Board still pondering home for police, town court

By NEAL RENTZ

The Lewisboro Town Board is still discussing potential options for town offices, the police department and court. 

The board recently purchased the Old Post Road Professional Building and Annex, located at 892 Route 35, Cross River, because it was told it had to leave the space it has been renting from the Katonah-Lewisboro School District in the former Lewisboro Elementary School on Bouton Road, South Salem, since 2012. 

During the July 28 Town Board work session, Supervisor Tony Gonçalves said the town offices located in the former school, with the exception of the town court and police department, will move into the newly purchased building. The court, which is in the former school, and the police department, which is in trailers on the property, will not move to the recently purchased building.

No alternative location or locations for the court and police department have been determined by the Town Board.

The Town Board created a task force on town government offices and the board would continue to seek their input, Gonçalves said.

Councilman Richard Sklarin said that whatever the board decided in terms of providing offices for town staff, it should meet the economic development goals of the town’s Comprehensive Plan, which was recently updated by the Town Board. A potential way to meet those goals is to create a central campus of government offices in the hamlet of South Salem and Cross River, he said. 

Gonçalves said he agreed that the decision on town government facilities should be in line with the Comprehensive Plan.

“We’ve been moving around for years in temporary facilities,” Councilwoman Andrea Rendo said. 

Other local municipalities have a centralized location for their offices, she said. It would be good for Lewisboro to have a permanent home for its employees as well, she said. 

Resident Tadeusz Rajwer, a licensed architect with 30 years of experience, provided the town with two ideas for how to house town employees, as well as the court and police. 

The first concept calls for adding one story to the highway department building, which could house the police department, court and an upper floor entry to the highway department. 

“The overbuild would be relatively quicker and cheaper than building a new building,” Gonçalves said.

The second concept Rajwer suggests calls for the construction of a new building between the Town Hall and the library. The new structure would house the town court and the police department. 

If a new two-story building was constructed, it could include a community space, Gonçalves said.

Rajwer will work with the task force. The plans will be distributed to the task force, which will meet with the Town Board sometime in September. 

“My mandate was just to locate the court, the justice department and the PD on this site,” Rajwer said.

Office building funding

The board voted 4-0, with Rendo abstaining, to approve a borrowing resolution needed for the closing of the purchase of the Route 35 office building, which will house some of the town offices that will move from the former Lewisboro Elementary School. 

A supermajority of four votes were needed for the funding resolution to be approved, because it was a bond resolution. 

Gonçalves said the task force recommended the purchase of the building, which was approved by the Town Board. If the Town Board decided to pay all of the $2.25 million through the fund balance without any borrowing, the ratio of fund balance to the total budget for this year would be nearly 25%, which would be “dangerously close” to the 20% minimum the board recently approved. Only paying for the building purchase though the fund balance could have a negative impact on the town’s credit rating, he said.

The resolution will give the Town Board the option to borrow or pay for the project, purchase it only with the fund balance or a combination, Gonçalves said. 

Rendo said she was recusing herself from the vote.

Rendo said she was advised by the town attorney to recuse herself from matters related to the purchase of the office building because she previously was a tenant in another building owned by the owner of the building being purchased by the town. Rendo said she moved from the building owned by the person who sold his Route 35 building to the town.

Rendo said she personally sought a referral from the town’s ethics committee, which told her she still had a conflict of interest, even though she recently moved.

Sklarin voted against the previous borrowing resolution in May. 

Sklarin said he was voting for the authority to bond the building purchase even though he voted against a previous resolution that would have given the town the ability to borrow up to the full price of the office building.

The bonding authority was needed for the town to be able to close on the building, Sklarin said. Borrowing authority would give the town the option of replenishing all of the purchase price and restore it to the fund balance, he said. If the fund balance was replenished at the $2.25 million figure, the fund balance would again be equal to over 40% of the town’s budget, he said. 

Work on the closing on the building purchase will continue at the next Town Board meeting Aug. 14.

Culvert project

Also at this week’s meeting, the board voted unanimously to hire Tectonic as the consulting civil engineering firm for the project to replace the Oscaleta Road culvert at a cost of up to $412,000, which will be paid over a series of periodic payments. 

The project is on Oscaleta Road, mainly between the intersections of Twin Lakes Road and South Shore Road, at the existing culvert crossing between Lake Waccabuc and Lake Oscaleta

Gonçalves said the town received a $1.46 million New York State Department of Transportation grant for the culvert replacement. Tectonic was the only company to respond to the town’s proposal, he noted. 

During a public comment period of the regular meeting, some residents expressed support for the culvert project. 

Resident Paul Lewis said there has been a need to replace the culver beneath Oscaleta Road since 2022.

“That year I sent photos of deterioration in the culvert to the town,” he said. The former town engineer made several visits to the site and issued a report with photos of the damage, he said. 

The DOT grant the town received was a reimbursement grant, Lewis said. Work must be in progress for the town to begin receiving reimbursements, he said. 

Janet Andersen, who lives on the north side of the Oscaleta culvert, said she was supporting the resolution before the Town Board. Andersen said she sent copies of the culvert inspection report to the board. 

“At this point it’s clear that we either have to replace the culvert or repair it, fix it somehow,” she said. 

Andersen encouraged the board to use grant money for the work. 

Some residents expressed concerns during the meeting about potential road closures during the period of the culvert work, but Gonçalves said it was too early to determine potential road closures for the project.