Altamont: 2005 in review
Village restructures PD, wrestles with water



ALTAMONT — The Altamont Fair was vibrant this year with a beautifully-restored Flower Building at its center. The Altamont Free Library got a new director — the witty Judith Wines — and a new home — the historic train station in the center of the village, which it is raising funds to restore before moving in.

The village celebrated itself this summer with an old-fashioned picnic where it honored three citizens of the year:

— Andrea Dean in the youth division. The Russell Sage College student, majoring in criminal justice, works two jobs in the village, volunteers on the rescue squad, and serves on the comprehensive planning board committee.
— Gilbert DeLucia in the village division. The former owner of Altamont’s pharmacy was honored for "lifetime achievement," said Beth Shaw, president of the Altamont Community Tradition, which organized the event; and
— Tim McIntyre, as the General Citizen of the Year. The head of public works for Altamont "goes above and beyond what he needs to do," said Shaw.

This winter, Altamont again rang in the holidays in Victorian style during a day of snow-filled festivities, ranging from caroling to carriage rides.

Defining election

But the news in Altamont in 2005 was dominated by issues that were clearly delineated in the March 15 election. They included police, water, and planning.

The incumbents were ousted as a slate of newcomers was elected to lead Altamont.

In what many called the village’s most divisive campaign, Altamont voters elected James Gaughan as mayor from a field of four, and they elected, also from a field of four, Kerry Dineen and Dean Whalen as trustees — all by wide margins.

Gaughan, who is retired from a career with the State Education Department, ran with Dineen, an Altamont native and Guilderland music teacher. Both of them were critical of Mayor Paul DeSarbo’s administration’s lack of outreach to village residents.

Their campaign focused on the need to include villagers’ opinions before decisions are made at board meetings.

Whalen, an architect, tied his victory to his profession. He said his success showed village residents wanted more people on the village board with technical backgrounds. He ran with mayoral candidate, Trustee Harvey Vlahos.

Vlahos, who retained his board seat, said on Election Night that the difference in the campaign was the money Gaughan spent.

Gaughan’s campaign statements showed he raised just over $5,000. The other candidates for mayor — DeSarbo, Vlahos, and Jerry Oliver — each spent under $1,000.
Gaughan disagreed that campaign finances were the main reason for his win, saying, "It’s the people who made the difference. All the money in the world would not have meant anything."

Gaughan garnered 42 percent of the vote compared to Vlahos’s second-place finish with 26 percent. Oliver and DeSarbo each received about 16 percent of the vote.

DeSarbo, who had served as a village trustee, was named mayor in 2000 to fill a vacancy when Kenneth Runion left the post to become Guilderland’s supervisor. DeSarbo ran unopposed the following spring.

The election was not a successful one for the incumbents as trustees Wayde Bush and Anne Faulkner were also soundly defeated.

Four candidates were on the ballot for two trustee seats — incumbent Bush, running with Mayor DeSarbo; Dineen, running with Gaughan, and Whalen, running with Vlahos.

Faulkner, who was appointed in July, was knocked off the ballot after Dineen successfully challenged her petition; Faulkner fell one short of the required 50 signatures. She subsequently launched a write-in campaign and received 28 votes.

Bush, who works for Guilderland in water and wastewater management, had been a trustee for 12 years; he came in third with 198 tallies.

Robinson, the associated operations manager for the University at Albany’s East Campus, was making his first run for office; he came in fourth with 139 votes.

Whalen earned 266 votes and Dineen was the top vote-getter with 333. She even bested Village Justice Neal Tabor, who ran unopposed. Tabor, who has been village justice for 24 years, received 300 votes.

Trustee William Aylward said on election night that it was obvious from the vote tallies that the community was divided. While he expressed his regrets to Mayor DeSarbo, Aylward said he could work with Gaughan to improve feelings in the village.
"I want to be a force for healing and bringing harmony to the village," said Aylward.

