HomeMy WebLinkAbout10/16/2025 REGULAR MEETING MINUTES
MATTITUCK PARK DISTRICT
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2025 - 6:00 PM
Presiding Commissioners Kevin Byrne, Chairman
Denise Geis, Deputy Chair
Alexandra Getches, Commissioner
Chris Shashkin, District Clerk
Lyle Girandola,Treasurer
Abigail Field, Recording Secretary
Ben Heins, Facilities Manager
Ben Johnson, Counsel
Call to Order-6 pm
Pledge
Lifeguard Season
Kathy Ryan presented on the 2025 Lifeguard season on behalf of her daughter Bridget
• Generally recommend rehiring staff except one person who was let go during the
season. The new hires were terrific.
• DOH Beach inspection passed
• Lifeguard stands, need lifeguard on/off duty sign installed prior to season, BW sign
needs to be permanent on hinge
• Fish remnants on lifeguard stand daily, need to figure out maintaining cleanliness
because every day the lifeguards had to clean it up. Issue caused by Osprey.
• Swim zone signs at Breakwater need to be up before the beach opens
• Issue sitting on the stand, need to be on the stand
For 2026:
• Bathing suits for new hires
• 2 new rescue tubes needed for Breakwater
• New carts, wheels don't role well on sand, especially the one on Breakwater.
• Need a case to carry/protect AED when brought to/from stands, also make AED visible
down at the beach
• Want 2-3 new hires in spring to feed pipeline because some will leave.
• PayChex app would crash frequently, made clocking in difficult; constant complaints
every payroll. Discussion for the offseason: still use PayChex?
• Treasurer: in season it was like a cone of silence; I didn't have meetings with Bridget,
Ben had some contact. There's no formal interface with management. Next summer
let's do weekly meetings/recaps.
• COMMISSIONERS' REPORTS
o Denise: party with Santa coming wonderfully, Starbucks donating hot chocolate,
treats, and whipped cream, NF Chips donating potato chips, door prizes donated,
photobooth; Nov 15 movie is Home Alone
o Alex: last week I donated my crew at Bay, planted six trees, 2 sweet bay magnolia
(grow to 50-100 ft), 2 eastern redbuds (to 35 foot tall) will be and 2 American
fringe trees (to 20 foot), did lots of weeding. C Shashkin donated one, A Getches'
company donated one. Will be adding bulbs and more to the berms.
o Kevin: had the inlet meeting here, had lots of the public, and reps of Congress,
State, and Local governments. Positive meeting, good coverage. Monday tried to
take pictures of the Nor'easter damage. Bailie Beach is essentially gone. Breach
seems to be forming just to the east of the Osprey nest. No Army Corps action
without a Section 111 study. We're pushing the DEC to do it. The wetland marsh
is at risk. A Field: need to send County Legislator letter to DEC, would like to send
thumb drive of photos/drone photos of the nor'easter damage.
o Later in the meeting, K Byrne reopens his commissioner report to note that he
and Ben have begun the process for getting prices for doing electrification of
Bailie Beach. Discussion of Ben and Arthur Fielder to remove the entire oil
system and replace it with solar including air conditioning. Recommend:
purchase the HVAC system, lease for the Solar. Whole thing could be $45k. Main
floor needs a 5-ton unit, $16k, a little electrical and carpentry. Bottom floor could
be a 4-ton unit. $14k. Very efficient roof for solar. Goal to get it done in 2026.
Discussion of Lodge upgrades, parking, French doors, deck, attic insulation—
priorities insulation and parking.
• TREASURER'S REPORT— L Girandola
o Strong revenue are lodge and beach permits, exceeded budget, Field use is
running behind, picnic also low. Revenue is 101% of budget at the moment, total
expenditures is at 82% of budget, expect to get to 100% of budget. We got the
check from insurance for the truck, there's a $500 deductible. Our cash position
is $446,000, on track to have a healthy reserve in 2016.
