Town of Lancaster Town Board·September 21, 2026
88 acres rezoned for 96 houses · A lighting law dies · Airbnb rules meet the neighbors · An apology, then a broadside
Lancaster's Town Board adopted 20 of its 23 prefiled resolutions on Monday night, and the four times it divided, it divided along exactly the same line: Council Members Thomas Anticola, Mark R. Burkard and Melissa A. Studley on one side, Supervisor Robert E. “Bob” Leary and Deputy Supervisor Dawn C. Schroeder on the other. That bloc carried the night's biggest item — rezoning 88.13 acres at 351 Pavement Road from General Industrial to Residential to make room for a 96-lot single-family subdivision, over Leary's objection that the mine on the site has not finished reclaiming, the north entrance is gone and the roads would cross a pressurized gas line. The same bloc, voting the other way, killed Local Law No. 7, an outdoor lighting law five months in the making, 2–3. All five members then refused, unanimously, to declare a lot conversion at 13 Silent Meadow environmentally harmless, and refused the conversion itself. Four public hearings drew a full room: a short-term-rental law that two residents called none of the town's business and two board members defended with stories of their own; an e-bike law a parks official said is needed because motorized bikes are running the bike path at 30 miles an hour; a special use permit for a small auto-recycling business on Town Line Road, granted 5–0 after a resident asked two members to recuse themselves and neither did; and the town's $150,000 block-grant ask for the Senior Center. The board also approved $1,182,947.92 in audited claims, bought the police three body cameras, put Leary himself in the unpaid finance director's chair as the paid one walks out, and heard a resident spend seven minutes calling the last meeting a political embarrassment.
The parcel at 351 Pavement Road is 88.13 acres of General Industrial land with a mine on it. PM Pavement, LLC wants to put 96 single-family lots there, and has wanted to since February. On Monday night, after seven months, two Planning Board reviews and one vote that did not do what it looked like it did, the Town Board rezoned it — 3–2.
The rezone came in two pieces. Resolution 14 adopted a negative declaration under the State Environmental Quality Review Act; Resolution 16 amended the zoning map. Anticola offered both. Both passed 3–2, with Schroeder and Leary voting no.
Leary spent most of his objection on things not yet finished. “I'm not in favor of this because, again, I think we're getting ahead of ourselves here,” he said. The mine reclamation is incomplete. The project's north entrance, he had been told, is no longer there, which means the plans the board saw will change. And the subdivision's roads would have to cross a pressurized natural gas line — something the town already struggled with once. “We had trouble trying to get a bike path over this natural gas pressurized pipeline,” he said. “So again, I don't know how they're going to do that.”
He also read the Planning Board's own findings back at it. The board that recommended a negative declaration had recorded a moderate-to-large impact on land, because the work involves excavating and removing more than 1,000 tons of natural material, and a small impact on the Heritage Trail over safety concerns. “I'm kind of surprised this passed,” Leary said.
A council member answered for the majority, and the answer was about what the land is worth as it stands: the site is general industrial, the road cannot carry much industry, and nobody else is coming. “This gives a positive twist to a very large parcel of land that is otherwise unusable,” he said, with a company “willing to do all that excavation work.” There is “absolutely” more to be looked at, he added — but the rezone, in his view, was the useful outcome.[3]
The rezone is a map change, not a permit. The 96 lots still need a subdivision approval, and the reclamation, the entrance and the pipeline crossing all remain exactly where Leary left them.
Under New York's environmental review law, a board must decide whether a project could have a significant adverse effect on the environment. A negative declaration is the finding that it will not — so the project needs no environmental impact statement and can move on. A positive declaration is the finding that it might, which triggers a full study and often years of work.
So the language runs backwards from ordinary English. Voting for a negative declaration clears a project. Voting it down — as this board did later the same night on 13 Silent Meadow — stops one.
On June 1 the board voted 2–3 on a resolution to deny the Pavement Road rezone. It is easy to read that as a defeat for the applicant. It was the opposite: the motion to deny failed, so no denial was ever entered, and the application stayed alive to come back in September and pass.
A rezone survives until a board actually votes it down. A failed denial is not a denial.
