On the agenda: Essex County Adobe PDF — hyperscale (Aug 10)

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT/PLANNING/PUBLICITY COMMITTEE
Monday, August 10, 2026 - 10:00 AM
Matthew Stanley, Chairperson
Kenneth Hughes, Vice-Chairperson
Chairman Stanley called this Economic Development/Planning/Publicity Committee to order at
10:00 am with the following Supervisors in attendance: Clayton Barber, Chris Clark, Timothy
Follos, Kenneth Hughes, Mary Lamphear, Tracie McGill, Steve McNally, Clayton Menser, James
O’Bryan, Timothy Pierce, Richard Preston, Cathleen Reusser, Matthew Stanley, Davina Thurston
and Michael Tyler. Matthew Brassard was absent. Joe Pete Wilson and Meg Wood were excused.
Department heads: James Dougan, Judith Garrison, Michael Mascarenas and Anna Reynolds.
Also present: Elizabeth Lee - Cornell Cooperative Extension, Jody Olcott - IDA, Dan Kelleher ROOST, and Nicole Justice-Green - Essex County Land Bank. Caitlyn Wargo - Adirondack Roots,
Aurora McCaffrey - Essex County Historian and Dina Garvey were excused.
STANLEY: Good morning everybody it is 10 o’clock. We will get the Economic Development
committee started and we’ll start with the Essex County IDA and Ms. Olcott.
OLCOTT: I have nothing to add unless questions. I just want you to know I saw all the emails
flying at the end of last week about a reminder for you guys for anybody whose involved with
CHPE invoicing so I will put that on my calendar. You guys mailed out the thing so I don’t know.
It will be on my IDA calendar to remind you.
STANLEY: Any questions for Jody?
MCGILL: Jody, any update on the Town of Willsboro project?
OLCOTT: No. You saw the email that we got the extension until December 31st she’s talking about
the Town of Willsboro received a $1.2 million dollar grant to move Adirondack Hardware from their
current facility over to the IGA building, demolish IDA and construct a new facility and we, the
business has just been having difficulty securing the funding because with New York State it’s –
you know you’re going to pay for it upfront and then hope they meet all the conditions and
guidelines and an already owned business it’s tough and they’ll reimburse you. On August, next
week is two years since you received the grant so we asked for an extension so and they gave
us one well, they gave Willsboro one until the end of the year.
MCGILL: Clarification is with the Town of Willsboro or the business owners?
OLCOTT: No, it’s the Town of Willsboro.
HUGHES: Just as a curious neighbor how often or how many more extensions could be received?
OLCOTT: This is the first one. We went back and forth with the state on trying to rework this
restore program and there’s a lot of different other economic development agencies that do kind
of short term like BAN financing for stuff like this you know that’s a big gamble the business takes
out you know a loan for, with their included I think it’s like $1.5 million dollars and then pray that
the state reimburse you at the back end of it which is hard because and with the Restore program

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the state doesn’t audit you half way through you complete the whole project and then you ask for
reimbursement so that’s a big gamble for a small business like this so that’s where we are having
significant difficult.
HUGHES: I understand.
STANLEY: Any other questions? You are excused. Up next we have Community Resources and
Ms. Reynolds.
REYNOLDS: Four referrals the first is the Town of Ticonderoga site plan review. A right of way
has already been obtained on 8 Virgina Path which is adjacent to Alexandria Ave which is a county
route. There are no intermunicipal or county wide impacts.
ACTION OF THE ESSEX COUNTY PLANNING BOARD
ON REFERRALS RECEIVED FROM THE TOWN OF TICONDEROGA
The following motion was made by Supervisor Reusser.
Whereas, the Essex County Planning Board has considered the following GML 239
referrals at its regular meeting on August 10, 2026.
REFERRAL
Town of Ticonderoga - 463 Baldwin Rd
Town of Ticonderoga – 8 Virginia Path

PROPOSED ACTION
Site Plan Review
Site Plan Review

And whereas, none of the referred, proposed actions directly impacts a county road
or county property.
Be It Adopted by the Essex County Planning Board that no recommendation or
comment on said referral shall be or hereby is made, and the respective referring bodies
may take such final action as they deem appropriate.
This motion was seconded by Supervisor Follos and passed on a vote of 7 in favor,
and none opposed.
STANLEY: Any discussion? Being none, all those signify being saying aye? Anybody opposed?
Motion carries.
REYNOLDS: Lake Placid and North Elba two site plan reviews, 217 Old Military Road

and 154 Old Military Road both site plan review for single family homes. There are no
intermunicipal or countywide impact however, 154 Military Road must receive a highway
permit.
ACTION OF THE ESSEX COUNTY PLANNING BOARD
ON REFERRALS RECEIVED FROM THE TOWN OF NORTH ELBA/LAKE PLACID
The following motion was made by Supervisor Preston.