• CLERK'S REPORT—C Shashkin
o September income low
o Year to date bookings up $300 from last year
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o Sunday December 14 Bailie Beach Turtleback Farm event, we should report,
stunned sea turtle demonstration, could we send to our list? Discussion: decision
yes.
o Discussion of ad for Secretary position.
o Run Secretary ad next two weeks
o November work session—need to discuss beach permit. Discussion of options,
well designed hanger. Probably stay with sticker. Need to give gate kids whistles.
o Lobsterfest discussion
■ Tues unpack pod. Started occupying the community room on Wed. Need
to come up with a price that includes our staff; what about the parking
issue. Put on work session agenda discussion.
o CAST Polar plunge.
■ Discussion of issues with event goers using the inside of the building.
Commissioners agree outdoor only event, endorse hosting with all the
conditions
■ Field use policy
• November work session
■ Need another meeting with CAST and Polar Bears
o Field Use policy and pricing. Need pricing for soccer clubs. Staff to come up with
a proposal for the Commissioners for November work session. Need to limit the
field for use, need to figure out enforcement. Discussion of issues with NoFo
United—communication, policy enforcement, opaque funds, overuse. Also, issue
for intermunicipal agreement.
• FACILITY MANAGER'S REPORT— B Heins
Veterans:
o Minimal effects from the storm beyond large amounts of sand on the ramp. The
entire beach was under water on both Sunday and Monday.
o Plan to have an arborist check the trees around the playground and picnic area.
Georgie trimmed a number of trees last year but would like to get an expert to
check things over.
o Discussion of Vets speedbumps; should they be removed?Tentative decision:
remove, possibly replace, possibly put in new location. Discuss putting in
replacements next year, rubber ones.
o Will schedule fall cleanup for next month after the bulk of the leaves have fallen.
Breakwater:
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• The bulk of the storm damage was here and Bailies. There was minor damage to the
gatehouse and a lot of debris.
• Jen Murray had organized a group of students from Mattituck and AMSEA to start
moving beach grass and pivoted that into a cleanup. They had about 20 people and
they pulled over 500 pounds of debris off the beach. Kristin and Beb cut up the
bigger debris and hauled it off to the landfill in my trailer.
Lodge/Bailies:
• Interact club from Mattituck school will do a beach clena up at Bailies this Saturday,
B Heins shifted them from Breakwater because of the J Murray cleanup
• We got some initial prices for replacing the current heat at the lodge and adding AC.
Upstairs would require a 5-ton unit, that would cost about $16k plus a couple
thousand in carpentry and additional electrical. The basement would need a 4-ton
unit and would be about $14k. We could spread this out over a couple of years as
the building is currently served by 2 separate furnaces for upstairs and downstairs. If
we split it up over 2 or 3 years, doing the upstairs first, we would see about a 75%
decrease in oil a year since the basement furnace is generally only used when
occupied and the water heater is already electric. But could be done all at once too.
Love Lane:
• We left the bathrooms open an extra week past Columbus Day due to the number of
boats in the harbor.
• 1 have a price to remove and store the docks and ramps from Petes Earthworks and
Marine for $1,200.00, 1 would like to have all the floats out by the end of the month.
• Meeting with the contractor for Suffolk County Water tomorrow to start the
engineering for the new water feed.
Bay Ave/Peconic Bay/Wolf Pit:
• Alex brought a crew down to weed and got a couple of truckloads out. The facilities crew
has been going down as time allows, to continue the weeding.
• The pollinator pathway and Xerxes signs are here, Alex and I need to find a spot for the
second signs.
• The farm on Mill Ln that creates the runoff problem at Wolf Pitseems to have switched
from trees to several varieties of goats and sheep. This will make the runoff into Wolf Pit
extra interesting.