The smallest item on the docket got the most decisive treatment. DJC Land Development, LLC[*] asked to convert an exception lot at 13 Silent Meadow — a 0.56-acre parcel, SBL No. 126.11-8-2 — into a building lot. The Planning Board had reviewed it on September 2 and recommended a positive declaration: it found the conversion could matter environmentally.
Resolution 21, as drafted for the board, said the opposite. It asked the Town Board to find that the project “will not result in any large and important environmental impacts,” and to adopt a negative declaration — over its own Planning Board's recommendation. All five members voted no.
Resolution 22, the conversion itself, followed immediately, and its own whereas clauses recited why the Planning Board had balked: a moderate-to-large impact on the change in use or intensity of use of the land, action that would impair the character or quality of the existing community, an adverse change to natural resources, and a small impact on erosion, flooding or drainage. That failed 0–5 as well.
No member spoke on either resolution. Burkard offered both, then voted against both. The lot stays an exception lot.
When land is subdivided, a piece is sometimes carved out and recorded as an exception lot — a parcel deliberately set aside as not buildable, often because of its size, shape, drainage or access. It is a lot on paper with no house allowed on it.
Converting one into a building lot takes a board's approval, because it adds a house the original subdivision was approved without. That is why a half-acre of land ended up with two roll calls and an environmental review.
Local Law No. 7 of 2026 was introduced to the Town Board on April 29. It got a public hearing on June 15. It was, in Leary's words, “dumbed down quite a bit” along the way — the version that came to the floor exempted seasonal holiday lighting, emergency lighting, temporary lighting under special event permits, and patio-home communities that use garage lights as street lighting. Its stated purpose was to reduce light trespass onto neighboring properties. “We're going to give that another shot,” Leary said at the work session, “see where it goes.”
It went 2–3. Anticola explained himself on the roll call: “I'm all for the rule of law, but I do prefer a more conservative approach to that and less government involvement in everybody's everyday life. To me this law seems like excessive oversight, and I'm not a fan of this, so I'm a no for that reason.” Burkard and Studley followed him. Schroeder and Leary voted yes.
Schroeder had made the case for it a moment earlier, and it was not about the residents who showed up. It was about the ones who didn't: at the moratorium meeting she had run the week before, she said, a resident with a lighting problem mentioned it in passing — someone who “didn't come to the dais or didn't know that we were having a public hearing on it.” “I think there's many people out there who do have lighting problems,” she said, “and need some help taking care of those.”
The board's own packet had gotten ahead of the vote. Filed behind Resolution 12 was a finished public notice, dated September 24, announcing that the Town Board “has adopted Local Law No. 7 of the Year 2026, on September 21, 2026,” over the town clerk's name. It will not run.
The third public hearing was the one that filled the microphone. The proposed law would require a license to run a short-term rental — an Airbnb, a VRBO, anything under 30 days — plus notice to surrounding property owners and a posting on the property itself. Deputy Town Attorney Brad Davidzik summarized it when a resident asked what it meant for an ordinary homeowner: “Really, it comes down to letting the surrounding community and neighbors know who's renting their house out and who's not.”
Two residents were unpersuaded. The first worried less about the law than about where it leads, citing municipalities where short-term-rental rules ratcheted outward until they caught the apartment over the garage and the mother-in-law suite — “detrimental to the average homeowner.” He named Daytona Beach, which restricts rentals under 30 days regardless of who is in them. “I don't think it's your business to dictate who lives where and who visits where and who visits who,” he said.
Robert Richardson of 36 Chicory Lane — whose own patio permit the board settled by resolution later the same evening — went further. The fees would be prohibitive and would simply be passed along, he said, and a suspicious neighbor already has a remedy: “If the neighbor thinks there's anything crazy or something about, then call 911, and the police will be there.” His verdict: “I think it's a cover story to generate more revenue and to, quite frankly, invade people's privacy. And I don't see a legitimate public purpose for having this passed.”
Two board members answered with their own experiences rather than with policy. One described booking a VRBO in North Carolina for a daughter's physical-therapy internship, paying up front, and discovering on arrival that the host was subleasing a unit she had no right to sublease, with an eviction pending: “The sheriffs could come at any time and kick her out.” The platform, he said, did nothing. The other lives in the village next to a house that was rented out for a party — “close to 100 underage drinkers languishing all over my property,” at two in the morning, on the truck. The police were called. It happened two or three more times.
