Monday – January 14, 2019 at 5:30 PM

Present

• Jeffrey D. Crist, Member
• Matthew P. Stoddard, Treasurer and Member
• John W. Dickson, Member
• Rodney Winchell, Member

Absent

• Edwin Williams, First Vice-Chairman
• Stephen Rainaldi, Second Vice-Chairman

Also Present

• Joseph Joy, CEO
• Anthony Zambrotta, Assistant Secretary
• Robert Mc Laughlin, Esq. Hodgson Russ Attorneys
• Members of the Audience
• Suzanne Hadden, Recording Clerk

Agenda

• Call to Order
• Reorganization of the IDA
• Orange County Ironworks, LLC – Kadge, LLC – New Application – Maybrook Road
• Bluewater I, LLC – Project Sailfish – New Application – NYS Route 17K & & 747
• Rakhil Patel from Goodwill Properties, LLC – New Application
  Holiday Inn Express & Suites – 2015 State Route 208
• Medline Industries, Inc. – New Application – NYS Route 416
• Treasurer’s Reports
  2018 – June, July, August, September, October, November, December
• Other Business
• Approval of the November 13, 2018 Meeting Minutes
• Adjournment

---

Chairman Devitt called the meeting to order and welcomed Jeffrey Crist to the board.

Call to Order

• Member Winchell called the meeting to order and said the IDA are missing their first and second chairs for the meeting. He asked the members that were present to introduce themselves, as well as staff and counsel.
• Member Winchell motioned for Member Crist to be appointed as Temporary Acting Chairman, seconded by Member Stoddard. All in favor, all ayes, Member Crist abstained, First Vice-Chairman Williams and Second Vice-Chairman Rainaldi were absent, motion carried.

Reorganization of the IDA

• Acting Chairman Crist apologized for the delay for the start of the meeting and said IDA Chairman Edward Devitt has resigned effective the first of January and there were some last-minute attendance issues. The first item of business is the Reorganization of the Town of Montgomery IDA, and he would suggest that the matter be tabled until the next meeting.

Orange County Ironworks LLC, – Kadge LLC, – New Application – Maybrook Road

• Acting Chairman Crist asked Attorney McLaughlin if this was a new application or a revised one?
• Attorney McLaughlin said this is a new application for Orange County Ironworks and it was discussed at the November board meeting in connection with their landlord Kadge LLC. The board did grant financial assistance to Kadge at the November meeting and that transaction did close in December. Orange County Ironworks is their tenant and they have been here different times to discuss the project. They manufacture and create steel and this application is for financial assistance in connection with sales tax relief for the equipment they’ll be purchasing and installing in their facility and they are going to lease from Kadge. He said that the owner of Orange County Ironworks and their Counsel contacted him last Friday and asked if it was necessary for them to attend this meeting and he told them that they have been here several times and have given a full presentation to the board in November, at which time they discussed this application coming in and he didn’t think it was necessary. The Resolution before the board this evening is to consider a public hearing and as you know the IDA statues requires that anytime there is financial assistance and it is more than 100,000 dollars being granted, the IDA is required to hold a public hearing.
• Attorney McLaughlin continued – The is a Resolution to consider holding this public hearing at a time in the future and we will decide with your staff when that hearing will be held and publish it accordingly.
• Acting Chairman Crist asked if each board member in attendance had a copy of the Resolution?
• Attorney McLaughlin said yes.
• Member Winchell motioned to adopt the Public Hearing Resolution for the Orange County Ironworks, LLC project, seconded by Member Dickson. All in favor, all ayes, First Vice-Chairman Williams and Second Vice-Chairman Rainaldi were absent, motion carried.

