Paul Szmal: And it's time for Geneva Town Supervisor Mark Bannuti to check in as we recap some of the resolutions and items from the most recent town board meeting. Mark, good to have you on board as always.
Mark Venuti: Good morning, great to be here.
Paul Szmal: And we'll hit the highlights here, starting with a public hearing that was scheduled for local law number three, which is the adopting a new highway excavation law.
Mark Venuti: Yes, so the town doesn't have a highway excavation law, we discovered. When NYSIG presented our highway superintendent with a blanket, we can go into any of your roads and I checked with the town attorney who said, no you can't do that, the highway superintendent can't approve that. You got to have a law that goes to the town board and all that stuff. So that's what we're doing. We've presented a law, taking a look at what other towns have done. And it's not a big deal, but if you want to dig in the town's right of ways, you've got to come, get a permit, make sure that you're going to do it properly and not interfere with anything.
Paul Szmal: I get the feeling that's something that doesn't happen too often, where you're looking at something and all of a sudden you thought there was something on the books for it and you're like, hey wait a minute.
Mark Venuti: You know, that was one of them. Yeah, absolutely.
Paul Szmal: All right, let's move on to another local law, local law number two. There was a resolution regarding this, found it to be a type one action under what's called the State Environmental Quality Review Regulations. I was reading through this and reading through the resolution package and I'm not quite sure I understand exactly what this is about. Can you break that down?
Mark Venuti: Sure. So we were actually looking at our zoning map and we found that, you know, we redid the map after our comprehensive plan, it would be about 2017, and there were some real, you know, mistakes basically. For example, I'll give you, so on County Road 6, people know Preemption Road, there's a dental office and right next to it is an animal hospital. So we looked at the map and they've been there for a long time and they're zoned ag, agriculture, because right behind them is agriculture. Right. Technically speaking. So technically speaking, they're not allowed in the ag zone, so we went, wait a minute, that was obviously a mistake. The ag zone went, was pushed into the border, into the frontage of County Road 6. So what this is doing is, and we found a few more like that, where apparently in the mapping it was just a mistake. So this is just kind of a cleanup thing to put them in the proper zone so that their use matches the zone.
Paul Szmal: And now, is that passed now? I know there was a public hearing on this, right?
Mark Venuti: Yes, that passed. So we had a public hearing, nobody spoke, meaning there's no opposition basically. And so we went through the environmental review and we passed the law, so they're all set now.
Paul Szmal: Okay. We're talking with Geneva Town Supervisor Mark Venuti. We're going through some of the items from the most recent town board meeting. There was another resolution, and this has to do with some of the budgeting for fire departments and the Westlake Road Fire Association, White Springs Fire Department, and the Northside Fire Company.
Mark Venuti: Yeah, the chiefs, we have three volunteer fire companies in the town, and the chiefs met with me a month or so ago and presented a proposal. They said we don't have any water rescue, either equipment or training, and we're here on Seneca Lake. We've got ponds, we've got streams, there's flooding that goes on these days with these heavy rainstorms. So they really wanted the town to help to purchase some equipment. And then they also said that this would actually help in their recruiting because there's people that are interested in that kind of training. And it's water rescue and it's also ice dealing with frozen water bodies. So we talked it all over and we said we ought to be able to support this because these guys save us a ton of money. It's all volunteer. We don't pay. I mean, we give them money every year for their operations, but everybody's a volunteer. It's a lot of, it's a big commitment. So I felt like, you know, they want something like this. We ought to be able to help them out. So we passed that and we're going to be able to purchase this equipment. And by the way, there was no other sort of water rescue people anywhere close to here. So they're, you know, we're going to help them out. We're going to buy this equipment. They're going to be able to use it. They'll start training people. So when there are issues on the lake, frozen ponds, anything like that, they'll have the right equipment to go and make those rescues and help people.
Paul Szmal: And it's great to be able to support those volunteer fire organizations. Like you were saying, Mark, to operate a, like the city of Geneva does, to operate a paid fire department is a significantly greater expense than actually, you know, getting, helping volunteer fire departments with financial donations, maybe helping them get grants, things of that nature.
Mark Venuti: For sure. Yep. This is, they're, they're a great resource for us.
Paul Szmal: There were some other items on the agenda. There was a review of the financial data and records for the town justices. Anything interesting come up there?
Mark Venuti: Nope. The interesting thing is they're, they're doing great. So every year the office of court administration wants the town to say those records have been reviewed. The judges have opened their books. And we do have a, we have an auditor group that comes in, not just them. They look at the justices, they look at the town clerk, they look at the overall. So there's like three components, but they went through the justices records and everything was squeaky clean. So we have to adopt that. And then I send that resolution with the report to the office of court administration to say, yes, our judges have opened their records. We've looked them over. Everything is good. So that's one of those annual procedural things. Every year we do that.
