Residents press board over proposed trails and contest warehouse FEIS and Staley Road safety

Multiple residents used the Town Board public-comment period on March 3 to press elected officials on proposed trail planning, raise road- and safety-related concerns on Staley Road, and to urge the town to treat the Quest warehouse environmental review skeptically.

Eli Hazan, a resident of Park Place, told the board he and neighbors oppose the idea of trails being placed behind homes in his neighborhood, saying the town did not adequately communicate plans to residents. “When I want to put a shed on my property, I’m told where I can put it and where I cannot put it,” Hazan said. “Yet the town wants to come put public trails behind our homes…Who’s gonna police these trails? Who’s gonna clean these trails? Who’s gonna groom these trails?” Hazan said he will attend meetings and pursue all available options to stop the trails from being installed behind his property unless residents are involved at every step.

Sherry Kearney, of Staley Road, said she has organized neighbors to write to state offices and to the town seeking improvements and funding. “We’re tired, fed up. It’s been two years of this,” she said, referencing pharmaceutical-company expansions and roadway issues. Kearney said she wants county and state representatives to collaborate on funding and noted that residents have reported limited responsiveness so far.

Resident Jim Daigler, who identified himself as living on Staley Road, urged the town to review pavement and maintenance plans for that corridor rather than delay work pending other projects. Daigler also criticized the Quest project’s final environmental impact statement (FEIS) and the associated technical studies. He told the board that, in his view, the applicant’s traffic and noise analyses do not follow Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) guidance, that truck-count estimates were inconsistent across submitted materials and that the town’s requested 12-hour LEQ noise metric was not used in the applicant’s noise study. “If these guys can’t nail down what they’re going to propose, they should be using the facility with the highest number of trucks,” Daigler said. He urged the board to consider issuing negative findings and rejecting the FEIS if the applicant does not adequately address town requests.

Board members responded to concerns about communication and project status. Supervisor Marston and other board members said they had not been advancing trail construction plans and that no funded or finalized trail project was pending in the near term. The supervisor said, on the record, that there were no current plans that would imminently place trails behind the neighborhoods referenced by speakers, but acknowledged residents’ frustration about communications and pledged to follow up.

The board did not take formal action on trails or on the Quest FEIS during the meeting. The planning referral for the agricultural-animal special-use permit was the only land-use item sent to the planning board at this meeting; other long-running project reviews remain under review by staff and consultants. Residents were advised to provide documents to the town clerk or staff and that large supplemental packets could be provided in hard copy if email attachments exceed system limits.

The public-comment period closed with the board directing staff to ensure petitioners’ materials are circulated to appropriate departments and to continue coordinating with state and county offices on Staley Road requests.