Bluewater I, LLC – Project Sailfish – New Application – NYS Route 17K & 747

• Acting Chairman Crist said the next item is Bluewater I, LLC, Project Sailfish and this is a new application located on NYS Route 17K and 747.
• Attorney McLaughlin said the applicant and their counsel are here and they should give the board a review of the project.
• Donald Chase, representing Bluewater Industrial introduced himself and said the board has a lot of the information already in the application. He said their involvement with the site began over a year ago, when they were looking for sites in Orange County and the Mid-Hudson region for this project. They were interested in the site for a number of reasons and the primary reason is its proximity to Exit 5A on I84. Route 747 provides access to Stewart Airport and directly onto 84. Number two is the regions proximity with a population of 60 million on the eastern seaboard, from this point on the map you could reach 60 million people in a 200- mile trip. A big highlight was they had consulted with Orange County and the Town and this area of Montgomery has been planned for this type of project for decades. The project itself is for a little over a one million square foot distribution building, and the improvements include the building, parking areas with a little over 1,000 car spaces and about 225 trailer parking spaces. There are two access points to the property and its main access is on 747 and this is primarily for the trucks and employees. There is a secondary access on 17K, which is a limited access, right in right out, only on 17K.
• Mr. Chase continued – This facility will serve as a regional distribution center for retail consumer purchases. The tenant is still confidential. We were able to secure a contingent commitment from tenant and our financing source as we were working through the approval process earlier this summer. So, we’re working on behalf of our tenant who will be the beneficiary of these benefits. We are currently working our way through the Town of Montgomery through the approval process with the Town Board, with the planning board, etc. and we are also working our way through the SEQR process in New York State; working with DEC, SHPO, Department of Transportation and other state agencies. We hope to be complete with that process beginning of March of this year. The total cost of the project is an excess of 75 million dollars and it does not include an estimated 30 million of tenant personal property that would be installed into the facility following construction. The occupant lease commitment is contingent upon this incentive award consideration among other things including the approvals, the budget and the tenant is evaluating multiple inputs with regard with their selection process. We are currently bidding the construction work and expect to have 3 to 400 local construction workers in this project over the 12-month construction period. The tenant will bring at least 800 new full-time jobs to this facility. The hiring is expected to begin 3 to 4 months before the completion of the facility and become fully operational hopefully in the second quarter of 2020, as long as the approval timeframe lines up. Annual salary starts at over $31,000.00 per year with a robust benefit package including vacation time, medical insurance, 401k programs and other benefits including job training and tuition reimbursement program and that is for all of the employees in the facility. There are numerous benefits, local businesses will benefit, in servicing the facility, restaurants, hotels, other service businesses. We’ve got landscaping, snow removal, maintenance of the building, etc. all will be sourced local.
• Mr. Chase discussed the other facilities of this size in a 100-mile radius and discussed the property tax rates in those other areas. The incentives in New York State are essential to attracting the occupant.
• Acting Chairman Crist asked if the board had any questions?
• Member Stoddard said he was very happy to hear that they would be looking into local labor and asked what their commitment would be?
• Mr. Chase said you and I had spoke at the planning board, we are in the bidding process right now. We have four different national contractors who have built these types of facilities before and we specifically instructed them to look at local labor, using Todd as our point person.
• Member Stoddard asked no guarantees though?
• Mr. Chase said he can’t, they have to look at the pricing first.
• Mr. Joy, CEO asked Mr. Chase to please repeat the average compensation on the job that was indicated?
• Mr. Chase said the minimum starts at $31,000.00 and it goes up from there, plus the benefits being on top of that.
• A discussion was held regarding the date that the public hearing would be held.
• Member Winchell asked if the board had to pick a date for the hearing before the motion?
• Attorney McLaughlin said no, that can be determined by the board’s availability.
• Acting Chairman Crist said the motion discusses holding the public hearing and not the exact date.
• Member Stoddard motioned to adopt the Public Hearing Resolution for the Bluewater I LLC Project, seconded by Member Winchell. All in favor, all ayes, First Vice-Chairman Williams and Second Vice-Chairman Rainaldi were absent, motion carried.

Rakhil Patel from Goodwill Properties, LLC – New Application Holiday Inn Express & Suites – 2015 State Route 208

• Acting Chairman said the next item is Rakhil Patel from Goodwill Properties and he didn’t think the applicant was present.
• Attorney McLaughlin said he received a phone message from their counsel asking that the consideration be postponed. They may ask for a special meeting in the next couple of weeks and may want to be on the agenda for March.