Paul Szmal: And there was also some discussion on the town and the city working together on food and waste reduction. And this is in regards to the city transfer station.
Mark Venuti: Yes. And it's with the towns too. So there was an application last year for a grant and the city was successful in achieving it. So this is all about waste reduction, diverting stuff from the landfill basically. So the city is the applicant, but the town is a sub applicant or a sub awardee. So is reuse systems. And so is Blueprint Geneva, we're all working together. We're going to expand services at the city and town transfer stations. We're going to help get reuse launched. There's money in there for the reuse group that started out in Geneva. All these things are ways to sort of keep people from throwing stuff away that could be used by others. Or one of the big pushes here is the food waste. So 20 to 30% of trash is food, which doesn't need to go to the landfill. I mean, so the city has these really big vermiculture trenches down off of Doran Avenue. The food waste we collect at the town transfer station goes down there. You can go to Doran Avenue yourself. But we want to encourage more and more people to recycle their food waste, not put it in the trash. When that goes up to the landfill, that creates the methane, that creates the odor, all the stuff that we don't want. So if we can get organics out, we can reduce 20 to 30% of what's going to the landfill. And when the landfill closes, that's low hanging fruit to just reduce your waste.
Paul Szmal: Yeah. And those organic compounds, a lot of them can be recycled by farmers and turned into fertilizer. So the vermiculture trenches I've mentioned turn that stuff into beautiful compost.
Mark Venuti: And there was also some discussion about the Carter Road extension, I guess, took a little bit of damage from the storms back at the beginning of the month.
Paul Szmal: Yeah. So that storm, I think it was like April 1st, 2nd. I mean, it caused flooding in a lot of places, but that place has been, it's a convergence of a lot of water coming off North Street, a big townhouse complex, the fields to the west, Cornell, all these places. And it comes into there in that area. They get it when there's a heavy downpour. I mean, a lot of places did, and they were pretty upset about it. We're putting together a project that will create retention there. And there's a private owner there. The city's part of Loomis Woods that the city owns. The town is, we've been involved with the Soil and Water Conservation District. They've got a plan. The problem is they can't do it this year. It's a long story, but it's going to be next year. So the people there are, you know, they really wanted it to happen this year. It can't be done, but we will get this done and it will bring relief to them.
Paul Szmal: And there's a couple of events I want to mention before we wrap things up. One is happening tomorrow, and that is a mattress recycling event.
Mark Venuti: Yes. The town is hosting, at our transfer station up 32 White Springs Road, it's a county program free to any county resident, mattresses, box springs, that kind of stuff. You can just come and drop them off. We put them into a big tractor trailer that goes to this recycler outside of Buffalo that uses 100% of these things. They take it all apart. The mattress stuff is bedding for animals. They get the metal out of there. They get the wood out. So it's really a good program and it's, you know, it's, you try to drop a mattress off at a landfill, they're going to charge you $20, $30. So this is free. You have to, you're supposed to sign up. Sometimes people don't show up. So if, I shouldn't say this, but if you come and we have room, we will take it. If you're a county resident. So between 8 and 11 tomorrow, come on up with your old mattress that's in the garage or something and you don't know what to do with it and we'll take it.
Paul Szmal: And kind of want to do a save a date here for May the 31st. This is an annual event. I remember talking about this in the past, the free stuff day and fix it clinic. Right.
Mark Venuti: So May 31st and there's a rain date is the following week. So free stuff day is you can drop stuff off between 10 and 12. Good stuff that, you know, you don't need anymore. And then from 12 to 2, you can come and take it. And at the same time, we'll have a fix it clinic. So you got your broken lamp, you got your rickety rocking chair. You can come up to the town and again, the same place that 32 White Springs. And we'll, we've got guys there that will work on it. And hopefully by the end of the day, you'll get a nice, you'll get your piece back and it's working.
Paul Szmal: And if you want to lend a hand with that event or with the mattress recycling tomorrow, a little extra volunteer help wouldn't hurt.
Mark Venuti: Wouldn't hurt at all. If you think can hoist a mattress or a box spring, come on over at 8, between 8 and 11. And then on May 31st, always looking for fixers, people that are handy and people just helping with free stuff day.
Paul Szmal: And next Geneva town board meeting is May 12th, May 12th, second Tuesday. And that's when that one, there's that one public hearing that's on the agenda. Public hearing will be the first thing at six.
