferson to the next chapter,” she added.
She offered that she is currently “working through sort of an organizational chart,” assessing where current staff members will fit within the organizational hierarchy and whether there are opportunities for change.
Through this chart, she is “trying to understand if everything makes sense the way it’s laid out,” she said. “Possibly it does, but that’s the evaluation process that I’m going through right now.”
With one year remaining in her unexpired term as trustee, one of Sheprow’s highest-profile vacancies is the one she will create by swearing in as mayor. New York Village Law empowers the mayor to “appoint individuals to fill vacancies in both elected and appointed offices when the vacancy occurs before the expiration of the official’s term of office,” with this type of mayoral appointment “not subject to board approval.”
Outside of village attorney Brian Egan, who announced his resignation this week, Sheprow declined to reveal any other major administrative changes or forecast upcoming mayoral appointments.
One of Sheprow’s central positions during her campaign was the formation of new resident task forces and committees to assist the board in local decision-making. Sheprow maintained her intent to move ahead with plans for committees on parking, budgets and the Port Jefferson Power Station, among others.
“I have three or four people that I can tap into immediately on the Audit and Budget Committee,” she said. “I’ve been talking to people about the Parking Committee, the LIPA Committee,” adding that the village government is exploring a portal for residents to enter their interests and alert the committee boards on which they would like to volunteer.
Expanding upon this initiative, Sheprow said she had contacted Kevin Wood, the village’s communications committee head, about overhauling the village’s municipal website, suggesting a website revamp would likely be a multimonth endeavor.
Sheprow also said she has been scrutinizing the village’s existing Code of Ethics, noting this “probably hasn’t been touched in all the years since it’s been established,” adding that a similar approach is underway for procurement and investment policies.
The mayor-elect described the transition process as “exciting,” noting a personal lack of anxiety in preparing for the mayor’s office.
“It’s just energizing, and I’m looking forward to it,” she said. “We have a great operating institution in the Village of Port Jefferson. The people in place are doing their jobs, and I hope to empower them to do their jobs even more.”
Sheprow will be sworn in as mayor outside Village Hall this Tuesday, July 4.
Richard Rosenberg, left, and Michael Dubb, attorney and principal respectively at the Jericho-based Beechwood Organization during a May 1 public hearing at Port Jefferson Village Hall. Photo by Raymond Janis
Ten minutes before 6 p.m., every chair in the house was already taken. Behind the gallery, some sat on tables, others on desks. A standing crowd began to form. Younger attendees yielded their seats to their elder counterparts. All were in for a long night.
The board room at Village Hall could not contain the audience gathered on Monday night, May 1, for the Village of Port Jefferson Board of Trustees public hearing on the Maryhaven Center of Hope property on Myrtle Avenue.
“It’s great to see a full room,” said Mayor Margot Garant. “That means this community is engaged.”
The village board is considering modifying the zoning code and proposing an incentives package to encourage the historic preservation and adaptive reuse of historic buildings and structures.
The Maryhaven property is currently zoned as a Professional Office P-O District. Under the existing zoning code, an applicant within the P-O District can request a special-use permit for Moderate-Density Residence R-M District development.
Village attorney Brian Egan explained the motivations guiding these potential code changes.
The Maryhaven “building is certainly worth keeping,” he told the sea of residents in attendance.
Convincing the owners of that building to preserve it, however, represents a quandary for village officials. The existing zoning code lacks a mechanism to sway developers toward historic preservation.
“There is no obligation to save that building,” Egan said.
The proposed code amendment would create such a mechanism — a special permit application. Egan referred to this application process as “another layer of control” for the village board, enabling it to designate specific parcels that contribute to the village’s architectural or aesthetic character.
If a parcel meets these criteria, determined by the Board of Trustees, then the applicant would qualify for “slightly relaxed standards” under the R-M code, Egan stated.
In the previous week’s work session, they agreed those relaxed standards would be allowances for additional height and stories but no additional clearing — a tradeoff of density for historical preservation and conservation.
Developers from the Jericho-based Beechwood Organization, the firm negotiating with Catholic Health to acquire the Maryhaven property, attended the public hearing. Michael Dubb, principal at Beechwood, stated his intention to preserve the historic building on-site.
“It would be easier for me as the developer to knock that building down … but that wouldn’t be the right thing to do,” he said.
Richard Rosenberg, an attorney for Beechwood, expanded upon the firm’s vision for the site.
