OKAY, HERE'S A GOOD ONE!

Refer to my last post about the "controversy" concerning driveway offsets, DRIVE TIME ?, published on 10-28-19, for details on this topic.

At the Planning Commission meeting last night, November 6, the Commission took up the Board's direction to it to discuss and set a public hearing on establishing driveway offsets. Supervisors Hansen and Ceminsky have claimed that it is a "policy" that driveways on opposite sides of a roadway be offset 50'. That it's "always been that way." There is nothing in the Ordinances about this. There is nothing on the website under "Town Board Policies" about this. No one else is quite sure where this comes from except Hansen and Ceminsky insist there is such a rule.

When the various four Commissioners last night (Novacek was missing) asked for the rationale behind such a measure, they were once again told that it is for safety. When this was questioned and it was stated that such a requirement cannot be found in any County or State regulations, Hansen speaks up from the back of the room, "Why don't you just call Butch McConnell at the County? HE will tell you it is fifty feet!" (Butch McConnell is in charge of issuing Right-of-way permits on County roads.) Hansen even claimed the County made him put his own driveway in where it is because of this! Really?...


Soooo, this morning, I called Butch McConnell, to whom I have spoken in the past and asked him!
He told me that not only do they NOT require such an offset, the County actually PREFERS that the driveways on opposite sides of a roadway LINE UP. I asked him why that was. He stated it was for SAFETY reasons, and went through a little scenario of how things can go bad when the emerging cars from the driveways are not lined up opposite each other as at an intersection. I told him that made perfect sense to me and thanked him for the information. I said, "I'm glad I came to the 'horse's mouth' on this one!" McConnell also indicated that he had received an email from one of the Eureka Commissioners that he was going to answer as soon as he got to it. Now there's a Commissioner who knows his job!

So why was Ceminsky apparently so set on not allowing the resident on Denmark to move his driveway 40' north as he wanted to? Where might we be today if Clerk Ranee Solis hadn't stood her ground as Zoning Administrator and sought further input from Chair Palmquist?

Town Board Supervisors have an obligation to know the Ordinances well, if not inside out, and to be sure that they are giving correct information to the public and their colleagues on the Board and Commission at all times. How can they possibly be fair and not "arbitrary and capricious" in their decision-making when things just seem to "fall from the sky"?