Though the town suspended its April Zoning Board of Appeals session in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Senior Planner Trevor Cole said Planning Board members hoped to "give people the sense that, even during this crisis, certain parts of government could continue."
Cole said the meetings could prove crucial to the eventual end of the pandemic, as well.
"Our board is really cognizant that there could be a solid three to four month delay on projects if they didn't continue to issue approvals," he said.
"We tried to look down the line at what impacts would occur if the Planning Board chose to not continue."
VIDEO PLATFORM
Town Supervisor Michael Cashman said, in light of the ongoing pandemic, the municipality had taken advantage of videoconference tool Zoom, hosting its Town Board meetings that way, as well as daily department head "huddles."Cashman said it was he, Cole and Planning Board Chair Tim Palmer who decided to host the board's April session using that platform.
"While the Planning Board is an independent body of the town, we provide staffing and we are the ones that have the meeting space and the technology," the supervisor said.
"We have to make sure that we are working in good concert for good governing."
TWO MEETINGS
The Planning Board decided to split its April agenda across two meetings.The first, to be held Tuesday, April 21 at 5 p.m. would feature a range of agenda items, while its Tuesday, April 27 meeting at 5 p.m. would discuss the Upstone Quarry Mining expansion only.
The latter project has been controversial among some town members who live in the surrounding neighborhoods of that Quarry Road mine.
Supervisor Cashman hoped, with the meetings split, that town officials cold better accommodate those wishing to speak on that project.
"We want to make sure that we can facilitate the public participation portion."
PUBLIC PARTICIPATION
Members of the public will join Zoom meetings using a link that, Cole said, would be published soon."We intend to invite the public to participate as we would with any other project that had a public hearing component," the planner said.
"Just as our Planning Board members will be able to log in and participate, the public can log in and attend that way, too."
The town expected the platform to accommodate up to 100 participants, though members of the public would be muted until time for comment.
"We're going to encourage people first and foremost, to send in written comments via email, to call our office or send a hard copy in the mail — that would be preferable," Cole said.
"The more people on Zoom, the more complicated, but we're willing to accept that challenge for this meeting and maybe others as we proceed forward."
'STILL LEARNING'
Cashman said the Town Board had a member of the public participate via Zoom and noted that, "it works.""I fully acknowledge that this is not optimal," he said. "It may be a little clunky, because we're still learning the software."
Though a date had not been set as of early April, the town supervisor said the Zoning Board of Appeals could meet virtually next month.
"We believe that by launching this in stages, we will be able to be more adaptive to good government across the whole portfolio of the town," he said.
"We'll learn something from this that we will be able to adjust for the Zoning Board meeting."
©2020 the Press-Republican (Plattsburgh, N.Y.). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
