New Town Newsletter Missing Some Important "News"

New Town Newsletter Missing Some Important Information

The newly minted Ballston Bulletin is a step in the right direction but it is only a political piece until it is used to fully "Inform" town residents. The second sentence of the letter gives us hope! - "The purpose of this newsletter is to keep residents informed about the actions your Town representatives and committees are doing, planning to do and discussing." ...but the content disappoints by only sharing bright spots. https://mailchi.mp/066f1a883dbd/the-ballston-bulletin-june-2018 

So what information is missing? 

The town is rewriting zoning law: That's pretty important information. Highlights and discussions of this rewrite should be included in the bulletin every month. Notes on the progress and issues of this rewrite should be shared. The rewrite has been going on for months and there's a big push to wrap it up. Issues like maximum size of buildings, signage, green space, buffers, set backs and use of PUDDs and TDR's are all being discussed now. Why not mention these things in the bulletin? Encourage residents to play a part.

The June 13th Dolomite $4 Million Lawsuit Settlement: Where are the details? What concessions did the town offer to persuade Dolomite to drop the law suit? The Town's PR firm wrote a press release as if Dolomite was offering concessions. What did we give up?

Counselman Goslin Lawsuit: It was also reported the Dolomite's lawsuit against Mr. Goslin was dropped. What did the town give up? Why was it dropped?

Town's PR firm?: Yes, the town has a PR firm. Are they writing the Bulletin? The PR firm is understood to be a $18,000 per year expense. At this point it's hard to argue the town representatives don't need some good PR but the same money might be better spent on a part time employee or intern doing the same work. 

Town truck's available to use: From the Town Website - "Truck Reservations: Town trucks will be available for yard clean up May 1st - May 31st (Reservations start April 24th). There will be four trucks available per day.  Reservations will be taken and given in the order in which they are received. Truck reservations will also take place in October. Dates to be determined." This is the kind of information that belongs in the bulletin so we all can enjoy the benefits!

New Service Provided to Residents?

A few more tidbits: 

The town is planning legal action (eminent domain) against the many property owners in the lake sewer district that are refusing to sign easements for the pipe. Unplanned legal costs associated with this expected to mount.

History repeating itself again in less than a year? The town is pursuing another sewer district on the north end of town in the area known as Carpenters Acres. This looks like another case of leveraging unsuspecting homeowners in order to benefit new construction. Another wasteful political battle appears to be brewing. (When will our town representatives start putting us before developers?)

The town is looking at unplanned costs associated with the demolition and re-construction of the pavilion in Fireman's Grove (about $50,000)

Let's encourage town hall to be more transparent and inform residents with more than just the fluffy fun stuff. Residents have a right to know.

Addendum 7/27/2018 - July Bulletin has a list of meeting dates. That's a nice improvement. Even better if the meetings had an easy link to the current agendas and past minutes. Positive direction using today's technology.

Conversation of Allowable Building Size Coming to a Close

HOW BIG DO YOU WANT THE NEW BUILDINGS ON RT. 50 AND RT 67? COMMENT TO THE BALLSTON TOWN BOARD NOW

THE TOWN BOARD IS CURRENTLY ASKING THE PUBLIC FOR OPINIONS ON THE PROPOSED BUILDING SIZES THAT WILL BE ALLOWED ON RT. 50 AND RT. 67. WRITE TO THEM BEFORE THE NEXT BOARD AGENDA MEETING. HERE ARE THEIR EMAILS. And please come to this meeting. kstewart@townofballstonny.org ccurtiss@townofballstonny.org tszczepaniak@townofballstonny.org jantoski@townofballstonny.org wgoslin@townofballstonny.org smarruso@townofballstonny.org If you do not want a Walmarts, etc., pay attention to this. Several developers currently are pressuring the town board to change the zoning for Rt. 50 and Rt. 67 so they can build. Read below the excerpt from the Town Board Agenda Meeting from 6./26/18 for insight into what the board is proposing. To give you an idea of how large a building is in sq. ft., the new CVS is 13,255 sq. ft. • Sophia moved on to the commercial area on Rt. 50. Sophia stated that business highway 1 is near Carpenters Acres, and said “The majority of conversations we had were focused on how to ensure that Rt. 50 doesn’t over-develop, one of the exercises I thought we should think about is the maximum building ________. Mixed use center north for example, allows for 90,000 sq ft footprint, and I’m suggesting that we revise that to 60,000 sq. ft. One of the things I did to look at this was I used aerial ______, I tried to ______ into what I thought were __________or most likely to be developed based on ______. I took those lots_____. I took the average of _____, and then took the average, took out the lowest and the highest, and then I came up with what the average acrage was for a lot that was _____in that zone . Then I use a ratio to figure out based on general suburban commercial development ratio 
 ____, how much land do you need to have ____for every building. Based on the average in these zones, what could be accommodated? So, that’s ___it doesn’t have. So we have development potential assessment. And that’s what you see there on those pages. Partial ID, affiliated frontage_____, and then what I figured out to be the average lot sizes, and then the possible building footprint. I know we need to be more specific, ________. So I can start out with the current, and then have recommendations for those changes. • Sophia said that south of highway 1, the draft code is at 60,000, she suggests knocking it down to 45,000 sq. ft. Highway 2 existing code allows 50,000 and our draft code is 10,000 which is restrictive. Mixed use center south (runs from Meer to the county property line) existing code is 60,000, she suggests 25,000. 
 • Mr. Goslin replied with “I’d like to suggest that we take these recommendations that you’ve come up with and just see if we can get a little comment on them, if people have some comments that they could share with the board that would be appropriate and we could tweek these if we need to or maybe not, maybe we’re good.” 
 • Szczepaniak replied, “I recommend those comments to be sent to the board, myself and/ or Sophia and we’ll send them to the board.”

Lake Hill Road Must Be Holding Back All of the High Ground Water if You Want to Believe Town Presenters

Top: Slide Page 18 from Town's Presentation for the Route 50 Sewer District
Bottom: New Stewarts Location. Where's all that Ground Water They Talked About??