“The intention is to keep the original part of the structure, which is around 40-45,000 square feet, demolish the rest,” he said. “There is asbestos, there is lead-based paint. We have to clean it up according to regulations.” He added, “It’s a big ticket item.”
Public input
Following the presentations by Egan and Beechwood, the board took comments from the public. During that period, community members expressed a recurring message:
“I think the big problem that many of us have is density,” resident Eric Sackstein told board members. This general sentiment echoed throughout the evening.
Former village trustee Virginia Capon, who had chaired the Comprehensive Plan Committee, expressed her appreciation for the board in its willingness to preserve the historic structure.
But she objected to the board’s proposed remedy to the problem, suggesting that the board consider the village in its entirety before changing the zoning code.
“That building is beautiful, but I don’t think this is the way to preserve it,” she said.
The former trustee added that numerous other factors weigh into the Maryhaven calculation, such as its nearby steep slopes, which can cause issues with flooding. Capon advised the board to explore options that do not incentivize greater density.
“If you can come up with a way of preserving this building that maybe doesn’t overdevelop the parcel, that would be my recommendation,” she said.
Several other differing proposals were offered for the adaptive reuse of the site. Michael Mart, citing the flooding concerns over the Port Jefferson Fire Department building on Maple Place, proposed relocating the fire station to the higher elevation at the Maryhaven property.
Another resident, Steve Velazquez, proposed selling Village Hall and headquartering the village’s municipal operations at Maryhaven.
Discussions over Maryhaven remain ongoing as the board left the public comment period open for 21 days following Monday’s meeting.
Village attorney Brian Egan, above, during a Village of Port Jefferson Board of Trustees work session on Tuesday, April 25. Photo by Raymond Janis
Conversations on the Maryhaven Center of Hope property at Myrtle Avenue picked up on Tuesday, April 25, to be followed by a public hearing scheduled for next week on Monday, May 1.
During a work session of the Port Jefferson Village Board of Trustees, the Maryhaven debate evolved into a game of tradeoffs and compromises, the board working to encourage the preservation and adaptive reuse of the historic building on-site through incentives.
Among the agreed-upon incentives package to preserve the structure, the board settled upon allowing for additional stories and height. The board, primarily at the direction of trustee Rebecca Kassay, remained unwilling to allow for further clearing of woodlands on the property.
The building “has a lot of meaning to the community, the Maryhaven complex,” said Mayor Margot Garant in an interview. She added the board’s current direction represents “an effort to give incentives so that the Planning Board can do their job with the applicant while preserving a historic building.”
The board is working on revising Section 250-15 of the Village Code. Village attorney Brian Egan clarified the proposed code changes. While Maryhaven is currently zoned as a Professional Office P-O District, the existing zoning code enables applicants within the P-O district to apply for rezoning for Moderate-Density Residence R-M District development through a special-use permit.
The proposed new section of the code aims to encourage applicants to preserve historic buildings and structures on their properties.
The Maryhaven “building is pretty special with the red and the views and the copper — it’s a special place,” Egan said. “But developers don’t care about that. Developers don’t care about special, so how do you give them an idea to motivate them to be special?”
To do that, the village attorney proposed a modification to the zoning code that covers the conditions of the special-use permit for parcels that contribute to the architectural or aesthetic character of the village.
“It’s kind of giving a tradeoff,” he said. “We say that if you have a contributing, architecturally and aesthetically important parcel or building … then you can have a proposed loosening of some of the standards that would normally apply in R-M.”
The loosening of those standards went under scrutiny during the meeting, with board members going back and forth over which incentives are permissible.
“If we don’t provide enough of an incentive, they’re just going to take this building down,” Garant said. “And if not this applicant, the next one.”
Going through each of the zoning parameters under the code, the board fixed its attention on clearing permits in particular.
Throughout the exchanges, the trustees wrestled with establishing a coherent policy that accounts for the competing values of preserving historic structures, limiting clearing and making such redevelopment initiatives cost-effective for developers.
The current P-O limit for clearing is 65%. Noting some of the general trends on clearing allowances as well as the recent village history, Kassay remained firm on not granting developers any additional allowances on clearing.
“This is something that we’ve seen our community get very upset over,” the trustee said, expressing zero tolerance for additional clearing “because we are offering these other incentives.”
Those perks would be an extra story and added height on the property, a tradeoff of density for environmental conservation and historic preservation. The board agreed to change the maximum number of stories to four and the maximum height of the structure to 47 feet.