The board took no vote. Davidzik told the board that minor changes could be folded in, but that “significant changes” would require a fresh public hearing, and that Town Attorney Jennifer L. Strong had already flagged possible revisions. One of the speakers, granted the last word, asked for exactly that: “I definitely say it needs to be publicly debated… I think you should go in there with eyes wide open.”
The e-bike hearing produced one speaker and one useful distinction. Speaking for the Parks Department, he told the board the complaints are not about pedal bikes. “We're getting a lot of complaints about the motorized bikes going down the bike path at 30 miles an hour,” he said, past seniors who don't hear them coming and “get scared.” He was careful to defend the other kind: pedal-assist bikes are how older riders stay on the trail, pedaling until they tire and then taking the motor. Those, he said, the town should leave alone.
The board established that fully motorized bikes — electric dirt bikes, the ones with no pedals past assist level three — are currently governed by nothing. Asked whether existing rules cover them on the bike path, the answer from the dais was flat: “No, we don't.” The speaker's one ask was signage at the trailheads. No vote was taken; the law, like the rental law, may come back revised.
Timothy Wysocki applied in July to run a small-scale automotive recycling and OEM parts e-commerce business at 1230 Town Line Road. The Planning Board recommended approval of the site plan on August 19 subject to a special use permit. Monday night the Town Board took both, 5–0.
The public hearing before the vote went somewhere else. Richard Streigel[3] came to the podium, noted that the property is owned by Greg Sojka[*], and asked Burkard and Studley in turn whether they knew him. Both said they did. “If I ask you to recuse yourself, do you want to vote,” he said, “being that you do have this conference interest. That's all I ask.” Sojka then took the microphone himself, identified himself as the owner, and put the same question to Leary, Schroeder and Anticola. All three said they knew him too.
Nobody recused. Both resolutions carried unanimously. The permit runs from September 21, 2026 to September 20, 2028 and must be renewed every two years; outdoor storage is limited to the enclosed processing queue, the open storage area and a scrap dumpster behind the building; and a copy of the business's New York State DMV license goes to the Town Clerk. One correction was made on the floor: the permit as drafted ran to the property address rather than to the applicant, and was amended to name the person.
Momentum Environmental has bought 6125 Genesee Street, the soil recycling facility in Bowmansville, from ESG Environmental Services Group[3], and came to the pre-meeting work session to say what it wants to do with the other 95 acres. Kathleen Rogers[3] of Ensol Environmental Engineering[3] presented, with the company's chief executive and a senior vice president — the latter, she noted, formerly of the previous owner — sitting behind her.
The existing soil recycling operation occupies a strip along Genesee Street. The rest is, in her description, “previously disturbed and mined and excavated land.” The proposal coming to the board as a site plan and special use permit amendment would add a yard-waste compost facility, more topsoil processing and material storage areas across the southern portion, plus a residential drop-off. The pitch to the town was logistical and local: Lancaster currently trucks its collected yard waste to Clarence. “Potentially, we could offer the town the composting services right here in Lancaster.”
Board questions went to what would be accepted. The soil facility takes clean fill only; the compost operation would take yard waste only — “no food waste or putrescible waste at all.” The DEC yard-waste registration is already in hand. Code Enforcement Officer Matt Fischione added a piece of housekeeping with real consequences: the special flood hazard area mapped on the property “appears to be in error,” and the application is an opportunity to get the floodplain map corrected and formally adopted. A formal application is expected in the coming weeks.
Grace Way. The unsafe-buildings proceeding on the property that has been pumping sewage into the street is filed. The owner was served midweek and the property posted, Fischione told the board, twice — once at the work session and again for the people who arrived late. The owner now has 30 days to respond before the public hearing, which lands at the first meeting in November. The board's directive on Salvatore's is also moving: the town reached the restaurant's attorney and set a meeting, then rescheduled it because the owner is out of town.
Highway. Warner Road is topsoiled, seeded and cleaned up, with striping the last item waiting on a booked contractor. Highway Superintendent John Pilato[*] reported the brush pile is “huge” and the price of chipping brush “has gone to the roof” — and then that a neighboring town's highway department[3] is lending Lancaster a tub grinder, which he expects next week, along with an operator for the duration. The loan saves roughly $60,000 this season. Leary said the town is looking at using its reimbursement money to buy one outright, since the cost recurs annually; the dealer has quoted $90,000 to $100,000 on trade. Pilato also flagged a three-year gap in a sweeper-sharing agreement with the village: “There's three years there of funds that we should have been getting.” It goes to legal.
