NEW SCOTLAND — Two business owners’ requests for water led to an hour-long discussion on policy and procedure versus law at the Dec. 13 town-board meeting.

The issue arose over the extension of the Heldervale Water District to include the so-called Kay development on Route 85A and James Olsen’s self-storage project further down the road on Route 85.

In New Scotland, if a water line is going to run more than 150 feet away from the Bethlehem-owned water main then the neighboring town of Bethlehem requires that New Scotland take responsibility for that line even though the line uses Bethlehem water.

To do this, New Scotland creates water districts, which it maintains.

Both properties were approved by the planning board to join the Heldervale Water District, but Councilman William Hennessey objected to the Olsen project because it had not been to the water committee; Kay’s project had.

The water committee is made up of New Scotland residents who assist the town in reviewing water proposals and water connections for existing and proposed residences, according to Hennessey.

The Olsen property was going to use an existing water line for its new self-storage project.

Supervisor Douglas LaGrange said it was an existing line and therefore did not need to go to the water committee for its review; Hennessey countered that it did.

What the board did not know was that the the Olsen line was approved after Jo Ann Davies stepped down from the planning board. Davies also serves on the water committee, and it was thought that she would have caught this.

Since the planning board already approved the project, LaGrange said that it was not necessary for the matter to go back to the water committee. Hennessey worried that the town would be creating a precedent.

Every prior proposal that involved a connection to a water district had gone to the water committee for review.

But the Olsen proposal was a new project that planned on using an existing water line whereas the Kay proposal was a new line and a new project.

That’s when the board broke out the flow charts.

It turned out that the Olsen proposal was something not seen before, so there was no existing way to deal with it.

After more discussion, the board asked Michael Naughton, the town’s attorney, to weigh in.

Naughton said that the water committee is ad hoc; there is no process in the making of town laws or zoning laws that requires water-committee approval.

“It’s just a procedure we like to follow,” he said.

While there was no legal reason the Olsen project had to go to the water committee, the board was leary it would look like Olsen was getting preferential treatment.

After an hour of discussion, the board voted, 3 to 1, with LaGrange as the dissenting vote, to send the Olsen proposal to the water committee. Kay’s proposal would be separated and would proceed.

There was one vote missing.

Ten Eyck takes a bow (from home)

The flu kept Laura Ten Eyck from attending her last meeting as a member of the town board.

“I will miss Laura; I often call her to talk over issues … I thank her for her service,” said Councilman Adam Greenberg.

“It takes a special person to understand that they need to step away because they are too busy,” said LaGrange. He said Ten Eyck knew the time commitment the board required, and it’s a display of her character that she was able to step aside.

In September, Ten Eyck told The Enterprise that she chose not to run due to time constraints.

In January of this year, she left her job at American Farmland Trust and returned to work full-time at her family's business, Indian Ladder Farms.

Ten Eyck’s father had entered semi-retirement and she assumed management of the farm with her brother, Peter.

“This is far cry from the 9-to-5 office job I held before,” she told The Enterprise in an email.

“The final factor that sealed my decision was the willingness of planning board member Daniel Leuning to run for the seat,” she wrote.

Leinung won the seat in November.

Other business

In other business, the town board:

— Set a date and time for the 2018 re-organizational meeting: Jan. 1, 2018 at noon at Town Hall;

— Was presented with the audit and finance committee’s review of the town clerk and tax collector’s cash records for 2014, 2015, and 2016. The report said the record-keeping was excellent;

— Heard a proposal from Kenneth Guyer, the highway superintendent. Guyer was seeking compensation for workers who are assigned to be on-call to handle emergency situation. Those workers would receive half an hour of overtime pay to be on-call on weekdays and an hour of overtime pay to be on-call on weekends. Guyer was looking to establish a call-out pay policy, where any worker who is called into work for emergency duty would receive a minimum of three hours of overtime pay, so long as the call in was not attached to a normal workday;

— Changed the pay of zoning and planning board members from annually to monthly, and moved the annual payment that board of assessment review members receive from December to June; and

— Approved three new members of the Onesquethaw Volunteer Fire Company: Leslie J. Hatfield, Sarah L. Bashant, and Steven C. Dooley Jr., and approved Debra A. Hersch and Lindsay Hill for auxiliary membership.