WESTERLO — Concern was voiced by some town board members on Tuesday over possible discrepancies in billing from the engineering firm Vollmer Associates, which was in charge of providing the design of a municipal water system and oversight of the construction in Westerlo.

At the Feb. 7 town board meeting, Keith Menia, a representative from Vollmer Associates, made a request for $10,109.39 rather than the $12,000 requested in the last change order filed by Vollmer in November.

At the time of the November change order, Councilman R. Gregory Zeh had asked for more details about the cost from the company, he said, since this was an increase, while the town was working with the New York State Environmental Facilities Corporation on financing the project and the EFC looks at pending requests during the process.

One of Zeh’s concerns was that the change order had been made after the services were performed. A change order is essentially a contract between a principle from the company and a representative of the town so, what is troubling, Zeh said, is that no services have been provided between November and now but the amount of money requested from the firm has changed.
With the construction inspection costing $5,646, Councilman Zeh asked, "How did we get to $10,000"" Menia responded that there was more construction observation needed than had been anticipated.
"I understand that you had anticipated handing over to the town on September 15 but most overages of hours are before September 15," said Zeh.

Menia reiterated that there had been more construction observation than originally planned and that an invoice accounting for additional charges could be generated if requested by the board. (He could not be reached for further comment yesterday.)
"It looks like we’re paying for it twice," said the town’s attorney, Aline Galgay, regarding the bill.

The major concern is, given the limited support for the additional $6,000 and the change order, it is possible that the money was billed for in the original change order as well as now, Zeh told the Enterprise yesterday.

Zeh said he wants to make sure that the $6,000 the town is being billed for now was not included in the original change order.

Ultimately, the board voted unanimously to let Supervisor Richard Rapp approve $5,900 as payment in full if an agreement can be reached with Vollmer Associates, finalizing payment.

Other business

In other business, the board:

— Decided to stay with its current compensation insurance provider, State Insurance, after looking at other companies and finding State Insurance to be the least expensive;

— Appointed Code Enforcement Officer Edwin Lawson as the interim zoning administrator for a three-month term;

— Scheduled a workshop for next Monday, Feb. 13, at 7:30 at the town hall to discuss drafting a right-to-farm law for the town;

— Voted unanimously to raise the salary of fiscal consultant Bob Fisher from $275 to $300 per day. This will be his first raise since 1992, Supervisor Rapp told The Enterprise yesterday;

— Voted unanimously to hire a Westerlo resident, over an applicant who was not from Westerlo, to clean the town hall for $100 per week as a contractor, not a town employee;

— Agreed to have a public hearing next month for an increased veterans’ exemption on property assessment. Town Attorney Galgay said that the tax exemption would have to be implemented either by local law, which would be voted on next month, or as a resolution;
— Heard from Councilman Zeh about a meeting he attended with the Greenville School Board forecasting the growth of the school district. He said it was a productive meeting and there were "a lot of good ideas exchanged"; and

— Heard from Alexander (Sandy) Gordon that a grant he had applied for was approved by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority to develop a plan for a community-owned wind project in the Hilltowns.

This is the first time that this has really been looked at, Gordon said, and a business plan will be outlined for NYSERDA that could be taken into development. The proposed wind farm would produce no more than 10 megawatts, according to Gordon, and there are sites in all of the Hilltowns with very viable wind potential. A meeting to discuss the plan will be held this Sunday, Feb. 12, at 7 p.m. at 588 Middle Rd. in Knox.