Law proposed on board attendance at town meetings

During her town supervisor’s report at the Town Board meeting, Thursday, April 10, Victoria Perotti initiated discussion of a local law for Planning and Zoning board attendance.The town at present has only a resolution that requires members to complete four hours of training per year, Perotti said.Perotti asked Town Board members if they would like the attorney to the town to create a local law to address the attendance issue.Councilwoman Vicki Doyle spoke up first, in favor, followed by Councilwoman Gretchen Hitselberger, who was not.“I say it’s necessary,” Councilman Mike DeLango said. “These positions are — they mean something. We have a lot of projects coming down the pike and we need participation. I understand that it is a volunteer position, but you have to be there, you have to attend.”DeLango added that due to quorum requirements, applicants waste time and money on legal fees (when they bring their lawyers to meetings) when board members don’t show up.“If we don’t need to remove anybody from the board, why waste the money, why waste the time on it?” Hitselberger asked.“I don’t think the sole purpose of putting a local law in place is to remove anyone from the board; I believe it’s to set standards,” Perotti said in response.“The people that serve on these boards need to be at those meetings,” said Councilman Stephen Perotti.Hitselberger asked Councilman Perotti if he was saying that Planning and Zoning board members were currently not showing up to meetings.“We have had an issue for a long time of spotty and poor attendance on Planning Boards, maybe also on the Zoning Board of Appeals,” Doyle said. “It’s just a reality — it’s a reality, it’s not singling out anyone.”Supervisor Perotti asked the board if they’d like to make the resolution.Hitselberger said she’d like to hear from the respective board chairs first.Supervisor Perotti invited Planning Board Chairman Joseph Fontaine, present in the audience, to speak at the podium.“I brought it up at our last meeting and everybody agreed that there should be some kind of criteria for the attendance,” Fontaine said. “It’s not to kick anybody off the board.”Fontaine made a distinction between viable absences that could be excused under the local law versus those that would warrant removal from the board. The chair said the Planning Board has gone months without certain members attending. Without a letter of resignation, there is no way to remove those members, he said. “My bottom-line concern is, right now in order to get somebody off the Planning Board and Zoning Board of Appeals … you have to go through an entire process,” Hitselberger said.“So if there isn’t an existing, pressing need for someone to be off the board, why not leave that period of deliberation in place?” she asked.“I’ve been through this so many times, where people don’t come forever and ever to meetings,” Fontaine said. “I make sure I go to every meeting because we want have a quorum if that person’s not going to show up for the next five months and we know that.”Fontaine said the current system does not work and boards need the ability to act.“As far as the Town Board ousting someone off the Planning or the Zoning board,” Councilman Perotti said, “well if they go to the meetings then they don’t have anything to worry about.”“It’s an attendance issue,” added DeLango. “If you don’t show up for the meetings then you come to a hearing before the Town Board.”DeLango asked Hitselberger what she was worried about.“It’s not a question of worrying, like I said to you before, Mike, it’s a question of allowing deliberation without having kneejerk reactions and not wasting money … when we have so many other things that we need to spend our legal fees on,” Hitselberger responded.“Legal fees are also wasted when you have a meeting without quorum,” Fontaine said.Supervisor Perotti moved to authorize the attorney to the town to introduce a local law for Planning and Zoning board attendance.The vote passed 4-1, with Hitselberger voting no.