Police and dog control. August dog control: 18 complaints or calls, five compliance notices, three welfare checks, five bite reports, five dangerous dog complaints, three dogs redeemed, three still in custody — and 153 expired-license follow-ups, far and away the department's biggest line. The police department has begun the policy-and-procedure upgrade the board bought on September 8; the chief and Patrol Captain Andrew Speyer[*] have met the vendor, and the work runs through next August.
Parks and facilities. Park Crew Chief Carmen Ciccarelli has marked, but not closed, the bike path for hunting season. Westwood Park is being paved; the splash pad waits on grant administration and is probably a next-year build. The town is laying out additional parking at Walden Pond off the south side of the turf field — not wetlands, and to be surveyed once a configuration maximizes the count — with the same exercise to follow at Westwood. A county-funded generator and an 80-seat visitor-side bleacher at Walden Pond are coming as resolutions; Fischione asked for occupant loads and engineering certification first. Town Hall's revitalization is nearly finished: the exterior stair project will close the main stairs and route entry to the Clark Street side, paid with New York Forward money, and the upstairs audio equipment is the last piece. The board meets, as of Monday, in new chairs at a new podium.
Moratorium committee. Schroeder reported on the September 14 meeting with residents inside the Bowmansville historical hamlet boundary. Having already drawn the boundaries of both the Bowmansville and Town Line hamlets and agreed on a commercial buffer along Transit Road, the committee asked residents what they want the overlay district to require: two-story building heights, setbacks, landscaping, signage, lighting. Those specifications go to the town engineer and to the Village Historical Commission chair[3] to be written up, then to the legal office to be drafted as code for the board to review.
Nicholas Swanson resigns as Director of Administration & Finance effective the end of September. By Resolution 11 the board appointed Supervisor Leary to the post effective October 1 — explicitly “non-salaried” and carrying “no financial compensation or employment benefits” — and authorized him to work directly with The Bonadio & Co., LLP[*], the outside firm the board hired on September 8 to keep the town's books. Leary explained the mechanism at the work session: Swanson is finishing out part-time as a contractor, and “a person working outside of the town as a contractor cannot be the director of administration and finance.” He did the same thing in January. It passed 5–0.
Resolution 23's budget transfers ran to more than 30 lines, and Leary used them to put a number on the town's 2027 problem. State retirement is up, mostly on the police side: $630,000 this year, “well over $800,000” next, and about $1 million in total increased state retirement cost for Tier 6 employees. “So it's a good thing for the employees,” he said, “but not such a good thing for the towns that have to — and the taxpayers, not the towns, who have to pay that.” The transfers themselves move $625,000 into general-fund health insurance and $705,000 of sales tax into the highway fund's health insurance line, among others.
Elsewhere on the docket: $1,182,947.92 in audited claims; 78 building permits reaffirmed, 19 in the village and 59 in the town; three Axon body cameras and two licenses at $12,335.18 sole-source; two Western plows for Parks, Recreation & Forestry at $15,725.66 through a Sourcewell contract; two surplus F-250s to online auction September 24 through October 2; Billy Jo Mays appointed part-time permanent Recreation Attendant at the Senior Center at $19.00 an hour; Ronald Capozzi made permanent Assistant Code Enforcement Officer through the New York State HELPS program, which lets a provisional appointee gain permanent status without a competitive exam Erie County no longer reliably offers; Austin Marsilio added to the Twin District Volunteer Fire Company roster; updated subdivision application forms adopted; a sidewalk waiver granted at 2679 Wehrle Drive[*] over Leary's and Schroeder's objections; and a public hearing set for October 5 on New Enterprise Stone & Lime Co.[*]'s application for a special use permit to operate an asphalt plant at 5466 Genesee Street.
The CDBG hearing drew no speakers, so Leary described the application himself: 19 windows at the Senior Center, reorganized offices, a replaced flat roof, and push-button accessible entry to the bathrooms, for not more than $150,000 of 2027 Erie County block-grant money, with any overage coming from the town's unassigned fund balance. No match is required. “We've been pretty lucky in what we've been able to get so far.”
