Lumberland gets meeting date on permit issue

By DAVID HULSE

GLEN SPEY — After months of sidestepping a query from the Town of Lumberland, state officials have agreed to meet with Lumberland Supervisor John LiGreci to discuss a plan to recoup municipal costs from non-profit property owners through a system of user fees.

Before ascending to the supervisor’s position, Councilman LiGreci began investigating new revenue means when he entered office last year. A conversation with staff at U.S. Representative Benjamin Gilman’s office revealed the user fee alternative, one that is said to be enforced in several other states, Maine among them.

LiGreci, who has not detailed his plan, has broadly proposed the use of fees for some municipal services, to be levied against properties, in amounts determined the acreage in the tract. LiGreci says the idea would impact not-for profits, which are exempt from property tax and often own large tracts of land.

LiGreci says getting the details and processes for implementing the fees are the reason for the meeting and he outlined a high-level session in Albany.

Paul Miller, a Real Property Services authority on property tax legislation, is now scheduled to meet with LiGreci, Representative Gilman and state Senator John Bonacic.

LiGreci, who claims these fees can be enacted by a simple resolution of a town board, had hoped to get details early last year, but then reported that upcoming elections made scheduling difficult.

After the elections passed and no meeting date was forthcoming, LiGreci reported that lobbyists, those with not-for-profit interests, had exerted political pressure to delay or prevent the meeting.

Announcing the meeting to the town board last week, LiGreci was pleased to get at least a tentative date. “It may change, depending on Mr. Gilman or Mr. Bonacic’s schedule, but I definitely want them to attend,” he said. “We’re on the right track,” he added.

The meeting is currently scheduled to take place in Albany on February 28.

In other business last week the town board:

• appointed Charles Carr to a vacant seat on the town board;
• appointed Greg Wagner Jr. to the town constabulary;
• discussed proposed zoning changes and kennel definitions to address recent dog complaints;
• approved a $9,920 landfill test-well-sampling contract for Life Science Inc.;
• approved a resolution supporting Woodstone Development’s federal energy regulatory complaint to establish minimum water levels at Toronto Reservoir;
• appointed Shirley Kainey to head a new town Welcome Committee; and
• approved a $7,272 to Intelligent Informations Systems Technologies for the purchase of new computers and network upgrades in town offices.