Following the meeting, Garant summarized the conclusions of the work session. “We did not permit additional clearing” under the new incentives package, the mayor said. “If you can’t give more clearing and you want to have something built there, another tradeoff instead of sprawling it is making it more dense, giving it height.”
The mayor added that the incentives allow for “something that conforms to the preexisting building.”
The board will continue this conversation in just days with a scheduled public hearing on the matter on Monday, May 1. The general meeting of the board will begin at 6 p.m.
VHB landscape architect Andrew Kelly, above, presented three concept plans to the Six Acre Park Committee and the Village of Port Jefferson Board of Trustees. Photo by Raymond Janis
With an approaching May 1 public hearing on the Maryhaven Center of Hope property on Myrtle Avenue, tensions are simmering within the Village of Port Jefferson Board of Trustees.
During an April 18 business meeting, trustee Lauren Sheprow clashed with Mayor Margot Garant and members of her administration over “the process” in which potential zoning code changes have been handled to date. This dispute comes as the village enters the heart of election season, with decisions over term extensions, term limits and election administration hanging in the balance.
The Six Acre Park Committee also inched closer toward a concept plan for the last remaining tract of undeveloped open space in Upper Port.
Maryhaven
‘We’d like to see the building be maintained or preserved somehow.’
— Margot Garant
As the village board prepares for the highly anticipated May 1 public hearing, Sheprow is at odds with some of her colleagues over how decisions with the property have been advanced. “I’m wondering about the process,” she said.
Responding, Garant said deliberations over Maryhaven predate Sheprow’s entry to the board in July 2022 as the previous board held a work session approximately 18 months ago with Alison LaPointe, former special village attorney for building and planning. At the time, LaPointe had advised the board to consider rezoning the property, the mayor said.
Gradually, the matter has become a question of historic preservation as maintaining the existing building is in the village’s interest, Garant added.
“We’d like to see the building be maintained or preserved somehow,” the mayor said.
Village attorney Brian Egan gave additional context, saying the process began in 2019 when Catholic Health notified the village it would sell the property. The issue, Egan noted, lingered for some time though Garant started pushing for the structure’s preservation.
“It became the village’s initiative — the mayor’s initiative — of engaging with Catholic Health, saying, ‘We’re going to work toward trying to save that building,’” Egan said. “That was really impetuous and got us to this point to say, ‘How can we save the building for an adaptive reuse as opposed to putting it all into a landfill.’”
He continued, “The policy of the Village of Port Jefferson — hopefully, if this board adopts it — is to preserve the historic building that’s on it and encourage its adaptive reuse as opposed to demolition.” Egan added, “The ideal process is to draft the zoning that this board wants to see, and make the developers work to that standard.”
Sheprow expressed her appreciation for Egan’s clarification, adding, “I appreciate that explanation very much, just would have loved to have had that before opening it up for a public hearing so that we all kind of understood the entirety of the concept.”
The board agreed to set a work session on Tuesday, April 25, at 2 p.m. to discuss the matter further.
Elections
Trustee Rebecca Kassay reported she had received resident interest in creating a task force to oversee the restructuring of village government and elections, exploring issues such as term limits and extensions, change of election month and counting ballots by hand or machine.
Sheprow shared that PJV is working to obtain a document from the Village of Southampton for reference. Southampton “had a panel that went through this process,” she said. “So maybe we can use that document as a guide to help look at best practices.”
Conversations surrounding election changes were prompted by a notification from the Suffolk County Board of Elections that its electronic voting machines would not be made available to the village, to be used instead for primary elections this June.
Sheprow inquired whether the village could rent or purchase voting machines to administer the upcoming June 20 election for village mayor and trustees, especially as at least two other Long Island villages will be using such devices.
Egan clarified the legality of this proposal. The village attorney cited the New York State Election Law, which bars villages from renting machines from vendors outside their county BOE.
“It’s not a question of the integrity of the machines,” the village attorney said. “It’s a question about whether the Election Law will allow us to do it, and the Election Law is very clear that it does not, and [the New York Conference of Mayors] is very clear that it does not.”
Six Acre Park
The Six Acre Park Committee met with the board, along with representatives of the Hauppauge-based civil engineering company VHB, toward finalizing conceptual plans for the 6-acre parcel along Highlands Boulevard.
‘Projects like this have been proven to greatly increase the safety and security of an area.’
— Rebecca Kassay
Garant outlined the committee’s purpose and the current status of the project. “The whole reason why we got this structure in place with the committee and the design team of VHB is because there’s a New York State grant that we are positioning ourselves to make an application for,” the mayor said. “We’re just trying to get to that point where we have what we need to make a submission.”