Aldrich:
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• Mermaid is working on the water system and with the county. The whole project will be
under $20k. Once installed the system needs to be checked daily (to check that the
green light is green) and noted on a form that gets sent to the county monthly. This can
be done in house and we have people there daily anyway. Also working on a wifi version.
Waiting for water test results to ensue system is designed correctly
• RFC is working up (3) quotes for Aldrich for the work session. A wood guard rail around
the well heads, a wood guard rail for the north side of the lot to keep cars from driving
on the grass by the dog park, and a privacy fence around the back of the building to hide
equipment and prevent unauthorized access to the electrical and sprinkler systems.
General:
• Our insurance company, NYMIR, held an all parks training day with us, the town, village
and the other park districts. Me, Chris, Kristin, Grace and Ryan were there for MPD.
From the discussion we have all of our inspection procedures for playgrounds, AEDs,
SDS, and vehicles squared away. There will be new state required training in
cybersecurity starting next year, it appears this will be required for ALL staff, including
gate attendants and lifeguards.
• All the seasonal buildings will be winterized starting the end of the month along with the
sprinklers at Vets and the water at Bay.
• MANAGEMENT CONSULTANT'S REPORT—A Field
o Presented on the support letters on the DEC effort; mentioned polishing the draft
employee handbook, there are questions for counsel—in house and then outside
counsel. Discussion of email for District counsel so his stuff can be siloed
properly, will continue working on field use policy, will be working on the website
stuff we put on hold over the summer. Will also do the discussed second DEC
letter. Led discussion of potential newsletter content. Discussed cutting down
word count to the extent possible.
• PUBLIC COMMENT(moved up at Chairman's decision)
Dan Egan suggests winterizing the docks. Can he stage a dumpster at Love Lane so he
can get rid of floating docks that he has, happy to add anything of ours we don't want
into it also. He would then take our docks out for us, and then put them back in in the
spring. Would be a 30-yard dumpster. Need insurance certificate, need to check to make
sure earlier one is still valid
DISCUSSION
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• Asking Town for clarity on their position on fishing permit enforcement on Jetty—Issue
is we get a lot of complaints about trash on the jetty and fishing on the jetty creating the
problem. We created a fishing permit that we then enforced which really helped. B
Heins was then told by a harbor master we can't enforce, commissioners acted on it. We
need to know more officially if/why we can't enforce. Shifted topic to executive session
on advice of counsel.
RESOLUTIONS
Approval of 9/18/25 Meeting Minutes presented via email
Moved by D Geis, Seconded A Getches, unanimous
RESOLUTION 2025-64
RESOLUTION APPROVING BILL REGISTERS AND
AUTHORIZING PAYMENT OF CURRENT BILLS FOR OCTOBER 2025
RESOLVED that the Board of Commissioners of the Mattituck Park District hereby approves the
Bill Registers submitted by the Treasurer at the October 2 and October 16, 2025, meetings and
further authorizes payment of the current bills.
RESULT: Motion by A Getches, Second by K Byrne, unanimous
RESOLUTION 2025-65
RESOLUTION APPROVING CONTRACT FOR IT SERVICES
WHEREAS,the Commissioners have determined the need for limited and specific IT support
services and have reviewed the proposal from East End Computers in total cost of$2,000,
RESOLVED, the Commissioners authorize Chairman Kevin Byrne to execute a contract with East
End Computers to perform the work.
RESULT: Motion by K Byrne, Second D Geis, unanimous
RESOLUTION 2025-66
RESOLUTION APPOINTING LEGAL COUNSEL
WHEREAS, Steven Kiely has resigned the position of legal counsel, and the Mattituck Park
District needs legal counsel,
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RESOLVED, the Board of Commissioners of the Mattituck Park District hereby appoints
Benjamin Johnson as legal counsel to the Mattituck Park District at $20,000/year.
RESULT: Motion by D Geis, seconded A Getches, unanimous.
Motion to Adjourn K Byrne, D Geis, Unanimous. Adjourned at 7:57 pm
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