109- Letter to the Town Board

I wrote the following letter to the Woodstock Town Board (emailed Tues night, Oct. 19, 2010) hours after learning that there was some confusion about when the members of the Town Board were supposed to have weighed in on the contents of the RUPCO housing project application. The letter is self-explanatory.

Dear Town Board,

There appears to be some confusion about when the Town Board was supposed to weigh in on water and sewer connection viability. It may be helpful to review pertinent parts of the DEIS and Findings Statement to get some clarity:

DEIS and FEIS

(As far as I can tell, the below delegation of responsibilities according to the DEIS did not change in the FEIS.)

In the Woodstock Commons DEIS, section 2.6.2 is called “Other Town Agencies.” The opening paragraph explains that “other town agencies have responsibilities with respect to review and approval of certain elements of the Woodstock Commons development...”

The section also reads: “The role of the Town Board involves the following considerations:

Acceptance of Offer of Dedication of Sanitary Sewer Force Main and Associated Grant of Easement” and a similar phrase for water system.

The body of the comment says that the town board “will be requested to act affirmatively.” This is what RUPCO asks every time it asks anything. It is phrased this way to suggest passively that the town board not analyze anything, but simply grant the request cited in each paragraph: to hook up.

The town water and sewer superintendent is listed as responsible ONLY for design approval and coordinating the timing of the work, the work of course being the hook up of the systems.

Everything else that the town board or water and sewer superintendent might have something to say about appears to be under the purview of the planning board, and it is not made clear which elements the water and sewer superintendent or the town board might have additional interest in. Can they comment on anything? Can the water and sewer superintendent be an interested party on the subject of property tax law? Probably not. But can the town board be an interested party on the subject of town services such as police and fire expenses? Yes, they could, but they should not be because the planning board is supposed to have that covered. What does the planning board NOT have covered? Nothing. It’s just that other interested agencies seem to have the discretion to say no, and the town board, according to RUPCO, does not have that discretion.

Kind of vague. How about, instead of trying to make sense of domains of responsibility, we look at sequence of decision-making, and maybe that will give us a clue.

FINDINGS STATEMENT

The Findings Statement was written, initially, by RUPCO, then edited and rewritten in part by Dara Trahan (and signed by Paul Shultis Jr with Planning Board comments taken into consideration.) Let us turn to one section that did not change significantly, or perhaps AT ALL from the first (RUPCO) version, to the last, (Trahan/Shultis) version:

On page 114 of the Final Findings Statement, find the section called “Matters to Be Decided.”

As far as I am aware, “To Be Decided” is the verb “to decide” conjugated in the future tense. The verb is “to decide,” NOT to scribble a signature without discretion or discernment.

Indeed, the opening paragraph of this section states that the lead agency acknowledges that implementation of the project “will require” [note the future tense there!] “permits, approvals, waivers and/or compliance determinations from not only the Planning Board but also a number of other government agencies following completion of the Planning Board’s environmental review process through issuance of this Findings Statement.”

Now, here again is a statement about the order of these decisions:

“The SEQRA Implementing Regulations require that each other involved agency makes its own SEQR Findings prior to granting the requested permit or authorization. However, the SEQRA Implementing Regulations require that the Lead Agency make its Findings first and do not allow another involved agency to make Findings or approve any aspect of the Proposed Action until the issuance of SEQR Findings by the Lead Agency.”

The Town Board cannot be BOTH an interested party expected to comment on the Planning Board’s domain of decision-making, AND an involved agency that must WAIT until the SEQR Findings by the lead agency have been issued.

Finally, in case you suspect that the heading “Matters to Be Decided” is a product of Dara Trahan’s editing, or of the Planning Board’s fancy, it’s not. “Matters to Be Decided,” in all of its future tense glory, was first written in the draft Findings Statement by RUPCO.

Thanks for your attention.

Robin Segal