Andrew Kelly, a VHB landscape architect, presented three concept plans to the committee and board. Kelly said most spaces within the 6 acres would be open, tree-lined areas with native plantings. All options accommodate a realignment of, and on-street parking along, Highlands Boulevard.
Plans are to include security lighting, Kelly said. Kassay, trustee liaison to the Six Acre Park Committee, added that transitioning this area into parkland would discourage people from camping on-site.
“Projects like this have been proven to greatly increase the safety and security of an area,” she said.
The next steps are to decide upon a conceptual plan, likely integrating elements of all three concept proposals presented during the meeting. The mayor added that the board would soon return for a final round of public input as it completes the conceptual planning phase.
To watch the entire presentation on Six Acre Park, see the video above.
Correction: In the print version of this story, we reported an incorrect time for the upcoming Village of Port Jefferson Board of Trustees work session on the Maryhaven Center of Hope property.
The work session will take place on Tuesday, April 25, at 2 p.m. at Port Jefferson Village Hall. We apologize for the error.
Port Jefferson Village Hall. File photo by Heidi Sutton
In a historic act, the Village of Port Jefferson Board of Trustees voted 5-0 on Monday to extend the terms of service for village mayor, trustees and judges from two to four years.
Prompting the vote, village clerk Barbara Sakovich recommended the term changes during her report, outlining the logistical challenges of holding elections every year.
“As we have an election every year, and we’re gearing up for this June’s election, we know we’re not getting [voting] machines anymore because of the primaries,” the clerk said. “I just would like to maybe get everyone’s pulse on maybe changing the terms from two to four years so that we don’t have to keep doing this every year.”
‘If the public wants to have a referendum or wants to have a vote on it, then they will let this board know.’
— Lauren Sheprow
Village attorney Brian Egan advised the board the term extensions would be legal under the New York State Village Law. The change would not affect ongoing terms but would impact the incoming mayor and trustees elected this June. The resolution is subject to a permissive referendum, which under the state law would enable the public to put the resolution out for a public vote this June.
Before the unanimous vote on the resolution, some board members offered their opinions on how four-year terms may benefit the village. “I always look at how you can get a higher voter turnout across the village,” trustee Rebecca Kassay said. “Voter turnout is always relatively dismal, but having an election every single year, people don’t seem to know about it.”
Trustee Stan Loucks suggested the existing term lengths are inadequate for long-term decision-making and planning. “I’ve always thought two years is way too short,” he said. “The first year, you’re just getting your feet wet, and the next year you’re out there campaigning.”
Trustee Lauren Sheprow considered the permissive referendum an option available to community members if they choose to exercise it.
“Let democracy happen,” she said. “If the public wants to have a referendum or wants to have a vote on it, then they will let this board know. Give them the choice to come forward on it.”
Mayor’s response
In an interview following the decision, Mayor Margot Garant explained what village residents could expect moving forward.
“This is a board decision that is subject to a public referendum,” she said. “What that means is that the public … has 30 days within which to garner the requisite signatures to bring it to a public vote.”
Assessing the board’s motivations for approving the measure, Garant emphasized administering village elections has become highly problematic. She noted that the absence of electronic voting machines to conduct elections has placed undue strain on the village clerk, who must count the ballots by hand.
“I believe part of what’s really driving this is the fact that we’re not getting electronic voting machines from the Suffolk County Board of Elections,” the mayor said. “To count the ballots by hand is a six- to eight-hour exercise,” adding, “I think Barbara did not finish counting votes until 2 a.m. This year being a mayoral election, she’s probably going to be there until 3 or 4 in the morning.”
Garant, asked for her outlook on the electoral process in Port Jefferson, acknowledged that elections foster accountability for those in office. However, she stated the board must also weigh the challenges of administering such elections, especially when they are conducted by paper ballots and counted by hand.
Elections “create a sense of accountability,” she said. “But I think the resources it takes and the amount of energy it takes to run an election really does impact your ability to serve. A two-year term is not a long time to get things done.”
She added, “I think it’s always great to have your community engaged, and I think elections engage the public. … I made the motion because I think the pulse of the room was for that, and again, the 5-0 resolution shows you that the political will was there.”
Asked whether there was adequate public input before passing the resolution, Garant said the board used the appropriate procedures and operated within the confines of the state Village Law.