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Whereas, the Essex County Planning Board has considered the following GML 239
referrals at its regular meeting on August 10, 2026.
REFERRAL
Town of Ticonderoga - 463 Baldwin Rd

PROPOSED ACTION
Site Plan Review

Town of North Elba/Lake Placid – 154 Old Military Road
Review
Town of North Elba/Lake Placid – 217 Old Military Road
Review

Site Plan
Site Plan

And whereas, none of the referred, proposed actions directly impacts a county road
or county property.
Be It Adopted by the Essex County Planning Board that no recommendation or
comment on said referral shall be or hereby is made, and the respective referring bodies
may take such final action as they deem appropriate, however 154 Old Military Road must
receive a highway permit.
This motion was seconded by Supervisor Follos and passed on a vote of 7 in favor,
and none opposed.
STANLEY: Any discussion? Being none, all those signify being saying aye? Anybody opposed?
Motion carries.
REYNOLDS: Town of Essex site plan review and special use permit on 468 Walker Road
construction of a two-car garage with a workshop all located next to the lawn. There are no
intermunicipal or county wide impacts.
ACTION OF THE ESSEX COUNTY PLANNING BOARD
ON REFERRALS RECEIVED FROM THE TOWN OF ESSEX
The following motion was made by Supervisor Hughes.
Whereas, the Essex County Planning Board has considered the following GML 239
referrals at its regular meeting on August 10, 2026.
REFERRAL
Town of Ticonderoga - 463 Baldwin Rd
Town of Essex – 468 Walker Road
Permit

PROPOSED ACTION
Site Plan Review
Site Plan Review and Special Use

And whereas, none of the referred, proposed actions directly impacts a county road
or county property.
Be It Adopted by the Essex County Planning Board that no recommendation or
comment on said referral shall be or hereby is made, and the respective referring bodies
may take such final action as they deem appropriate.

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This motion was seconded by Supervisor Reusser and passed on a vote of 7 in
favor, and none opposed.

STANLEY: Any discussion?
HUGHES: Quick question can you just please remind me and the committee do these
come here because the project is potentially visible from a county right away?
REYNOLDS: The Walker Road is a county Route 55 and that’s why it is within 500 feet
of county property technically and because it’s special use and site plan review that’s
what triggers this referral. I’m so glad we were able to execute the exclusions which is the
historic district in your town so from here on out garages and sheds and decks and things
like won’t have to go to referral like they have in the past so that’s going to be easier for
the planning board to review those projects rather than having to wait for us to review
those projects.
HUGHES: I only brought it up because this house is in the woods way back in so not
visible from the road and so that’s why I wasn’t sure if it was the visibility mentioned to a
county right away or if it was just because it was adjacent to a county right a way and
that’s what it is so it has nothing to do with viewing just the fact that it is adjacent to a
county right away.
REYNOLDS: Correct.
STANLEY: Any other discussion? Being none all those in favor signify by saying aye,
anybody opposed - motion carries.
REYNOLDS: There’s one resolution today a resolution authorizing the purchasing agent
to accept a bid for the electric vehicle supply equipment charging station and award the
contract to Plugin Stations Online, LLC with a not to exceed of $59,373.00
RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE PURCHASING AGENT TO AWARD BID TO
PLUGIN STATIONS ONLINE, LLC IN AN AMOUNT NOT TO EXCEED $59,373.00, FOR
ELECTRIC VEHICLE SUPPLY EQUIPMENT CHARGING STATION AND FURTHER
AUTHORIZING THE COUNTY CHAIRMAN OR COUNTY MANAGER TO EXECUTE
SAID CONTRACT. Reusser, McGill
STANLEY: Discussion?
REUSSER: Location?
REYNOLDS: It is behind the Northern Forest Center lots on our right of way.
STANLEY: Any other discussion? Being none all those in favor signify by saying aye,
anybody opposed? Motion carries.

