North Castle Town Board Begins Long Pond Park Improvement Projects
Despite the threat of a lawsuit from a resident, the North Castle Town Board voted unanimously on a series of resolutions to begin the process of making repairs and maintenance to the Long Pond Park dam on Aug. 5.
Some of the resolutions included establishing the Long Pond Park District; and authorizing town Supervisor Michael Schiliro to submit the plan to the state comptroller’s office for approval
The 18 property owners who would be included in the district are set to pay $1,229 annually to cover the estimated $310,000 project and debt over the course of a 20-year bond.
The town would contribute $13,500 a year toward repairs and maintenance on a contractual basis. The town would pay nearly half of the portion of the cost because it owns a portion of the lake and the dam structure.
The homeowner with the largest assessed valuation in the district would pay $1,229 a year. The other homeowners would pay a portion of that cost based on the assessed valuation of their property compared to the property with the largest assessed valuation.
Steven Gamelsky, a project engineer who is president of The GEA Group, discussed a series of steps needed to complete the projects. The proposed repairs need to be submitted to the DEC by Aug. 14, he said. An analysis of the projects would be completed by his company by the end of the year.
Removal of some of the trees in the district would take place in March and April of 2016, Gamelsky said. His company would: “try to save as many trees as we possibly can,” he said. Construction projects would take from September through November of next year to allow for the use of the pond during the summer, he added.
Despite the town board’s unanimous approval of steps to begin the process of making improvements to the dam, North White Plains resident Anthony Futia said during last week’s public hearing he was planning to sue the town board over its actions. Futia said town taxpayers would contribute too much to the projects because it owns only a small portion of the property in the area.
Futia said if the town agrees to pay for 47 percent of the cost of the projects he would sue the town.
Schiliro said he was not intimated by the threat of legal action by Futia. “Tony, you can take whatever legal action that you want,” Schiliro said.