“If the Board of Trustees has the authority to make that decision, I don’t think hearing more public input would have swayed that decision,” Garant said. “There is a mechanism by which the people can speak, and that was exactly what Lauren said — let them exercise their right to a permissive referendum.”
Pressed on whether fewer elections translate to less democracy, the mayor responded, “I don’t think so.” Effective democracy, she indicated, takes a more holistic approach.
“I think that there’s a broader definition to democracy,” she said. “Democracy is a government of the people, by the people, for the people. There are still a lot of mechanisms to keep that in place and working.”
She concluded, “I think we’re a little behind the times, and I think it’s time to catch up and let the people decide.”
Mayor Margot Garant analyzes coastal engineering drawings during a public meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 17, at Port Jefferson Village Hall. Photo by Raymond Janis
The Village of Port Jefferson Board of Trustees convened Tuesday, Jan. 17. The board tackled a range of subjects from upcoming coastal engineering projects to a rideshare service and school district facilities.
A proposed westerly wall
Mayor Margot Garant reported a development to the coastal engineering plans at the East Beach bluff, where erosion threatens the village-owned Port Jefferson Country Club’s clubhouse facility.
With $3.75 million in federal funds secured for an upland wall to protect the building [See story, “Schumer secures funds for upper wall at PJCC …” The Port Times Record, Jan. 12], the mayor announced her team is exploring ways to finalize its upland plans.
A proposed “westerly wall,” originally pitched as an add-on extension to the upper wall to accommodate racket sports, is now recommended as a possible erosion mitigation strategy. Huntington Station-based engineering firm GEI Consultants “did confirm that they definitely feel we need to do both the main wall and the extension wall,” Garant said.
The village board put the upper wall projects to bid in October, announcing the cost projections the following month. The upper wall bid came back at approximately $3.3 million, with the combined upper wall and westerly wall project costing roughly $4.5 million.
Considering which option is most suitable for the village, Garant outlined why she favors constructing the westerly wall: “I believe that putting that second wall in there, now unequivocally, if somebody else is paying 75% of that cost, I think the westerly wall should go in,” she said.
Forecasting how to organize the racket sports facilities once the westerly wall is complete, Garant suggested it will be a problematic decision-making calculus regarding which racket sports to prioritize.
“We may be wanting to install more than three pickleball courts because the demand is so high and trying to get maybe an instructional court, and maybe just have the two [tennis] courts in the back,” she said. “We have to figure out when, how, where, timing, materials, cost. It’s complicated.”
She added, “The good news is we’re going to be building a wall. I think that saves a major resource for this community. I think it allows us to reinstate a racket ball campus. And I think it gives us a reasonable timeline to come up with an alternate plan, god forbid in 20 years, we need to have something different in place.”
Ridesharing service
Deputy Mayor Kathianne Snaden and Kevin Wood, director of economic development, parking administrator and communications committee head, jointly presented on a rideshare project.
The benefits of the plan, as Snaden explained, are threefold: to offer residents easy access to downtown Port Jefferson, provide a safe means of return travel to their homes and ease traffic congestion.
“I think we have something that’s really going to work for the residents of Port Jefferson,” the deputy mayor said, adding that the goal is “to get them downtown, to save parking for the tourists and others, and to come down, have a nice evening and get home safely.”
Wood worked out how the village would implement such a rideshare program. “The plan that you have in front of you would be to combine world-class, Uber-like software with a black car service to be exclusively used and designed for Port Jefferson residents,” he said.
Offering a rough sketch of his vision, Wood said the service would operate Fridays and Saturdays from 4 p.m. to 1 a.m. The village government would administer the software, which would be geofenced for Port Jefferson, meaning requests outside the 11777 zip code could not be possible. “If somebody wanted to go to Smith Haven Mall, they can’t,” Wood said.
He proposed that rides could start at $5 per person and $12.50 for groups of three to seven people. These figures could be subject to change as the village would adjust the software and set its rates based on the community’s needs.
“The beautiful part about this is that if we find that $5 is literally not enough money or too much money, I think we have some leeway there and could change this stuff on a dime,” Wood said. “We can change things on demand. We can make new group rates. We could do special event rates.”
Village attorney Brian Egan inquired whether this program could create centralized drop-off locations for riders, preventing clutter of village roads and safety hazards from stopped vehicles. Responding, Wood said the village could train drivers to drop off and pick up riders to minimize these risks.
Garant put her support behind the effort, saying this will benefit residents who wish to access their downtown amid its busy season. “We all, I’ll speak for myself, feel we’re getting snowed out in the middle of the summertime,” the mayor said. “You can’t get down here, so I think this is going to be something that I’m really excited about.”