Medline Industries, Inc. – New Application – NYS Route 416

• Acting Chairman Crist said the next item is Medline Industries Incorporated and this also is a new application on New York State Route 416 and invited the applicant to provide an overview of the project.
• Eric Gerstein, from Medline Industries said they are proposing to build an approximately 1.2 million square foot distribution center in Montgomery. The total involved expense is estimated to be around 117 million dollars for the land, the building and the equipment. We currently have approximately 340 employees nearby in Middletown and we have outgrown that space and are building this in excess to that. Their intention is to maintain those 340 jobs and employees and then hopefully the plan is to then add 150 to 200 jobs over the first five years of their operations with potential for about 600 to 650.
• Acting Chairman Crist asked the board if they had any questions?
• Member Stoddard said he would ask the same question, what is your commitment to local labor?
• Mr. Gerstein said he would have to check the real estate team, they are working with the contractors and they are putting things together, we do see the importance of this.
• Member Stoddard asked could you put the bids together before local labor has had a chance to look at it?
• Mr. Gerstein said he’s including talking the local labor force.
• Member Stoddard asked who he has spoken too?
• Mr. Gerstein said he hasn’t, his real estate people are.
• Member Winchell said one of the biggest things is the construction and even the repair work we are seeing is not being done by anybody here. It is mostly out of the country or 2,000 miles away. So, our concern as a town is not only the construction, repair and maintenance of any of these facilities, because we haven’t seen much in the past and it affects our economy here. These buildings go up and they’re up for 5 or 10 or 15 years; we want to see the repair work and maintenance. We know we are not as competitive as the rest of the country because of our insurance requirements and regulations here.
• Member Dickson asked what the average salary would be of the new jobs?
• Mr. Gerstein said they range from $33,000.00 up to over $120,000.00, depending on the jobs.
• Member Dickson asked and group benefits?
• Mr. Gerstein said with benefits it is north of 55 dollars.
• A discussion was held on the availability of finding employees, retaining of jobs and the review stage that they are in with the planning board.
• John Cappello, Attorney for the applicant and with the Jacobowitz & Gubits Law Firm discussed the pending application before the planning board.
• Acting Chairman Crist said we have a Resolution before the board, again, determining we would hold a public hearing, but without a set date.
• Member Winchell motioned to adopt the Public Hearing Resolution for the Medline Industries, Inc. Project, seconded by Member Stoddard. All in favor, all ayes, First Vice-Chairman Williams and Second Vice-Chairman Rainaldi were absent, motion carried.
• Acting Chairman Crist said it has come to my attention that we will need an Assistant Secretary to sign these Resolutions since the previous term has expired at the end of last year and we tabled our re-organization meeting. He asked Attorney McLaughlin for his recommendation?
• CEO Joseph asked since we did a temporary appointment for Chairman, can we do a temporary appointment for Anthony Zambrotta, last year’s Assistant Secretary?
• Attorney McLaughlin said you could appoint him as Assistant Secretary until he is replaced.
• Member Stoddard motioned to appoint Anthony Zambrotta as a temporary Assistant Secretary until he is replaced, seconded by Member Dickson. All in favor, all ayes, First Vice-Chairman Williams and Second Vice-Chairman Rainaldi were absent, motion carried.

Treasurer’s Report

2018 – June, July, August, September, October, November, December

• Member Stoddard said he took over the Treasurer’s position a couple of months ago and before that there weren’t any Treasurer’s Reports for a few meetings. He has gone back and brought them up to date from when the last treasurer stepped down and right up to the most recent date. He reviewed the balances of the reports for June, July, August, September, October, November and December of 2018 that were also provided to the board members.
• Member Winchell motioned to accept the 2018 June, July, August, September, October, November and December Reports as presented, seconded by Member Dickson. All in favor, all ayes, First Vice-Chairman Williams and Second Vice- Chairman Rainaldi were absent, motion carried.

Other Business

• CEO Joseph updated the board on the progress of the IDA website and said that it is very near to being available and IDA counsel is reviewing the website to make sure the required documents are included. He further reviewed the items that will be on the webpage and the items needed. He discussed the New York State Economics Development Corp. Conference that the IDA will be joining, and he will be attending this week as well.
• Member Stoddard said for our two new applicants, this board is looking at adopting some kind of local labor policies to be spoken about at the next hearing. He will get the board some information and like Member Winchell said, for too many times that we are ensured or guaranteed a promise that local labor will be working on these projects, that these corporations or industries whatever you want to call them that are getting tax benefits end up not using local labor or from out of state or out of the country. He doesn’t think anybody including the applicants thinks it’s unreasonable to use local labor on a local project. Especially getting the benefits that they will receive. He will use for an example United National Foods, a lot of the contractors came from Tennessee, not only did they bring the labor from Tennessee, they even brought the products, the steel, the wood for the forms. They shipped it off, not using any local benefits. The workers stayed in the local camp grounds. We lose a lot of revenue; a lot of people do not go to work. We should not be fueling other states or other countries economy, especially lending a helping hand with these tax incentives. So, he wanted the applicants to understand that we will be looking at a local labor policy and hope that we adopt this.

Approval of the November 13, 2018 Meeting Minutes

• Member Stoddard motioned to accept the November 13, 2018 meeting minutes as presented, seconded by Member Winchell. All in favor, all ayes, First Vice- Chairman Williams and Second Vice-Chairman Rainaldi were absent, motion carried.

Member Winchell motioned to adjourn the meeting, seconded by Member Dickson. All in favor, all ayes, First Vice-Chairman Williams and Second Vice-Chairman Rainaldi were absent, motion carried.