Police

Citizens complained last year about excessive police presence in the village, which is covered by the Guilderland Police Department, the Albany County Sheriff’s Department, and the State Troopers as well as the Altamont Police. The village board appointed a citizens’ committee to examine the department; it released a report in January which favored keeping a police department in the village but was critical of a full-time commissioner that couldn’t make arrests and so many part-time officers. Subsequently, the commissioner, Robert Coleman, offered his resignation.

All three of the newly-elected Altamont leaders — Gaughan, Dineen, and Whalen — had served on the committee.

The DeSarbo slate had favored keeping the commissioner in office along with part-time officers.

The new village board hired Anthony Salerno as Altamont’s public safety commissioner in August, after completing a three-month search. The 19-year Albany Police Department investigator was also the village barber.

Trustee Harvey Vlahos, who coordinated the search, said the village received 14 applications for the $40,500 full-time post.

Village residency was a key criteria set by the board; Salerno, his wife, and two children, have lived in the village for more than a decade.

The trustees also required the candidates to be a certified police officer. Acting Commissioner Coleman, who applied late and did not meet the criteria, was not among the three finalists for the post.
When the mayor was asked how he expected Salerno to split his time between Albany and Altamont, he said, "I have asked him to be full-time-plus in Altamont. Tony will work for Altamont in the day during the work week and also on weekends." Salerno works the late-night shift in Albany.
"It’s a position I had to take for the community," Salerno said at the time of his appointment. "My top focus is the people in the village."

Salerno restructured the police department this fall. As part of this, three officers resigned and five others got letters from Salerno, stating that he couldn’t fit them into the future work schedule.

At the same time, because of a situation that predated Gaughan’s administration and Salerno’s tenure, the village was sued by an Altamont police officer who has been suspended since December of 2003. Marc Dorsey is seeking about $48,000 in back pay and is asking for his job to be reinstated.

Dorsey, 35, was appointed as a full-time officer in 2002, but, Gaughan said, he never actually worked full-time.

Former Mayor DeSarbo suggested that Dorsey and other officers only worked full-time for the police department for a short time, so they could get a full-time police job elsewhere.
"I don’t think he deserves anything," DeSarbo told The Enterprise in November. "He didn’t follow the procedures in the time allotted."

Dorsey’s attorney, Stephen Coffey, told The Enterprise this fall that Dorsey was suspended for an Albany stalking arrest and, since those charges were dismissed in June of 2004, he should have been given a hearing about his suspension.

Gaughan told The Enterprise that he agrees that Dorsey deserved a hearing, but, he said, it was now too late.

Dorsey had a four-month window after his suspension to take action, Gaughan said; asking for nearly two years in back pay now is unfair, the mayor said.
"We’re in the process of making a professional police department," Salerno told The Enterprise in November. "We’re working out scheduling. We want to have permanent officers assigned to the same days.
"We want a cohesive force that’s accountable for everyone’s actions," he said. "We want to build a relationship in the community."
Salerno said when he began working for the village that many officers were employed by Altamont but never worked. "Or they worked when they felt like it," he said.

His restructuring has included mandated training, he said.

He has also used a police officer on a horse and another on a bicycle.
"He’s doing exactly what the village board has asked him to do," Gaughan said in November. "He’s making a structured organization that depends on a very strict chain or command."
"I feel we are seeing a dramatic change," Salerno said. "We’re meeting the needs of the public."

Water

The village’s water supply, from two reservoirs and one well, was taxed so the village had hired an engineering firm, Barton and Laguidice, which found a source of water on Brandle Road, just outside the village.

In January, over the objection of its engineers and its superintendent of public works, the board, under the leadership of Mayor DeSarbo, agreed to provide sewer and water service to a proposed senior complex.
Developer Jeff Thomas told the board in January that Brandle Meadows would be dead unless he received approval that night. His lawyer, Paul Wein, told the board, "We are going to try to expedite this and get into the ground in the summer and get it open January first."
"He’s painting a nice picture for you folks," said Tim McIntyre, Altamont’s superintendent of public works, "but the reality is the well doesn’t produce a lot in the summertime and the reservoirs also get shut down in the summertime; they’re off now; they been off for two months. So it’s a juggling game for me to get you folks water, quality water, every day, 365 days of the year."

