Supervisor Scott Corcoran recently updated the Town Board and the public on the progress of the TOMVAC rehabilitation project. Corcoran said the asbestos abatement work will cost $89,900 and will begin this week and hopefully finish in two weeks, which pushes the project time line back by a week. He said members of the Highway Department removed the old crumbling brick facade and some siding, “so our engineer can get the exact measurements for the trusses because they have to be ordered. We’re extending the building 35 ft by 65 ft and if you don’t have the trusses exact of the old to the new, in the roof line you’ll eventually see a little buckle and we don’t want to do that. So our guys crawled up in the attic with lasers to get some of the measurements.”

Corcoran said bids for the remaining parts of the project are expected to go out to construction companies on April 11. He noted that what is happening in the world today is causing dramatic price increases across the board, “so I am going to be cautiously optimistic that this bid will come in, but if it doesn’t [at an affordable cost] then we will have to re-evaluate and see where we go from there.”

South Pier still closed
Corcoran also touched upon the South Pier, which remains closed because final on-site welding inspections have not been completed. The Arben Group has finally agreed to return to the pier within two weeks, “to get the final steel piles checked out for us and we can get the final certifications into the building department. This is what’s holding up the pier from actually being open now. Arben says they are going to do it but if they don’t, we will.” The town held back $16,600 of the original bid in the hope that Arben would finish this final item on the punch-list.

Corcoran said the original plans called for installing 6 pylons but they were pulled out of the plan by the Town Board for budgetary reasons. He said the cost of 9 pylons, which can buffer large incoming ships as they dock, is $950,000 installed, which is, “not even close to something in reality that we could even look at doing.” He said the Connecticut-based American Cruise Line has voiced interest in seeing the pier project completed, replete with pylons, and may be willing to pay for this phase of the work in exchange for consideration on the docking fees.

Corcoran said that while the town may be open to reducing docking fees for a limited number of years, any agreement has to have them pay both toward the $1.2 million bond the town is taking out to finance this project and some additional that would be income for the town. Typically, the rate to dock runs $3.00/foot and a 200 foot boat costs $600 each time they dock in Milton.

Corcoran said there is also consideration being given to a more affordable solution of hanging circular hard “rubber-like tires” in areas that would cushion cruise ships tying up at the pier.

Corcoran said town appropriated $300,000 from their fund balance to offset the overall costs, but this left $1.2 million that the taxpayers will pay for over time in a bond. He said the town does not want to allot any more money toward this project because he does not want to saddle the taxpayers with any more additional debt.

Code enforcement Officer Tom Corcoran said a reduction in docking fees, “is actually lost income for the town. If we would have put the pilings in originally we would have collected an income on that,” he said.

Supervisor Corcoran said there are additional items that are under discussion with the cruise line such as maintenance fees, control of the pier and what time people can be on the pier.

Sewer Plant contract
The Town Board approved the Supervisor to sign a contract with the engineering firm of Brinnier & Larios to upgrade the Marlboro wastewater plant off Dock road. This will allow the firm to put together a bid package for the needed plant upgrades that will be paid for with $860,000 the town received through the American Rescue Plan Act [ARPA].

“We will be bidding out for five items in need of upgrades and/or replacement and once I get those from him I’ll give them to the board but we have to agree that he can do this contract,” Corcoran said.

Zoning Code amendments
Scott Corcoran received a letter from Planning Board Chairman Chris Brand on the towns proposed zoning amendments. Brand wrote that his board, “unanimously agreed to take no exceptions to the proposed changes and no additional input on the amendments proposed.”

Tom Corcoran explained that every few years New York State changes the code books that the Building Inspectors and Code Enforcement Officers have to follow. He said sometimes the state requires them to attend classes to be certified and to keep them abreast of any changes.

“I cannot enforce those code books that are mandatory for me to do my job if the town doesn’t update their coding to make the allowable adjustments in them,” he said. “The changes you see in there are changes that the state has made through the code books, but to allow me to enforce those codes [in chapter 67] we have to adopt our code to allow me to adopt the new code that’s been put in.”

The Supervisor pointed out that the town’s attorney has vetted these changes to make sure they are correct. The entire document can be viewed on the town’s website. The Town Board unanimously adopted the zoning amendments.