Reports
Egan updated the board on the ongoing negotiations with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. The village is attempting to reclassify the Port Jefferson Clean Solid Waste Landfill as a transfer station, enabling the continued procedure of branch and leaf pickup services. [See story, “Garbage grief: PJ Village and DEC clash over landfill permit,” The Port Times Record, Dec. 1].
“I do think we have — at least with the DEC senior administrative staff — a very receptive ear,” he said. Referring to the permit dispute with DEC, he added, “I think we’ll have a cooperative resolution to it, and I am cautiously optimistic.”
Trustee Lauren Sheprow used her report to discuss a forthcoming capital bond at Port Jefferson School District. “The school district is looking at floating another bond in May,” she said.
Citing an article in Newsday, Sheprow said approximately 80% of federal COVID-19 relief funds have yet to be spent by public schools statewide. “$14 billion has not been used yet,” she said. “There’s $14 billion issued to New York State in COVID relief,” adding that the heating and ventilation systems proposed by PJSD may qualify under COVID relief conditions.
Sheprow added she might pitch her ideas to the school board during its upcoming meeting Tuesday, Jan. 24. She encouraged her fellow board members to attend.
Snaden reported on a meeting with the Port Jefferson Business Improvement District and the Greater Port Jefferson Chamber of Commerce. This year’s iteration of the Port Jefferson Ice Festival, hosted by the BID on Jan. 28 and 29, will feature 27 ice sculptures at various storefronts and other locations throughout Port Jeff.
Trustee Stan Loucks reported on winter projects at PJCC. He said 188 members have already signed up for this year as of the time of this meeting. Trustee Rebecca Kassay was absent and did not deliver a report by proxy.
The board of trustees will meet again Monday, Feb. 6, with a scheduled public hearing to amend the village code concerning dogs and other animals.
The Port Jefferson Village Board of Trustees convened at Village Hall Monday, Nov. 7, for an evening packed with pressing public business.
East Beach bluff
Mayor Margot Garant reported developments from the East Beach bluff construction site, stating buildout of the lower toe wall “has been moving along very nicely.”
“The steel wall is in, the concrete cap is about 100% in, there’s a lot of concrete rebar in there, and now they’re putting in the anchors through the wall and pinning the wall into the cliffside,” she said.
At the upland, the village must soon decide the fate of the clubhouse at Port Jefferson Country Club. The mayor said she has been gathering information from the village’s hired engineers and will provide the board with their findings later this month.
During the public comments, village resident Myrna Gordon inquired about Garant’s recent announcement regarding forthcoming informational meetings on the upland proposals. [See “A message from Mayor Margot Garant: A candid discussion about East Beach bluff,” The Port Times Record, Nov. 3.]
Responding to Gordon, the mayor said more information would be made available following the meeting later this month.
“I’m still getting information from the engineers, looking at some of the drainage plans and alternative solutions for the upland project,” she said. “We put the [upper] wall out to bid. The engineer just got back to us with an analysis of the bid, so it’s coming together for the board to review with me.”
She added, “Then, we’ll be setting a date and either making a presentation at the next board meeting or a special town hall, depending on which way the board thinks we need to go.”
Public safety
Representing the Suffolk County Police Department was police officer Sergio Möller. He stressed the need for drivers to lock their cars and take their keys with them when exiting their vehicles.
“Fifty percent of the cars that get stolen within the 6th Precinct are vehicles that were already running with their keys in it, and that’s a problem,” he said. “Please take your keys with you. Shut the vehicle off. It [takes] only two seconds.”
Code enforcement chief Fred Leute underscored reasons for driving slowly on village roads. “It’s getting dark earlier now,” he said. “We have club and student athletes leaving the school late. It’s already dark, so just drive slow.”
Multiple residents pressed the board on pedestrian safety and walkability. Ana Hozyainova, who ran for trustee earlier this year, asked whether the board is considering a villagewide assessment to promote walkability, bikeability and pedestrian safety.
Responding on behalf of the board, trustee Rebecca Kassay reported she, Deputy Mayor Kathianne Snaden and village staff are exploring the possibility of conducting a study.
“We were pointed toward firms who would do a study, a villagewide study to look at what are the big issues in the village, and how in our particular village can we achieve the goals we want to, both with speed reduction and pedestrian safety,” Kassay said.
