Southampton Town Board Split on Hazardous Materials Bill, Other Items of Interest From September 12 Meeting

Southampton Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman, less than two months away from being term-limited out of office, told his board colleagues on Tuesday that there’s one item on his agenda that he’d like to see them follow through on, and quickly: The board voted to approve a resolution to adopt a large-whale emergency response plan.

The legislation emerged in light of a rising number of dead whales that have fetched up on local shorelines in recent years. It’s a tragic sight to behold, but the whales are also smelly, and the strandings, according to the resolution, “are complex events that require support from multiple agencies to safely respond and manage the event.”

“I’ve been involved in a number of these,” said Schneiderman, noting that at one time he’d taken a call from a business owner concerned that the foul odor emanating from a beached whale might impact her bottom line.

“Hopefully, it will get started during the time I am supervisor,” said Schneiderman of the new program, funded at $11,250, but if it didn’t, he said he would be on standby to offer his “voluntary expertise if need be.”

The resolution notes that the Town of Southampton has experienced a “rising number of marine mammal and sea turtle strandings” since 2017, and that the goal of the program was to “bring together the resources that are required to respond to a large whale strandings,” which includes partnering with a range of agencies when these events occur, including the Atlantic Marine Conservation Society, the Suffolk County Department of Public Works and others.

It was a busy afternoon for the Town Board following a late summer pause.

Hazardous Materials Bills on Hold

The board has also been considering two related resolutions sponsored by Councilman Tommy John Schiavoni that would regulate the storage of hazardous materials in residentially zoned areas, a problem which came to light after a June 2023 North Sea chlorine explosion at a pool contractor’s home. That alarming event released chlorine gas through the neighborhood and required the deployment of a hazmat team to clean up the mess.

One resolution stemming from the North Sea episode would create the regulatory framework, the other spells out the sanction — a new, unclassified misdemeanor-level offense with fines between $1,000 and $3,000 for each offense and up to 15 days in jail.

Councilwoman Cyndi McNamara has been a critic of Schiavoni’s proposal for multiple reasons. The resolutions were tabled for another day.

A recent letter to the board spelled out her concerns, which included her view that the ordinance is duplicative and that “hazardous accumulations are already addressed in the code and not specific to residential or commercial properties.” She noted that the fire marshal uses the state code “to define what constitutes a hazardous accumulation.”

Other code, she noted, already deals with unsafe buildings and highlighted that owners who “refuse or fails to correct the situation, they can then be charged with a criminal offense.”

McNamara’s other concern relates to the subjectivity of an ordinance where a hazardous accumulation is defined as “beyond an amount ordinarily used for the cleaning or maintenance of a property.”

She reiterated a comment she made at a recent public hearing, that if she bought four buckets of chlorine at Costco because it was on sale, it might constitute a hazardous accumulation.

“You all said no, because you were thinking of that situation in North Sea,” she wrote her colleagues, recalling the recent public hearing. “I asked that same question to several other people not familiar with that situation, and most of them thought it would be.

“If we are going to charge someone with a criminal offense, it should be very clear to them that they broke the law. If four buckets of chlorine is okay, what about six? When does it become a dangerous accumulation?”

New Sanitary System Coming at Hot Dog Beach

The board voted unanimously to approve a new contract with L.K. McClean Associates to provide engineering and surveying services relating to the installation of a new nitrogen-reducing sanitary system at Hot Dog Beach.

The town had previously allocated Community Preservation Fund water quality improvement funding for a similar system at Flying Point Beach but reallocated those funds to the Hot Dog Beach project.

Budget Season Blueprint

Under town law, the board also provided a schedule for the upcoming 2024 budget process, which will kick off on September 30 when the supervisor files a tentative budget with the town clerk’s office, and continue with meetings and public hearings on October 5, October 24 and November 14. The town has to vote on the budget on or before November 20.

Raise for Court Reporters

One of those budget lines will detail how much the town is paying for the services of court reporters and stenographers and the board voted Tuesday in favor of increasing those workers’ per diem payments, because “the Southampton Town Justice Court has experienced difficulty in retaining the services of per diem court reporters and interpreters, in part because of rates of pay lower than those paid in other courts in Suffolk County.”

Court reporters that were paid between $300 and $375 per day will now be paid $385 per day and interpreters that had been paid $340 per day will also get a bump to $385 per day, retroactive to August 1.

Purple Lights for National Recovery Month

Residents may have noticed the purple lights shining from the cupola at Town Hall, the Big Duck, and the Sag Harbor Windmill and wondered what it’s all about.

The colors designate that September 2023 is National Recovery Month in Southampton, and “National Recovery Month shines a purple light on recovery and raises awareness of substance abuse disorders,” according to a town resolution passed unanimously to designate the month as one to keep those with substance-abuse and mental-health issues in mind.

North Sea Solar Array Hearing

Town officials also announced a series of upcoming public hearings on Tuesday, including a September 26 hearing devoted to a community solar installation project slated for the North Sea landfill on Majors Path in North Sea.

Kearsarge Energy won the bid for the project and has worked with the town engineer and PSEG to design a 7.07-megawatt solar array for the landfill “that will provide local renewable energy generation, and the lease payment will provide an ongoing source of revenue for the town taxpayers.”

Flanders Blight in Code Enforcement Crosshairs

The board is also considering code enforcement action at three Flanders addresses it says have not been properly maintained: at 56 Cypress Avenue, at 11 Flanders Road, and at 229 Flanders Road.

One property, 11 Flanders Road, is the site of a dilapidated gas station that’s in the midst of a town review that would see a 7-Eleven emerge on the Riverhead roundabout. The notice of public hearing — it’s on September 26 at 6 p.m. — notes that the property “is not properly maintained in that the building is open and unsecured, and the canopy above where gas pumps previously were housed is collapsing, creating blight on the neighborhood of Riverside, creating a public safety hazard.”

The owner of that property, 9-11 Flanders Road LLC, is “currently being prosecuted in the Southampton Town Justice Court,” the resolution notes, adding that if the site wasn’t cleaned up, the town attorney and office of Code Enforcement would “take whatever steps are necessary to secure the building, remove the collapsing canopy, remove litter and debris, and otherwise remedy conditions in violation of the Town Code that create a risk to public safety and welfare.”

Historic Developments at Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center

It’s not a blighted property by any stretch of the imagination, but the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center also is the subject of a public hearing, on October 10, at 1 p.m., as the Town Board moves forward with a plan to designate the arts center as a historic landmark. That designation would allow it to apply for Community Preservation Funds to preserve the building’s marquee — following on a similar and successful effort by the Sag Harbor Cinema to do the same, to the tune of $4 million in CPF funds that were directed to that theater.