At the January meeting, Wein also took issue with caution expressed by an engineer hired by the village to manage water issues. Wein suggested if the engineers couldn’t have new wells on-line by early 2006, they should be fired.

All three of the candidates who were successful in the March election — Gaughan, Dineen, and Whalen — said that the moratorium for granting water outside the village should not have been broken, as it had been for the proposed senior housing project, without a public hearing.

In April, Nancy and Michael Trumpler, who own the property on Brandle Road where the village found water, filed papers in Albany County Supreme Court to have a judge decide whether the village’s contract for the five-acre well site was legal and binding.

The Trumplers objected to Altamont’s plans to give water to a developer outside the village and also had procedural concerns.
"We didn’t sue for any money," said Nancy Trumpler at the time, stating that the Trumplers just wanted to make sure the process was fair. The village responded by filing counterclaims against the Trumplers.

The village had spent about $20,000 for the litigation costs associated with the Trumplers’ lawsuit, Mayor Gaughan said. Village attorney E. Guy Roemer is being paid $125 an hour to defend the village against the Trumplers’ suit.
In June, Thomas sued the Trumplers for $17 million over "interference" with his plans to build his proposed 72-unit senior-housing project. Wein said the suit was not over money; Thomas just wanted the Trumplers to drop their suit.

In July, Brandle Road residents raised concerns about dirty water since the village had done exploratory drilling. Guilderland’s zoning board then hired a town-designated engineer to study the effects that new village wells on Brandle Road have on the quality and quantity of water from neighbors’ wells.

The Trumplers, too, had said in May that the water from their taps had been brown and undrinkable.

Mayor Gaughan responded that the village was looking into the Trumplers’ problem and an engineer with Barton and Laguidice told The Enterprise that the problems with the Trumplers’ water were in no way related to the nearby village wells and did not indicate that the future village water supply could become polluted.

In October, an Altamont committee appointed to review zoning projects in Guilderland but near the Altamont border, ruled that Thomas should get public water only after the village water supply is proven adequate. This position — from a committee headed by Gaughan — was very different from that of the previous administration.
Thomas seemed unperturbed after the meeting. "We’ve always planned on having an additional source," he said of his hopes to find a high-volume well on his Brandle Road property. "We’re going to continue to go forward," he told The Enterprise.

The Enterprise reminded Thomas that less than 10 months ago he had stood in the same room and said the project would be dead if the village board didn’t promise him water that night; it complied.
Asked what had changed since then, Thomas said, "We would have lost interest. I had an option on the property."
Although Thomas had initially said he planned to open the complex in January of 2006, he said, in October, "This is a lengthy process."

On Nov. 10, an acting Supreme Court judge dismissed the Trumplers’ motion for summary judgment; their lawyer, Michael Englert, said the Trumplers would stay the course, pursuing legal action against the village. He estimated the trial could take two years.

A motion for summary judgment is a request for the judge to rule on a case with no further evidence because the law and the facts are so clear; it is an expedited decision without a trial.

Englert told The Enterprise he had believed the law was clear. "This just simply means the lawsuit goes forward, " he said. "None of our claims have been denied or thrown out...They are still viable."
Mayor Gaughan responded, "The Trumplers took their best shot and they came up short. It’s very unlikely there’s any other facts to help them go forward...It’s up to them, but I hope this decision brings a sense of reality."

Also in November, as elderly Altamont residents continued to wait for a home in Brandle Meadows, Guilderland’s zoning board approved Thomas’s project, but said its special-use permit would be good only when Thomas and the village work out legal and water issues.

The village board held a public meeting in December to make the public aware of its settlement offer. The board unanimously voted on two letters, affirming that they reflect the village’s position in the matter.

