Paul Szmal: We're joined in studio by Geneva Town Supervisor Mark Venuti. Good morning. Welcome back.
Mark Venuti: Good morning, Ted.
Paul Szmal: So let's start with your proposed budget. You gave your first draft to the town board, and I know there'll be lots more talk about it, but just sort of give us an overview of how it's looking for the 2025 budget.
Mark Venuti: Yeah, it looks fine. There aren't any big surprises. We've got normal, you know, some trucks that are going to be sold and others and new ones purchased. There weren't any, there's no different, no changes in our tax situation. We've got enough funds to basically run our operation. The only thing that people see is for the fire protection, for the volunteer fire companies, we have a small tax, but otherwise it's looking good. We'll have a work session on October 2nd, a special town board meeting where we'll go over it with the board, and the processes after changes are made to that, that becomes what's called the preliminary budget, and then we'll have a public hearing on that, and then if that goes well, we'll pass it.
Paul Szmal: Some salutes at the meeting this week. One was Jacob Fox, the sustainability coordinator. He worked with a group of HWS students during their day of service. What did they do?
Mark Venuti: Well, they worked on the bike park, so we had some clay and some soil dropped off, some mulch, and dressed that area up and patched it up a little bit. It was great. They had a whole bunch of kids, and they got quite a bit in until it hit the rain there. There was some rain later that day, but no, it was really helpful. We really enjoy it when we get the help of the students.
Paul Szmal: And I hope I'm saying the name correctly, Eric Reuscher, is that right?
Mark Venuti: Yes. Well, he says Reuscher, yeah.
Paul Szmal: Okay, so there was an audit of the town hall that turned up a few issues, and he worked very hard to correct those, and the auditor came back and said, okay, we're all good.
Mark Venuti: Yes, we did have somebody come in unannounced and walked around and looked for, well, where's your safety thing about your cleaning products? And, you know, we're supposed to have a violence prevention policy and a whole bunch of stuff. Well, no, we haven't had any violence, but it's right. They're right. The law requires us to have this policy, so we've been putting that together. Also, you have some equipment purchases coming up that you know you're going to need, and thinking forward, the town is going to create an equipment reserve so that if you have to buy a quarter million dollar truck or something, there'll be some money there for that.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, that's exactly it. We need a big plow truck, and that is a quarter million dollar purchase, even maybe perhaps more than that when it's all fixed out with the plow and everything else. So we are going to establish we're going to put $100,000 in the 2025 budget. So in 26, we're going to buy that truck. We're part of the way there.
Mark Venuti: You're going to have a couple of public hearings coming up. One concerns the plan unit development law. You're telling me you had somebody come in that had a good idea, but they didn't have five acres, and everybody kind of looked around and said, well, why is it five? Does it need to be five?
Paul Szmal: Exactly. So there's a guy that's got some property out on Route 14 that he wants to put in some vacation rental little cottages, and he's been able to put together around three acres. He's going to buy another piece that will get him a little past that, and it really is perfect for what we call a planned unit development. And so the five was just chosen kind of arbitrarily when we did our last zoning change and our comprehensive plan, which is now 10 years old. We're going to look at the whole thing again actually next year, but we just said, well, why is it five? Why can't it be three? You still have to come to the town board. You got to convince us it's the right thing. We have a public hearing, so all the protections are there. So we're moving forward to try to, we'll have a public hearing at our next meeting on this lowering of the requirement from five to three acres.
Mark Venuti: The other public hearing concerns notification, written notification to property owners if a dangerous condition is found. Is this a new policy or updating a current one?
Paul Szmal: Well, it's really updating our code because we were told by the Association of Towns recommended and the town attorney that we should have this in place. Most other places do. It requires before you can sue the town for something like say a sidewalk that's not prepared or a road problem that we get notice of the problem and an opportunity to fix it.
Mark Venuti: Oh, so this is not notification to a property owner. It's the other way around.
Paul Szmal: No, no. It's notification to the town.
Mark Venuti: Right. Okay. Oh, I see. It's so that we have an opportunity to be aware of a problem and to fix it. And then if we don't fix it, then we're in trouble.
Paul Szmal: There's more discussion about the Slate Rock Road Bridge. We've talked about it. It's an older bridge. You closed it during the winter. Now there's some discussion about maybe just closing it permanently. What's the opinion or has there been much from the public? Because as you said, there are ways around it. So it's not gonna, it won't make anybody go 20 miles out of their way if you do decide to close it.
