North Castle Explores Televising ZBA Meetings Amid Threats of Resignations

The North Castle Town Board may vote this week on whether to add the Zoning Board of Appeals to the list of boards that have their meetings televised live, but with the risk of multiple resignations.

Repeated requests to show the ZBA’s monthly meetings on North Castle Television, which can be viewed on the town’s website and on the public access channel in the town, was met recently with a frosty response by a couple of its members.

“All I can say, that if you put them on video, then there are at least two members that are going to resign,” ZBA member John Stipo said at the June 27 Town Board work session. “So what you better do before you do that is get two more members ready to go.”

Currently, the ZBA uses Zoom to record the meetings, and the video of those meetings can be found generally a week or two later on YouTube. However, there is no other outlet for a resident to watch the meetings live unless they go to Town Hall. Those meetings via Zoom also do not appear on the town’s website.

ZBA Chair Joe Monticelli concurred with Stipo that there isn’t enthusiasm among their fellow board members for live telecasts of the meetings. He said some of the current members believe that it will lengthen the meetings by triggering more inquiries from the public about an application that isn’t near their neighborhood or a property that they own.

“It’s just a feeling that there may be more questions, there may be more ‘What are you doing?’ from the town,” Monticelli said in addressing the Town Board. “We really don’t need that. We’re volunteers; you guys are not volunteers.”

The potential for multiple resignations could also leave the board without a quorum because another member has recently had a difficult work commitment and has trouble making the meetings, he added. Monticelli said the town could consider holding off on televising the meetings until 2024 when a couple of changes in board members are likely.

The most frequent requests for televising ZBA meetings have come from North White Plains resident Ed Lobermann, who has been periodically pressing the Town Board for at least a couple of years to take that step.

Lobermann said that by Supervisor Michael Schiliro’s own repeated acknowledgements, one of the Town Board’s single most vital tasks are zoning decisions, and the only body that is authorized to override their decisions by granting variances is the ZBA.

Furthermore, while the meetings do eventually get posted on YouTube, sometimes an action by the ZBA or the Planning Board could have implications for another board’s next meeting within a week, he said. Residents should also have the ability to follow an application in real time.

“It’s imperative that all phases of government be fully transparent with the constituents, and kudos to the Town Board and the town clerk’s office for its endeavors in that respect,” Lobermann said. “The live televising of ZBA meetings would be consistent in that vein.”

Lobermann also pointed out that regardless of where a resident lives in town, they have a right to know what is going on because decisions by boards can be felt beyond one applicant.

“What happens in North White Plains does affect Armonk; what happens in Armonk does affect North White Plains,” Lobermann added. “The importance of televising the ZBA meetings is that a variance approval in a small instance is a foreboding for the rest of the town. It’s not just an isolated incident that’s happening.”

Town Clerk Alison Simon said that there would be an added cost of $325 for the monthly meeting, the same rate it costs the town to televise Town Board and Planning Board meetings.

Stipo mentioned that he supports televising the meetings, but not to take questions remotely.

“It doesn’t matter to me,” Stipo said. “Actually, it makes me feel better because there are people who I want to know the way I voted.”

During the discussion, the Town Board voiced support for the greatest level of transparency possible and appeared to be in favor of making live telecasts of ZBA meetings available as soon as practical.

Councilman Saleem Hussain said the issue of losing ZBA members and needing to find new volunteers is a separate matter from exercising maximum transparency.

“To me, it’s really, really important to having all of the important work you do for the public and to do it in real time, and if you have a concern that that’s going to bring a lot of questions, then frankly that makes me lean in even more to say that it’s even more important to bring that to the public,” Hussain said.

Councilwoman Barbara DiGiacinto said the still relatively new ability for the public to weigh in with comments and questions remotely has still not produced a large volume of residents participating in meetings that way.

“I think that anything that we’re doing for the Town Board and Planning Board, we should be doing for the ZBA,” DiGiacinto said.

The item has been scheduled for the Town Board’s consideration at this Wednesday evening’s meeting.