Snaden added there might be grant opportunities to subsidize the cost of the study. “It’s expensive, so we have to figure out a way to pay for it,” she said.
Information technology
Kevin Wood, the village’s parking administrator, director of economic development and communications committee head, delivered a presentation on the importance of securing the village’s information technology systems.
Wood’s report comes in the wake of a recent cyberattack against the Suffolk County government. He said municipalities are susceptible to ransomware and other hostile online events due to underfunding, understaffing and outdated systems.
Based on meetings with Island Tech Services, the village’s network partner based out of Ronkonkoma, Wood said he is working to curtail these concerns.
“I live this every day,” Wood said. “I try to be ahead of the curve on this, of what our vulnerabilities are. I have met with ITS in person, and we think we’re on top of it in a lot of different ways.”
He added, “If you look at my past reports, you’ll see why we’re ahead of the curve, but we still have to go forward and think about all of the ways we may be vulnerable.”
The village began enforcing two-factor authentication earlier this month, requiring village employees to pass through a second layer of verification to log into government accounts.
“You cannot sign onto your email with Google without having a way of authenticating [your identity], either through an authenticating app or through your cellphone,” Wood said. “It’s a little bit of a [pain], but we have to get through this because there’s been an indication that that’s how [hackers] are getting in.”
Wood also advocated the village upgrade to Municity 5, a multiplatform, cloud-computing municipal software program. He said this upgrade could make the Building Department “much more efficient and amazing.”
“Because of understaffing and other items, we have not gotten this done,” he said. “I just wanted to report that we have got to get this done.”
Wood further addressed how new technologies will affect parking. Namely, an automated license plate recognition system is already used to enforce parking limits on Main and East Main. This system, Wood said, is gradually supplanting the previous parking enforcement method.
Wood concluded his presentation by noting a villagewide software audit is ongoing to assess other vulnerabilities in the village’s various tech spheres.
Tax code
The night also included a public hearing to amend a section of the tax code. Explaining the measure, village attorney Brian Egan said the New York State Legislature sporadically changes its property tax exemptions for senior citizens.
These changes, according to Egan, often do not correspond to the village’s tax schedule, creating an inconsistency between the state and the village’s tax laws. The motivation for the amendment was to automatically update the village tax code according to changes in state law.
“Instead of us missing that updated income, so a senior citizen can still qualify if that income level went up … we’re going to now set it automatically to whatever the state has,” he said.
Following the public hearing, the board approved the amendment unanimously.
Rental property code
Also on the agenda were two items to put out for public hearing amendments to the village’s rental property code. Kassay, who operates an inn, has helped inform the board of potential code changes, notably affecting Airbnb rentals.
Trustee Lauren Sheprow questioned this process. “I’m still unclear as to how — and I’m going to put out this disclaimer without malice — how a trustee can participate in creating a code and informing the board about a code that has direct impact on a business that she is vested in,” she said.
Sheprow added, “I think there are guidelines and regs in [the New York Conference of Mayors] that say this has a perception or could be perceived as a conflict of interest.”
Responding to Sheprow’s concern, Garant suggested delineating a potential conflict of interest is complicated given how the code affects all board members in their capacity as residents.
“How I feel about this is everything we vote on impacts us because we’re all residents,” the mayor said.
However, she expressed uncertainty regarding enforcing the code change, saying, “I think we need to figure out how we want to, as a board, grasp these issues from an enforcement perspective.”
On the ethics question, Kassay offered that she would recuse herself from any future vote related to this matter. Her intended role was to inform the board, given her professional expertise.
“We all have expertise,” she said. “I gave my expertise and perspective because there’s a lot that seems strange and weird, and it’s an odd industry. For me, whatever comes of it comes of it.” The trustee added, “If you’re looking at it, it’s creating more competition. The way it’s written, for my personal business, there’s no benefit.”
Responding, Sheprow said: “Regardless of what you are telling us right now, your involvement in this process is a conflict.”
The board agreed to table the two items pending an ethics review from the New York Conference of Mayors.
To watch the full general meeting, including trustee reports and public comments, click here.
The county legislature passed a bill to crack down on reckless bicycling this week, Port Jefferson officials created a village task force that will help prevent problems and keep patrons safe. File photo from SCPD
Village officials have moved to curb reckless biking around Port Jeff by impounding bikes of people they find breaking the code.
At the Nov. 4 board meeting, Port Jefferson officials amended the village code to allow Suffolk County police and code enforcement officers to impound bicycles from reckless riders, including juveniles.
