Group leans toward 'Landing at Penn Yan'

    YATES COUNTY—The Yates County Finance committee discussed the details regarding the future development of the 15 acre former Penn Yan Marine site Tuesday, Aug. 7. County Planner Shawna Bonshak said there are two different proposals for the site to be developed. One from Pennsylvania developer Robert Yoder and one from Chrisanntha Inc., have been discussed by the Request for Proposal (RFP) committee, and County Chairman H. Taylor Fitch said that the committee is leaning toward Yoder’s proposal. However, Bonshak also said there is a lot of work that needs to be done before the board can make a recommendation to go with Yoder’s proposal, so the county legislature will not be meeting with the chosen developer until possibly September.
    Bonshak said Yoder’s proposal, officially called “The Landing at Penn Yan,” would include 113 two and three-bedroom townhomes, a 70 boat-slip marina, a community center including a pool and gym facility, and a 80 to 100 room extended-stay hotel. Chrisanntha Inc.’s proposal is similar to Yoder’s, but only includes 42 two and three-bedroom townhome units and a 26 slip marina along with a community center. Bonshak said there is still a lot of due diligence to be done before a recommendation can officially be made to the committee.
    Once a plan is officially recommended, Finance Chairman Tim Dennis said the committee can still engage in intense fine tuning of the proposal, and that those discussions could still go on while working with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC).
    In other news:
    The committee agreed more information was needed before deciding on a buyer interested in the Clinton Street Mobil station. Treasurer Bonnie Percy said the buyer was discovered to have $45,000 in delinquent taxes and penalties for the years 2006, 2007 and 2008. Percy said the bank involved had no idea of prior years delinquent taxes, and that the committee needed to get in touch with the bank’s attorney for more information on the issue.
    Administrator/Budget Officer Sarah Purdy discussed with the committee the possibility of acquiring a website redesign contract by the end of this year. She said to do it this year would require using $8,000 of the contingency fund and would need to be started promptly, otherwise the price for a redesign would go up if they waited until 2013. Dennis and the committee came to the agreement that while a redesign is needed, they do not have the resources to get the job done properly, and decided to wait and budget into next year.
    Mark Morris provided the board with copies of a proposed letter to the governor to make him aware of the towns surrounding the Keuka Lake watershed and their moratoriums and bans regarding hydrofracking. Morris said the basic purpose of this letter would be to get Keuka Lake in the same consideration that New York City and Syracuse watersheds are. After some debate about the wording of the letter, Fitch said he would sign the letter for Yates County only after the wording was changed to coincide more with resolutions the legislature has already passed.
    The Yates County legislature will meet Monday, Sept. 10 at 1 p.m. The next finance committee meeting is Wednesday, Sept. 5 at 5 p.m.