HIGHLAND, NY — Former and current members of the Highland planning board say the Barryville Oasis, a bar and restaurant co-owned by the new town supervisor, John Pizzolato, has been in violation of town code for nearly a year.

The town attorney, Steven Mogel, suggested that the town hire a special counsel to look into the problem. He told the River Reporter he has recused himself from matters pertaining to the Oasis.  The new town board appointed Mogel when it reorganized in January.

Now that Pizzolato is supervisor, his relationship to the town has fundamentally changed. He went from a business owner who often objected to the town’s actions to a supervisor able to replace the very officials who took those actions.

“I think having special counsel appointed by a majority of the board should be enough to be enough to resolve this situation,” Mogel said. “I don’t see why it would need, you know, any other sort of exceptional action.”

The violation has been disruptive to the town. The former planning board chair refused to talk to Pizzolato for months because of it. And the breakdown of communication led Pizzolato to appoint another chair.

“I realize that you would want to hold the new supervisor to a different standard because I should be the gold standard for compliance and for that model in general,” Pizzolato told the River Reporter, “but I also should be treated with the same respect that any other applicant would be.”

He was referring to the approval process for the Oasis, which has been bumpy for Pizzolato and his business partners. Last spring the code enforcement official mistakenly told the partners they needed a special use permit, which adds a layer of vetting not required of restaurants in Highland. In February 2023, the town issued a stop work order on the business and moved to sue the business, not only over several outstanding fire code violations but the unneeded special use permits as well. 

The confusion was cleared up. But the ordeal left Pizzolato distrustful of the town he now leads.

“We didn’t need to pay for the escrow account because we were both wrongfully closed on two occasions,” Pizzolato told the River Reporter, explaining why he didn’t pay $5,000 into the account, as all applicants with site plans are required to do. He said he received legal advice after the stop work order. "So we were like, 'We’re not paying escrow.'”

He said the stop work order lost the business “thousands and thousands of dollars.”

“They ate into our revenue with them thinking that it was correct, only to find out that they gave us the wrong determination,” he said.

The distrust goes in the other direction as well. A member of the Zoning Board of Appeals and a member of the planning board each told the River Reporter in separate interviews that Pizzolato, now that he is supervisor, has a serious conflict of interest. But they did not want their names attached to their statements because they believe Pizzolato will take them off their boards in retribution. They pointed to the example of Norm Sutherland, the planning board chair removed for refusing to talk to Pizzolato. 

They also lamented the loss of Sutherland’s invaluable expertise while the board works its way through two big projects—the Camp FIMFO resort and the former Catskill Mountain Resort at 211 Mail Road.

Sutherland said the planning board is holding these applicants’ feet to the fire, “making sure their i’s are dotted and t’s crossed, but not the captain of the ship,” meaning the supervisor.

JT Vogt, formerly the vice chair of the planning board and now a sitting member, read from a statement he had prepared at the last planning board meeting. “I feel that this was unfair to myself as the vice chairman,” he said. “If a breakdown in communication was occurring, the next step should have been to reach out to the next in chain of command and determine what the reasoning for the breakdown was. The newly elected town board promised transparency within the community, and I quote, ‘create meaningful jobs within our town for residents while avoiding clear conflicts of interest,’ neither of which took place, as I was blindsided by this action and never notified of any open vacancies within the planning board.”

He said Sutherland didn’t communicate with Pizzolato because "he felt it was unethical to communicate with the new supervisor as he has a pending application with this planning board and has not yet obtained proper approvals from this board for his establishment in Barryville.”

Items still outstanding

Although the Oasis is not in violation of the special use permit requirement, it is still in violation. Town code requires an engineered site plan for all uses except single-family homes, and it also requires an engineer’s review of the plan.

There is an engineered site plan for the Oasis. Planning board minutes from July 26, 2023, show that the board reviewed the site plan and gave the business owners a list of items that still needed to be addressed. (The site plan is not, for some reason, in the planning board’s files.)

Larry Fishman, chair of the Zoning Board of Appeals confirmed that an adequate site plan is still required for the Oasis.

The business owners have still not fulfilled a list of requests made last July by the code enforcement officer and the planning board. They are as follows:

• Sign-off by the State Historic Preservation Office;
• Engineer’s statement regarding the impact on wetlands;
• Engineer’s statement regarding the impact on endangered species;
• Engineer’s certification that the septic system supports the business’s proposed 42-person occupancy;
• Sanitary facilities for 42 patrons;
• Certified test for water bacteria and coliform;
• Letter from the state health department if a public water supply permit is required based on occupancy;
• Provide a cidery permit;
• Provide a NYS Liquor Authority permit if liquor is to be served other than cider;
• Stamps by licensed professionals for the site plan and surveys.

The River Reporter has submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the NYS Liquor Authority for proof that the Oasis, which advertises the sale of cocktails, is serving alcohol legally. The liquor license for the Stickett Inn is listed on the NYS Liquor Authority’s site, but there is no entry specifically for the Oasis. Pizzolato showed the River Reporter a license from the authority allowing the holder to serve cider at up to five branch offices located away from the licensed farm cidery, which in this case is Pizzolato’s business the Stickett Inn.

At the same July meeting in which the planning board made its list of requests, the board said it “will schedule a public hearing for the applicant pending a report to locate the septic and leech field and the remittance of an escrow check in the amount of $5,000. No public hearing will be held if the above is not received by the 14th day of August 2023.”

Pizzolatto said he thinks the  Oasis is "out of the purview of the planning board," and that he will now work directly with Al Fusco Engineering, the town's code enforcement officer. After that, he will present the site application to the ZBA and ask for a variance.

But Fishman said that process would circumvent the planning board. “If somebody went to the planning board and presented an application for site plan approval, and the planning board asked them for additional information, they should give the additional information,” he said. “If they feel that the additional information is wrong, or unprecedented, or too much or whatever, I guess they could come and ask for an interpretation from the zoning board. And we would, unless it was something totally outrageous, which I’d never seen before. There was no way that I could think of that we try to bypass the planning board.”

The code enforcement office is short-staffed, and there are limited hours posted. Alice Foster was moved from deputy clerk in the code enforcement office to the town clerk’s office. Monica McGill not only resigned as head clerk in the code enforcement office, she told the River Reporter on Monday that she is also resigning as planning board secretary.