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The Ellery Town Planning Board has been eliminated.
Ellery Town Board members last week approved the measure in a 4-0 vote.
According to Ellery town Supervisor Lawrence Anderson, the board was having trouble getting quorums or the minimum amount of members to conduct business.
“It’s poor attendance,” Anderson said. “It’s been done in other towns.”
Town Attorney Neil Robinson said the proposal was discussed at the May 12 board meeting and that a public hearing was scheduled for Thursday to consider a proposed local law No. 1 of 2022 to combine the Town Planning Board and the Town Zoning Board of Appeals.
Robinson echoed Anderson’s thoughts and said the law is because the town has found it difficult with people attending each board meeting.
“The local law would eliminate the planning board in the town of Ellery and transfer the planning board duties to the zoning board of appeals. Some other towns in the county have done it for the same reason,” Robinson said.
Town board members approved in a 4-0 vote an environmental impact statement detailing that combining of the boards will have no adverse effect on the environment. The law has been filed with the New York Department of State, which means it should be official within a few weeks.
The five people on the planning board will transfer to the zoning board, which would result in seven zoning board members and three alternates. The current terms of the transferred planning board members will carry over to the zoning board, Robinson said.
Chautauqua County Legislator Pierre Chagnon updated board on the savings the town realized on the change to the workers compensation cost calculation for the county. Workers compensation is a state-mandated insurance program that provides benefits to employees who suffer job-related injuries and illnesses. Many local town, village and city governments are covered through Chautauqua County, which then bills the local government a share of the plan’s cost.
Legislators recently approved changing the way the county’s self-insurance plan for workers compensation is billed. Forty percent of the plan’s costs used to be based on property valuation, which meant towns with fewer employees but bigger property bases paid more into the system. Starting in January, workers compensation costs will be based on the wages of employees instead -- which hits the two cities and the town of Westfield harder because they have the most employees. The city of Jamestown, in particular, takes a bigger hit because it has paid police and fire coverage while The city of Dunkirk’s hit comes in large part from its police department.
The biggest decrease was the town of Chautauqua, which would pay $112,158 less. The second biggest decrease was for Ellery, which would pay $46,873 less, followed by Ellicott, which would pay $39,724 less, the article stated.
“The 2023 levy for the town of Ellery compared to 2022 is going down by 76%. If you read the newspaper you know the cities aren’t happy about it,” Chagnon said. “The towns and villages have been overpaying and the cities and the Village of Westfield, that has a lot of employees, have been underpaying.”
In other business, the board voted 3-1 to move its meeting to the second Tuesday of each month and will begin July 12.