Schroeder gave the invocation, and it was written for the room she was standing in. “As we gather today, our world is heavy with division, conflict, and noise,” she read. “Around the globe and in our own communities, people are searching for leaders who choose cooperation over confrontation.” Then: “Help us remember that our work here is not to defeat one another, but to serve the people who depend upon us.”
Ten minutes later a council member asked for a few seconds off the docket. “Last town board meeting was kind of contentious, a lot of yelling and what not. I want to apologize for that, apologize for my participation in that. It was uncalled for.” He promised to keep it “a lot cleaner from now on. Things just got out of hand.”[3] The September 8 meeting he was apologizing for had run 90 minutes around a criminal investigation into the highway superintendent's practice of giving away road millings, which the police chief closed with a finding of no criminal activity.
The apology held for two hours. At the end of the meeting, with no hands raised, a resident the supervisor addressed only as Paul[3] stepped up, and the board voted to give him extra time when his five minutes ran out.
He had come to answer the town Republican committee chairman, Greg Sojka, who had addressed the board on September 8. Working from a numbered list, he disputed Sojka's characterizations point by point — Boys & Girls Club funding, which he said runs $200,000 in 2025, $150,000 in 2026 and $100,000 in 2027 and which few other Erie County towns fund at all; an industrial development agency vote; the highway millings investigation; and a FOIL request for a town employee's overtime, which he called an effort to harm that employee's standing. He defended Leary at length, said the chairman's “verbal vomit needs to end,” and called the last meeting “embarrassing.”
Then he turned on one council member by name — a surname the recording does not render intelligibly, so she is not identified here — told her he had found out that she, not the supervisor, was “the bully,” and finished by saying her actions were “nothing but bullshit.” The supervisor thanked him for his comments. The board moved into executive session on a personnel matter, and the stream ended.
All five members sat and voted on every item: Supervisor Robert E. Leary, Deputy Supervisor Dawn C. Schroeder, and Council Members Thomas Anticola, Mark R. Burkard and Melissa A. Studley. No recusals were entered; a recusal was requested of two members on Items 17 and 18 and declined. Votes are 5–0 unless noted. Public hearings were opened and closed on voice vote.
Two speakers, both on the question of whether board members who know the property owner should vote. No substantive opposition to the use itself.
One speaker, for the Parks Department: motorized bikes at 30 mph on the bike path, and a request for trailhead signage. Board confirmed no existing rule covers fully motorized bikes. Counsel advised that minor amendments could proceed but significant ones would require a new hearing.
Licensing, neighbor notice and on-property posting. Two residents opposed on privacy and cost grounds; two board members recounted personal experiences with unlicensed and misused rentals. Town Attorney has flagged possible revisions. No vote taken.
No speakers. Supervisor described the intended application: Senior Center windows, office reorganization, flat roof replacement and push-button accessible bathroom entry.
Offered by Leary.
Total authorized: $1,182,947.92. Offered by Leary.
19 in the village, 59 in the town. Permits coded (CSW) carry a conditional sidewalk waiver: the town reserves the right at any future date to order sidewalks installed at the owner's expense. Offered by Burkard.
$19.00/hour, effective September 22, 2026, no more than 19.50 hours per week, no health insurance or other non-mandated benefits. Recommended by Recreation Supervisor Marybeth Gianni[*] by letter of September 2. Contingent on pre-employment checks and required certifications.
Requested by Daniel Jordan of Harding Homes by letter of September 3; SBL No. 82.03-1-10. Granted “to maintain consistency with the existing character of the area,” with the town reserving the right to order sidewalks later at the then-owner's expense. Offered by Studley.
Applicant David Colarusso[*] of New Enterprise Stone & Lime Co. Inc. Hearing set for October 5, 2026 at 7:05 p.m.; notice to be published, posted, and referred to the Erie County Department of Planning under General Municipal Law §239-m. Offered by Burkard.
Property owned by Robert B. and Bridget N. Richardson as trustees. A permit was issued on certified surveys and stamped architectural drawings; the building department later determined the northwest patio post needed an area variance for its proximity to the pool, which the Zoning Board of Appeals granted and the department verified by field measurement. All inspections have passed. The board directs the code enforcement officer to issue the certificate if all code and variance conditions are met, and to report in writing within 30 days if he cannot. Offered by Anticola, who added: “Everything in life doesn't go exactly by a book.”