“As an era of common sense is not really operating anymore regarding bicycles, we have heard and seen kids running in front of cars, playing games where they’re hooking onto cars — incredibly dangerous activities out there,” village attorney Brian Egan said. “Vehicles are taking incredibly dangerous maneuvers to avoid these bikes.”
The code’s language forbids persons from trick riding, which usually comes in the form of wheelies, weaving back and forth in traffic or hanging onto automobiles driving on the road. It also forbids people from riding distracted, such as while using a phone or camera, though using a GoPro camera or similar devices while biking is permissible, according to the village attorney.
Acting Chief of Code Enforcement Fred Leute Jr. could not be reached for comment.
Egan said at the Nov. 4 meeting that the law was being “narrowly tailored” to still allow bike riding in the village.
Bikes seized by either code enforcement or Suffolk police are kept in Port Jeff at the Department of Public Works building, with a record of impounding kept by the head of Code Enforcement. A parent or guardian can retrieve the impounded bike on behalf of a minor.
Some residents at the meeting questioned if there were any issues with taking and impounding a minor’s bike, but Egan said it has worked for villages like Babylon.
“In practice, we see from other villages that these bikes never get retrieved,” he said.
Mayor Margot Garant said after they reach a certain number of bikes that are not recovered after a time, they would hold an auction like they have done for kayaks left on village racks after the season is complete. She said the village would likely decrease the price of impounded bikes based on age.
“We have to review the impounding fee, because I think with the kayaks, we didn’t take into consideration an aging timeline, it was one set fee and here we were with all these kayaks,” she said.
In August of this year, the Village of Babylon passed a similar measure to curb the number of reckless bicyclists. That village fined riders over 16 years of age $250 when charged with violating the village code.
The village has yet to set any fines from breaking this new section of the code or for retrieving the bike. Village officials said that decision would come at a future date after discussion, likely the next board meeting Nov. 18.
Port Jeff and Belle Terre would like to be absorbed by the Mount Sinai Ambulance District, which is overseen by Brookhaven.
The villages of Port Jefferson and Belle Terre are proposing a change to its ambulance service contracts with the goal of increased efficiency on the mind.
Currently emergency ambulance services are provided to homes in Mount Sinai Ambulance District, and the two incorporated villages by the Port Jefferson Ambulance Company, a not-for-profit corporation located on Crystal Brook Hollow Road in Mount Sinai.
The ambulance company provides services to the three entities through individual contracts, with a projected 2018 total budget of $1.4 million. Port Jeff and Belle Terre villages contracted KPC Planning Services Inc. to examine the possibility of proposing to expand the Mount Sinai Ambulance District to encompass the two villages, thus simplifying the process and requiring a single contract with the company for its existing coverage area.
Port Jeff Village Attorney Brian Egan called the current set up, “not even close to efficient,” noting the three entities do not even operate on the same fiscal year, making budgeting for ambulance services more complicated than village officials say it needs to be.
“It creates a problem for us because the 51 percent majority can pass a budget without our say,” Port Jeff Mayor Margot Garant said during a May board meeting. The Mount Sinai Ambulance District makes up more than 50 percent of the ambulance company’s territory and is overseen by the Town of Brookhaven.
KPC Planning Services’ report summed up the goal behind the proposed change: “Operationally, the district managers must answer to three municipalities to make a capital, equipment or operational decision. The goal of the expanded district is to remove the village[s] from operational responsibility and vest the power exclusively in the Town [of Brookhaven].”
In actuality, Port Jefferson Village’s contract with the ambulance company expired in 2011, meaning the entities have continued a relationship without an official contract for seven years.
“It means no change in area, no change in service, no change in population — everything remains exactly the same,” Egan said in an interview. “The only structure that we’re changing is that we would no longer be a contracting party. It would be 100 percent exclusively in control of the Town of Brookhaven.”
Egan said residents should not expect to see any changes in their taxes, services or even the name on the side of an ambulance in the case of an emergency. Both villages have passed resolutions proposing the change, which will need to be acted on by Brookhaven before it can go into effect. Egan said he’s not sure of the timeline from the town’s perspective but hopes it is soon.
Consolidating services has been on the mind of Brookhaven Supervisor Ed Romaine (R), as the town was named the winner of a $20 million grant for its proposals as part of a New York State competition earlier this year.
“Elimination of this three-ring tangle is consistent with Brookhaven Town Supervisor Edward Romaine’s goal to eliminate duplication in districts, streamline decision making and consolidate services,” the KPC report said.
