WESTERLO — On Tuesday, Leonard Laub, the chairman of the town’s planning board, sent a letter to the town’s supervisor asking that the town board not schedule a public hearing to remove him from office. 

After holding an executive session on Tuesday night, the town board, with four members attending, voted unanimously to hold a hearing, a requirement of the state’s Town Law before removing a planning board member from office.  The hearing is scheduled for April 15 at 7:30 p.m.

“I volunteered,” Laub told The Enterprise yesterday.  “And I’m having to battle the town board to save the town its money.”

Laub, who was appointed by the town board last year when it created the town’s planning board, has not filled out a Civil Service application. 

When interviewed, Laub said, he said he didn’t want to be compensated and he didn’t want to be an employee of the town.

Recently, he said, he consulted the state’s Office of the State Comptroller and the Department of State.  Both, he said, told him “No, you’re not required to do anything more than take the oath of office.”

Laub said he gave the information to the town board on Feb. 6.

The town’s attorney, Aline Galgay, said Tuesday, “It’s always been there.  It’s been a process that’s been done for years and years and years.  No one ever said, ‘No, I’m not going to do it.’”

Resident Gaye McCafferty asked, “If a person is not receiving salary and they’re appointed, then why do they have to fill out an application?”  She said she was appointed to a board “a long time ago” and did not have to fill one out. 

“What’s the process behind it or the rationale?” she asked. 

Officials have said the requirement has long been the town’s policy.

Councilman Ed Rash said, “over the years” the requirement has been in place for bookkeeping and tax purposes. 

Gertrude Smith, the town’s longtime clerk, said she’s made every appointed person fill out an application.

Galgay said Bob Fischer, the town’s audit consultant, had recommended the board make the application a requirement of all town employees.  After the board had asked Galgay for her advice, she said her answer to the board was, “You have to formalize the requirement in order to then be able to deal with it, and that’s how this all came about.”

Upon making the application a requirement of all town employees, 12 had not filled one out.  Since, all completed the form except Laub.

“I think the application does a number of things for a town,” said Councilman R. Gregory Zeh Jr. 

He said an application validates who the person is and tells him that the person lives in Westerlo.  Zeh said he didn’t think anyone would give the keys to their home to someone without knowing who the person is. 

“This is our town hall.  It belongs to the residents of the town.  It’s our responsibility to make sure we know who the person is and that they’re able to be employed,” said Zeh. 

“He knows my address.  He’s been to my house.  My address is in the phone book,” Laub said.

Laub called the town board’s decision to hold a public hearing “a radical escalation step.”

Galgay said a town employee can choose to not be compensated, but that he must notify the town in writing before Jan. 1.  If an employee gives notice after Jan. 1, he will still receive his salary until New Year’s Day of the next year. 

Laub said there’s no legal need to fill out an application, and that he doesn’t want to be a Civil Service employee, a member of the state’s retirement system, or have income taxes taken out of his stipend and give what’s left over to the town.  He would instead like the money for his position to “be used by the town in the most suitable purpose.”

Last year, the town board created a new planning board and appointed Laub as the chairman.  The board had been dissolved in the early 1990s by the town board after developers complained that the application process had become arduous and lengthy.

On Jan. 1, at its re-organizational meeting, the town board voted unanimously to pay members of the planning board and zoning board of appeals $2,500 each and those who chair the boards $4,500.

“I didn’t realize that the chairperson for the boards made more,” Laub said.  “I don’t need it,” he said, adding that he would like the money instead to go towards engineering, consulting, and legal fees for a revised “zoning package.”

He accepted the position, he said, not for money and not for political reasons, but to do what the town board wanted him to do — “to protect the town” and “keep it as it is in a world that is changing rapidly.”  Laub cited the expansion of a two-lane road to a four-lane road in Slingerlands, a hamlet near Albany on a highway that leads to Westerlo. 

He asked of the residents in that more heavily-populated area, “How long is it going to take for them to realize they’re only a 20-minute commute from Westerlo?”

Laub said he attended town-board meetings after he moved to Westerlo and heard the town board talking about creating a comprehensive plan “month after month and year after year.” 

When he was interviewed, he said, he told the town board that creating a plan was his main motive.

Current work

Laub and the planning board are currently working on a comprehensive land-use plan for the town, to be used as a template for drafting new zoning laws. 

The board met with the town’s farmers in February and has discussed meeting with residents from each of the town’s hamlets, with business owners, and with residents of Lake Onderdonk.  In February, Gary Kleppel, a professor at the University at Albany, came to Town Hall and spoke on transfer of development rights. 

Yesterday, Laub scheduled another meeting with the town’s farmers to be held on April 17 at 7:30 p.m. at Town Hall on regional planning and sustainable agriculture and invited Tom Gallagher, a regional agriculture specialist with the Cornell Cooperative Extension of Albany County.

Laub said he could still do regional planning outside of his planning-board role.

“They can dissolve the planning board.  They can certainly dismiss me.  I don’t mind,” he said.  However, he said, while a public hearing is scheduled for April 15, he expects that, before the date, the issue will be resolved.   

A report to the board

For three months, Laub said, he’s been trying to get on the town board’s agenda to report on the planning board’s progress to no avail.  His report, he said, would take 15 minutes. 

“He was on it last night, but we just didn’t get to it,” Supervisor Richard Rapp said yesterday. 

If the town is interested in preserving its rural character, it needs to encourage large land-owners not sell off pieces of their land, Laub said. 

“You can’t stop building,” Rapp said.  He said it’s crazy to think you can stop it, but you can set guidelines.  Rapp said he’s not against development.  “I’m for it if it’s done in the right way,” he said. 

School taxes make up about two-thirds of the taxes paid by homeowners, and large tax bills will drive large landowners out of the town, Laub said.  There are two possibilities, he said, for reducing taxes for owners of large properties.  And, he said, the town board should “jawbone” with local schools and ban public and private sewer and water systems.

“You can’t reduce taxes unless you want less services,” said Rapp.  He said he thinks the tax system needs “a total overhaul.”  Older people, he said, shouldn’t have to pay taxes anymore and sales tax should increase.  “That way, everybody pays,” he said. 

The town board deals with issues of assessment, and, without the town board doing these things, Laub said, the planning board is “spinning its wheels.”

Each month, he said, he has met with Rapp either a day or a month before town board meetings.  Laub said the meetings have been “amicable.”