A 7½' Pro Series 3 steel plow at $6,746.66 and an 8'6" MVP3 steel flex plow at $8,979.00 — $15,725.66 total — from Casullos Auto Accessories & Upholstery, Kenmore, under a Sourcewell contract, exempting the purchase from competitive bidding under General Municipal Law §103. Requested by Park Crew Chief Carmen Ciccarelli, September 14. Offered by Schroeder.
A 2017 and a 2018 F-250, roughly 44,000 and 56,000 miles. Online auction with Auctions International beginning on or about September 24 and closing October 2; proceeds to the Supervisor's office. Requested by Highway Superintendent John Pilato, September 14. Offered by Burkard.
$12,335.18 total from Axon Enterprise, Inc. — $1,049 per camera and $4,594.09 per license — from the public safety equipment line. Requested by Patrol Captain Andrew Speyer, September 10. The department told the board it needs enough cameras for a grown staff plus one spare for repair downtime.
Effective October 1, 2026, on Nicholas Swanson's resignation. Strictly non-salaried, no compensation or benefits. Authorizes Leary to coordinate directly with The Bonadio & Co., LLP on the town's financial and fiscal responsibilities.
Introduced April 29; Type II action under SEQR with a negative declaration issued; public hearing held June 15. Purpose: reduce light trespass onto neighboring properties and preserve nighttime community character. Exemptions for seasonal holiday lighting, emergency lighting, special-event temporary lighting, and patio-home garage lights serving as street lighting.
2027 Erie County Community Development Block Grant application: 19 windows, reorganized offices, flat roof replacement, push-button accessible bathroom entry. Not to exceed $150,000; no match required; any additional funds from the town's unassigned fund balance. Offered by Schroeder.
Type I action; Town Board as lead agency; full environmental assessment form. Planning Board reviewed August 5 and September 2 and recommended a negative declaration — while recording a moderate-to-large impact on land (excavation and removal of more than 1,000 tons of natural material) and a small impact on the Heritage Trail. Offered by Anticola.
Addition of Austin Marsilio, on the company's letter received September 15. Offered by Leary.
±88.13 acres, SBL No. 105.00-3-41, applicant PM Pavement, LLC, for a proposed 96-lot single-family subdivision. Application received February 25, 2026; no Planning Board recommendation April 15; Town Board public hearing June 1; a resolution to deny the rezone failed 2–3 on June 1. Leary, voting no: the mine reclamation is unfinished, the north entrance is gone, the Heritage Trail is affected, and the roads would cross a pressurized natural gas pipeline. Offered by Anticola.
Small-scale automotive recycling and OEM parts e-commerce. Conceptual site plan, survey and plot plan received July 14, 2026. Type II action under SEQR requiring no further environmental review. Planning Board recommended approval August 19 subject to the special use permit and its conditions.
September 21, 2026 through September 20, 2028. Conditions: renewal every two years with a fee, on written request to the Town Clerk on or before September 20, 2028; outdoor storage limited to the enclosed processing queue, the open outdoor storage area and the scrap dumpster behind the building; a copy of the entity's NYS DMV license filed with the Clerk. Code Enforcement Officer Matt Fischione set conditions by letter of July 22. Amended on the floor to run to the applicant rather than the property address. Offered by Burkard.
Effective September 21, 2026 under the New York State HELPS program, which allows a qualified provisional appointee to gain permanent status without a competitive exam and to enter the competitive class after a probationary term. The resolution also standing-authorizes the same treatment for future eligible appointees without further board action. Offered by Studley, who tied it to Erie County offering fewer exams.
Revised by Code Enforcement Officer Matt Fischione for immediate use by the Building and Zoning Department. Offered by Studley.
Applicant and owner DJC Land Development, LLC; ±0.56 acres, SBL No. 126.11-8-2. Unlisted action; short environmental assessment form. The Planning Board reviewed it on September 2 and recommended a positive declaration; the resolution asked the board to find no significant adverse impact anyway. Offered by Burkard. Every member voted no.
The Planning Board made no recommendation to approve or deny, but voted to recommend a positive declaration on findings of moderate-to-large impact from the change in use or intensity of use of the land, impairment of the character or quality of the existing community, adverse change to natural resources, and small impact on erosion, flooding or drainage. Offered by Burkard. Every member voted no; the lot is not converted.