One letter states that the village will drop its counterclaim if the Trumplers drop their suit, and, since the village has incurred significant attorney’s fees, the Trumplers will give up a 20-foot easement from Brandle road to route 156.

Neither Englert nor the Trumplers were at the meeting, but Roemer said Englert had said the Trumplers were willing to go forward with the settlement.

The second letter that the village board adopted says that Altamont will provide Thomas’s project with village water and sewer service after he gets a building permit from the town and after the village has its supplemental water service on-line.
"My latest understanding is the contents of the letter fall somewhat short of what Mr. Thomas says he needs to go forward and settle with the Trumplers and build the complex," Roemer told the board. "He wants water from us whether or not our supplementary water source is on-line."

Wein sat silently behind Roemer during the meeting. Afterwards, when Wein looked visibly angry, Roemer asked Wein what he had said during the meeting that wasn’t accurate. Wein said litigation should be discussed in executive session and that he’d be happy to tell the board how he feels in private.
"I never said he wants water no matter what happens," Wein told The Enterprise. "Mr. Thomas has said he is not going to take water if it jeopardizes the village."
Meanwhile, Wein added, senior citizens are waiting for a complex to be built so they have a place to live. "That’s killing Mr. Thomas," he said.
Subsequently, Englert wrote in a letter to the Enterprise editor that Thomas had initiated the settlement process and "he and the Trumplers have proposed a manner of settling this three-way dispute that requires essentially nothing of the village of Altamont that it had not already purportedly agreed to, other than good-faith cooperation. For reasons unexplainable to me, however, the village appears not to be interested in resolving this matter and allowing Mr. Thomas’s proposed project to progress."

Planning

The town of Guilderland drafted a plan to maintain the rural quality of the western part of town. Altamont is the only area of concentrated development in the western part.

The Open Space Institute this year released a report documenting sprawl in the Capital Region and noting that the state allows five planning methods for municipalities, including a comprehensive plan.

The Enterprise asked the candidates for the village election in March if they thought Altamont should have a master plan. The three elected candidates favored Altamont’s developing such a plan.

In September, the board of trustees unanimously adopted a moratorium on subdivisions within the village.

Citing significant concerns over the village’s water supply, Trustee Whalen proposed the one-year moratorium.

Donald Cropsey Jr., the village’s building inspector, said in September that, until this year, he has not received any application for subdivision in the village during the last five years. The century-old, mile-square village is largely developed.

Cropsey said he had recently received an application for a 32-lot subdivision on Bozenkill Road and he believed the moratorium would postpone the project. Roemer disputed Cropsey’s view that an application had been received by the village.

After the September meeting, Troy Miller told The Enterprise that he and Jeff Perlee had plans to develop property they had owned on Bozenkill Road. They planned to build "higher-end" houses, ranging in price from $300,000 to $400,000, he said, but they sold to Ken Romanski five months earlier, after receiving concept approval.

Romanski told The Enterprise he had planed to proceed with what Miller and Perlee had proposed, building 25 to 30 homes on the Bozenkill Road property, and he hoped a moratorium wouldn’t stop his plans.

Trustee Whalen also told the village board in September he wanted to review Altamont’s zoning laws before any subdivisions occur.

Whalen told The Enterprise in November that, within 10 months, the village hopes to have created a master plan to help build the future of Altamont.

The village, he said, is looking for a planning consultant, creating a survey for residents and business owners, and preparing to hold public workshops.

The village’s zoning ordinance was established in the 1970’s, Whalen said. It hasn’t been studied or changed since then.
"The mindset in the late ’70’s and early ’60’s was a suburban model," Whalen said. "A lot of it is written on that premise."
Now, he said, the committee he is working with must find out, "What is the vision of the village" What does the constituency want" How does the village itself reinforce that""
Whalen concluded, "We have to make sure we’re open to what the village wants and part of that is to ask questions. What do the people want" What do developers want""