Lewiston Town Board adopts fund balance policy, targets ticks and supports July 4 fireworks

By Terry Duffy

Editor-in-Chief

Lewiston Town Board members met Thursday, May 28, and:

•Adopted the town’s new fund balance policy. According to town documents, the new policy goal is to create “an open, transparent, accountable use of public funds. The Town of Lewiston’s primary objective is to maintain a prudent level of financial resources to protect against reducing service levels or raising taxes and fees due to temporary revenue shortfalls or unpredicted one-time expenditures.”

“We’ve gone over it many times; we’ve drafted it up and down for many years,” said Jacqueline Agnello, Lewiston finance/budget director, as she discussed her work with officials.

Town attorney Alfonso Marra Bax said the plan was adopted with the purpose of keeping control over “unexpected and fluid” town expenses. Its wording states, “The Town of Lewiston shall strive to maintain unexpended surplus in accordance” with the town’s adopted five-year capital plan, as approved by the board. “It is the intent of the Town of Lewiston to limit the use of fund balances to address unanticipated, nonrecurring needs, or unanticipated future obligations. Fund balances shall not normally be applied to recurring annual operating expenditures.”

“Jacque and I came together and we developed the five-year plan,” Bax said. “The town is in a better fiscal situation than we were, and this will obviously keep us in that same trajectory moving forward.”

Other news

•Recreation Director Tim Smith reported on a growing tick problem in Lewiston’s parks.

“This time of the year, the problem everywhere is ticks,” he said. “We’d like to our parks sprayed.”

Smith said laborers will work in Lewiston’s five parks to combat the tick problem. These include the Lewiston dog park on the plateau; Kiwanis, Pletcher Road, Colonial Village and Sanborn town parks. He said the town would work with Emerald Lawn Care under a $1,600 procurement contract with the Recreation Department.

“I’d like to see that (addressed),” Supervisor Steve Broderick said. “They are bad this year.”

Smith said he aims to have the tick problem addressed prior to the start of summer camp season on June 29.

•Town Board members approved Broderick’s request for $10,000 in funding for the Village of Lewiston’s fireworks display to celebrate the nation’s 250th birthday on July 4. He said the town annually provides $4,000 toward fireworks – and back in 1976, it provided $10,000 for the village’s celebration of the nation’s bicentennial.

“I would like to do it again,” Broderick said.

The request was approved unanimously by the board. Funding will come from the town’s H-61 recreation account.

•Councilman Rob Morreale was granted board approval for the town to pursue a coordinated State Environmental Quality Review (SEQR) for the Sanborn Square multifamily PUD that is under consideration at 2835 Saunders Settlement Road. The SEQR recommendation was approved by the Lewiston Planning Board at its May meeting.

“It’s a proposed 50-unit, multifamily residential development,” Morreale said.

He noted the town’s Fire Prevention Bureau, along with developer Park Grove Realty of Rochester, would hold an information session at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 2, at the Sanborn Fire Co. firehall, 5811 Buffalo St. The meeting is open to the public. Broderick and town officials are expected to attend.

The town announced the Sanborn Square project would also be discussed at the Planning Board’s next meeting, at 6 p.m. Thursday, June 18, at Town Hall.