More than 30 line transfers requested by Director of Administration and Finance Nicholas Swanson, including $625,000 into general-fund health insurance, $556,119 and $362,000 into highway and other health insurance lines, $705,000 of sales tax into health insurance, and $630,000-plus across state retirement lines. Leary flagged state retirement rising to “well over $800,000” in 2027 and about $1 million in total added Tier 6 cost.
Four went to resolutions the same night (498 Mays appointment, 505 Axon cameras, 508 fire roster, 514 Capozzi). 500 to police; 502–504 to the Town Board (three residents asking to be considered for the Ethics Board); 507 to the planning and zoning committee; 511 to Town Board and Town Attorney; 513 to the Town Board — the Town Attorney's request for a resolution establishing a Planning Department and creating a Senior Planner position. The rest received and filed, including an Erie County letter on the William Street speed study process, school tax warrants for five districts, a police retirement notice, a firework permit non-objection for Fox Valley Country Club, and a Special Events Permit application for Stony Brook Legendary Lights.
One executive session, announced at the top of the meeting as concerning personnel. Motion carried on voice vote; the stream ends here.
This meeting was not captured live. The recording is the Town of Lancaster's own stream, pulled from the town's channel later the same night, after the meeting had ended, and transcribed immediately. It runs 8,518 seconds (142.0 minutes), opens a few minutes before the pre-meeting work session is gaveled in, and ends on the motion into executive session — so the work session is included in full and, per this publication's practice, is folded into this Town Board brief rather than written up separately. Nothing after the executive-session motion is on the recording.
The room uses an open microphone with heavy crosstalk, and roughly half an hour of the recess between the work session and the 7:00 p.m. regular meeting is unintelligible private conversation, which has been disregarded. [*] marks a proper noun corrected against the official agenda, the prefiled resolutions packet or this publication's own prior record; [3] marks a name or attribution that the audio alone supports and that no official document confirms — verify before quoting.
Corrections applied from the agenda and resolution packet, which govern over the audio: Wehrle Drive (audio: “Worley”/“whirly”), David Colarusso (audio: “Calaruso”), Marybeth Gianni (audio: “Mary Beth Yanni”), John Pilato (audio variously “Palato,” “Plato,” “Plantel”), Patrol Captain Andrew Speyer (audio: “Spire”), The Bonadio & Co., LLP (audio: “Bondillo”), Casullos Auto Accessories & Upholstery, New Enterprise Stone & Lime Co. Inc. (audio: “Stone and Line”), DJC Land Development, LLC (the packet itself types “DJS” once, on Resolution 22; the negative-declaration form and Resolution 21 both read DJC), and the council members' surnames, which this microphone mangles freely (“Anacola,” “Burkhardt,” “Stubbley,” “Sedley”). Greg Sojka is spelled from this publication's September 8 record, where he spoke on the floor; the audio gave five spellings on Monday.
Several items rest on audio alone and are flagged accordingly. The apology for the September 8 meeting was made without the speaker identifying himself and the recording does not establish which council member made it. The council member singled out by name in the closing public comment is not identified here, because the surname the speaker used does not correspond to any member of this board and the audio does not resolve it. The resident who delivered that comment was addressed by the supervisor only by his first name. The neighboring town lending Lancaster a tub grinder, and that town's highway superintendent, are not named here: the transcription renders the town as “Chihuahua,” which is plainly wrong, and no document confirms the correction. The presenters for Momentum Environmental and the former owner of 6125 Genesee Street are as heard on tape; that project has not yet filed an application, so no agenda confirms them. The board member who spoke for the majority on the Pavement Road rezone did not identify himself.
Street-name validation was not run on this transcript: Lancaster has no street inventory file in this pipeline yet, so the street and road names here are cross-checked only against the agenda, the resolutions packet and the SBL numbers printed in them. Addresses central to the night's decisions — 351 Pavement Road, 13 Silent Meadow, 1230 Town Line Road, 2679 Wehrle Drive, 5466 and 6125 Genesee Street — were cross-referenced against this publication's scanner address record; nothing in it bears on these matters. Figures, dates and dollar amounts come from the prefiled resolutions packet where one exists and from the audio where it does not.