Mark Venuti: Yeah. So what we've done is there's only, there's two properties that are actually on Slate Rock Road. A farm on one side and a residence on the other. We talked to the owners of both those properties. Of course, it's convenient for them and in all things being equal, they'd love it to be open. But neither of them said, oh, we're not gonna, you know, have an attack and be, you know, crazy about it. So we're still looking into it. The point is, do we want to spend $100,000, $200,000 on a bridge that just serves a couple of properties? And maybe people like to run down there once in a while. But the question is, do we keep it open to traffic, car traffic, auto traffic, or just make it bike and walking? We haven't, we're not done with our analysis of that. We want to get some pricing on what it would really cost to replace the bridge. But as you've noticed, as you said, I mean, you know, we've been closing it in the winter. So these heavy plow trucks and salt trucks don't have to go over there and put more stress. It's a timber bridge and it's in good shape actually. But the state's been, the DOT has been coming by and telling us, well, you got to do a survey. It's cost us seven, eight hundred, seven, eight thousand dollars to tell them, well, it hasn't really moved or it's moved a quarter of an inch. And do we want to keep doing that? That's the question.
Paul Szmal: Pickleball mania continues to sweep the finger lakes. Where are we in conversion of those former tennis courts by the high school?
Mark Venuti: Well, the resurfacing is completed. So the work has been done. They're working on a sign and a shed, a storage shed. So we're going to get these nets. We've got some enthusiasts that are actually making contributions to buy some nets and the town's going to pick up the rest of it. So we should be out there soon being able to have outdoor pickleball. When the school's not in session or using it, it'll be open to the public.
Paul Szmal: Sounds kind of neat actually. I used to play tennis and I'm thinking I can't run that far anymore. So pickleball is sort of a smaller version. You still have the excitement of tennis without having to run quite so far.
Mark Venuti: No, that's exactly it. It's being, it's exploded among seniors. But now it's getting, younger people are playing it. And I'll tell you what, I'm pretty sure that in a few years it'll be a high school, middle school sport because it's just everywhere. People are crazy about it. We have one Rotarian who's just like this huge evangelist for the sport. Every time she comes to the meeting, come play pickleball. And actually, I think they did organize a group pickleball outing.
Paul Szmal: Speaking of hearings, there'll be one coming out. Well, not really a hearing, but a public meeting at the Geneva Town Hall September 24th from 5 to 7 to discuss the county landfill future.
Mark Venuti: Yes, if people have been maybe following the news on this, we did have a, the county hired this group to do a report analyzing the landfill, the ups and downs, what could be done there, could it be expanded. Because basically, if people recall, the end of 2028 is the end of the 25-year lease that the county has with Casella. And it's also supposed to be pretty much filled up by that time. So we have options, you know, what do we do? Do we just, we could do nothing and leave it to the haulers. We could have a transfer station. They've even come up with some scenarios for going vertically or horizontally to extend the landfill. You know, personally, I've been forgetting out of the garbage importing business. But this meeting will be a presentation about this study. And we're trying to get feedback from the community. So, you know, I urge people to come. It'll be at the Geneva Town Hall. And, you know, you'll hear about, you know, what the report in the report is available online as well, if you want to take a look at it. It's like 300 pages with the appendix. But, you know, you'll be able to hear the one of the people that put the report together will be there. And you can get some information. The town, the Board of Supervisors, our plan is to make a decision by the end of the year. And I'm happy to do that because that will point us in the direction we need to go.
Paul Szmal: The contract's been signed with NYSERDA for the installation of the solar panels at the town hall. So what's the timeline? And will those power the entire town hall?
Mark Venuti: Well, what happens is that the power will go into the grid.
Paul Szmal: Okay.
Mark Venuti: And we're looking at probably a spring build. But what it's going to do is save the town about $10,000 a year. And the expense of it is all covered by a grant that we've earned by doing a bunch of Climate Smart Green Energy steps. We've earned all these points. And so we qualified for this grant. So basically, we're getting this free power source and saving $10,000 a year for the next 25 years.
Paul Szmal: Sounds pretty good.
Mark Venuti: Geneva Town Supervisor Mark Venuti, we cover a lot of ground each week or each month, and we appreciate it. Thanks so much.
Paul Szmal: Thank you, Ted. My pleasure.
Mark Venuti: All right. Always good to talk.
