PROCESSING PERMIT APPLICATIONS: Jurisdictional conflict and inefficiency in handling permit applications increase the burden on everyone. Do you think a coordinated review by all involved agencies would reduce the current burden of time, cost and effort on the applicant? What new suggestions or solutions will you bring to your office?
(Candidate responses appear in the order in which they were received)
Bill Edwards:
- The best the Town can do is to expedite the process within the Trustees’ jurisdiction, and I think they do an excellent job. Unfortunately, I think that a unified process taking in the DEC and the Army Corps of Engineers is unlikely, though I would support approaching both agencies more aggressively toward that objective.
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Jim King: 
- Site visits to Fishers Island and many sites are jointly inspected by Trustees and the DEC. This saves applicants time and money. I would expand these reviews.
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Bill Ruland:
- Yes, a coordinated review by all involved agencies would reduce the current burden of time, cost and effort on applicants. If elected, I will strive to encourage all parties involved in the application process to work together for the benefit of the property owner. Government should serve the people, not hinder the people.
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Bob Ghosio: 
- Inefficiency abounds in any permit process that requires several different offices or agencies to get involved. Just look at the dredging fiasco this year. Why do we need the Army Corps, the NYS DEC, the County, the Trustees, The LWRP Coordinator and the office of Fish and Wildlife all involved to give a simple maintenance permit to dredge a creek? Of course, these agencies would not exist if there weren’t people who abused the resources in the past, so they do serve some purpose I suppose. Nevertheless, it shouldn’t be so hard.
Just this past year I got in a heap of trouble when, as a new Trustee, I helped convince the board to approve an application, even though it needed to go before the ZBA to correct a 3 foot discrepancy in setback on a plan. I wanted to save the applicant the time, hassle and money to have to get the correction approved and come back before the Trustees again for a simple approval. There were a few ruffled feathers to say the least and I was duly reprimanded by the head of the planning board.
At the end of the day, I suggested to the LWRP Council that all applications should go to the building department where a central coordinator would decide the proper flow of the application from department to department. A checklist would be provided and the application would go from one department to the next only after it was approved in the previous department. What time would be lost by going one department at a time would be made up by not duplicating procedures and by not tossing applications back and forth between departments.
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Chris Baiz: 
- Yes. Establish a procedural program including time lines for responses from all agencies involved for full and timely coordinated reviews.
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Scott Russell:
- A coordinated review process at the initial stage of any application before the town would be a helpful measure in reducing the inefficiency and jurisdiction conflicts that arise in permit administration. However, this process alone would not substantially reduce the issues of cross-jurisdiction conflict. In any original coordinated review process, the criteria and issues need to be clear, unambiguous and certain. The applicant needs to know what the requirements of his application are in the early stages and should not be subject to a process where the “end-zone” keeps moving. The applicant needs to have a “fixed-point” of completion for the application process to work well and work fairly.
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Dan Ross:
- Coordinated review similar to the SEQRA process makes sense. As one agency proceeds in its decision making process, other agencies should be on notice and be required to raise objection before the process of the first agency ends and a permit issues. There should be, and there is to some extent, a delineation of responsibility between the agencies as to who will take the lead with regard to recurring issues. When the lead agency makes a decision the other agencies should then respect it. Similar jurisdictional struggles occur on the larger governmental level. In the early 90s I worked on waterfront jurisdictional struggles as the Attorney for the Village of Greenport. At the time, we were attempting to obtain permission from the NYS Department of State to amend the Village’s Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan so as to permit certain activities. We obtained the amendment and the effort played a part in the revitalization of the Village of Greenport. It was a long, frustrating and arduous process that taught me one of the detriments of surrendering local control. In my opinion, to some degree, overlapping jurisdiction is preventing the implementation of the Section 111 Study for the Mattituck Inlet.
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The following candidates were invited to respond to this question also, but chose not to do so by publication deadline: Vincent Orlando, Anne Trimble, Frank Wills. Everyone is encouraged to add their own comments and questions below, including all candidates.
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