Chester grapples with building permit backlog

The Town of Chester has over 400 building permits to renew and is two years behind in its internal audits to be reported to the state Comptroller’s Office, it was revealed at March 13’s board meeting. Supervisor Brandon Holdridge told the audience of 40 or so people gathered at Town Hall that “the prior administration” left the town with the backlog.

“I don’t want to be the stereotypical politician who blames the prior administration,” but Holdridge does not expect the town to be caught up until the second half of 2025, he told The Chronicle.

The town has reduced the outstanding building permits from 2020 and 2021 to 12 from 14 and from 2022 to 98 from 125. Overall there are 415 expired permits to process. The new town building inspector is John Hand. Holdridge told The Chronicle the previous building inspector, who quit in October, complained she did not have enough help “but we’re getting it done with the same amount of people.”

Holdridge said the town’s accounting department still has to complete its 2022 and 2023 audits to report to the state comptroller. “I do blame the last administration,” he said. The board did not reappoint the town’s previous comptroller who served under then-supervisor Robert Valentine and instead appointed Neil Meyer. “He’s doing an excellent job,” Holdridge said. Nonetheless, he said at the town board meeting that 2024’s audits would be submitted to the state late due to the backlog.

Other issues he credited to Valentine include paying an $80,000 retainer to the town’s engineering firm, on top of hourly costs. He said the town now only pays hourly costs for its new engineer firm and does not pay a retainer.

Improving EMS service

The top agenda item at Wednesday’s town board meeting was a public hearing on the future of the EMS service serving Chester. Currently the town has a handshake agreement with Empress emergency services company and does not pay anything out of their budget to cover EMS. The private company handles all billing with customers. This arrangement isn’t working out for the town, as many residents described wait times for ambulances of over 30 minutes.

The town is seeking to change that. The idea of creating an Ambulance Tax District to dedicate funds toward improved service was discussed at length at the meeting. Assemblyman Brian Maher, who experienced a similar issue when he was supervisor for Montgomery, recommended the town create a tax district for the ambulance service, rather than include it in the town budget, because that would allow PILOTs to be taxed. PILOTs (payment in lieu of taxes) are agreements with businesses that have negotiated tax breaks with the town.

He said after the town decides to create an Ambulance District, the next step is to send out an RFP (Request for Proposal) and see which local EMS services respond and at what price. Maher said the town could negotiate financial protections with providers so the district does not become “a bottomless pit.”

A tax district could not go into effect until January of 2025. The request for RFPs is set for the next meeting and that process will last about a month, board members said. While the tax district can be in place by January, costs for EMS coverage for the rest of 2024 would have to come out of the town’s budget or reserves.

Currently Empress parks one ambulance by Chester Town Hall to attempt to provide coverage to the local area. When they get busy, this ambulance may go out of town and other local EMS services have to be called in.

A lieutenant from Empress told the town board during public comments that if they win the RFP, their response times would be much better as they would have a dedicated unit for Chester. Empress covers several counties and has 110 ambulances and 350 paramedics, the lieutenant said.

Several town residents shared stories of long wait times for paramedic services after 911 calls. The board said the average wait time is 17 minutes but over 100 calls every year go over 30 minutes wait time.

Village Trustee Brian Boone recalled seeing a lady collapse at a Chester restaurant while he was dining there; he made a point of timing the response. He said it took 55 minutes for paramedics to arrive and it was Warwick EMS who came.

Chris Mauer of Creamery Pond Road said she suffered a life-threatening health situation recently and while police responded in minutes, it took an ambulance 40 minutes to show up. She added, had she received a faster response time from EMS, her situation would have been less severe. “I am scared to live in Chester now,” she said.

Councilman Larry Dysinger shared that he had a seizure on January 1, which lasted five minutes. Empress was not providing service that night. It took 30 minutes for an ambulance to show up and another 10 minutes for an ambulance equipped to deal with his situation on top of that.