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REYNOLDS: That’s all I had unless there are any questions?
STANLEY: Questions for Ms. Reynolds? You’re excused. The County Historian is
excused today so we’ll move onto CCE and Ms. Lee.
LEE: Good morning everyone. I submitted a report. Does anyone have any questions?
STANLEY: Any questions?
LEE: If there aren’t any questions I just will point out a couple of things. We had a great
week at the fair and we are now shifting towards the Harvest Festival which is September
19 and looking forward to another great year, lots of vendors signed up, lots of music
signed up, lots of food lined up and otherwise our summer programs for the 4H and for
Senior Wellness are continuing and we’ll go through starting again in the fall.
STANLEY: I would just like to make a comment with the Essex County Fair just getting
over I’m really excited to see all the 4H stuff that was there during the fair this year. I got
to participate in the 4H alumni cattle show so it’s the first time a showed a cow in like 30
years which was awesome so I want to thank you guys for putting that together.
LEE: Thank you for coming. It really was a lot of fun and I know for any of you that are
4Hr’s that you will come next year we are going to try and make it an annual event. It
really was fun and we had a really good turnout. I think one of the things that was most
fun at our end was there were boxes and boxes of pictures that were old pictures that had
been in the old building and a 4H volunteer saw them whatever it was, eight years ago
when CCE moved out of the old building and took them to her home and has kept them
safe all this time and brought them in and started cataloging them and there are some
fantastic pictures of all of you would recognize including Matt Stanley, his sister and family
from I don’t know what year but also from some of the old time farmers who we lost in the
past year it meant a lot to me that my family Anson’s milk for my whole childhood and
Dwight Anson passed away this year and it was really beautiful to see a picture of him
and his 4H club I don’t know year but he was a teenager and it really was kind the hayday
of 4H in Essex County and to see this really moving picture to me probably fifteen young
men and Dwight was among them and I don’t know who the Troop leader was but there
were really great times for agriculture in Essex County and I’m really happy to say that
we are part of that legacy and going forward.
STANLEY: Well thank you very much.
TYLER: Is it true that Mr. Stanley had a beard when he was twelve? (laughter)
LEE: I can confirm his family was photographed at the fair.
STANLEY: That picture was from when I was five.

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LEE: And I will say as far as the fair goes we really had some great communication starting
with the fair board and continuing and I really want to thank Martha Hayward who was the
one that helped us put together that cow showmanship class and I think it not only brought
a few more people to the fair that might not been planning on attending those events and
also a lot of people who were there at the fair really, really, loved seeing that event so
good feelings.
STANLEY: Any other questions? Alright, you’re excused.
GARRISON: We have a resolution.
STANLEY: You have Cole’s resolution?
LEE: Yes, I’m sorry. CCE is requesting a resolution approving seven applications and
relevant paperwork from the 2026 open enrollment period for agricultural district inclusion.
These were outlined in the letter of recommendation shared with the Board of Supervisors
during the public hearing on July 13.
RESOLUTION APPROVING THE INCLUSION OF SEVEN (7) APPLICATIONS,
FOURTEEN (14) PARCELS AND RELEVANT SEQRA PAPERWORK FROM THE 2026
OPEN ENROLLMENT PERIOD FOR THE ESSEX COUNTY AGRICULTURAL
DISTRICT. Preston, Reusser
STANLEY: Discussion? Being none, all those in favor signify by saying aye, anybody
opposed – motion carries.
LEE: Thank you.
STANLEY: Now you’re excused. Up next, ROOST Mr. Kelleher
KELLEHER: Good morning everybody good to see you on another beautiful summer
day. It’s nice to have a couple of those in a row this year it’s been a little more difficult in
past years with that said overall we’re having a busy summer. Our latest data comes
from June and it shows that visitor spending across the county year to date is up roughly
6% so we know small businesses are feeling that as well as the county’s coffers in terms
of some sales tax increase.
Just a couple note on visitor spending data our data only catches overnight visitor
spending and the state on an annual basis puts out total visitor spending data that typically
comes out later in August so we will get that data to you for all of 2025 as soon as it comes
in we are always excited about that data and the second thing I just want to highlight is
about the way we calculate the data on visitor spending what we do is we look at the total
number of people that come in which is good data that we had and we multiple that by
last year’s data on how much those visitors spent last year on a first person basis and
what we’re seeing is that that for 2026 is probably under accounting of what’s going on.
We just got the occupancy tax numbers for June, they were up nearly 25% over last year
and what we knew when we saw the hotel is hotel room rates in June were very high

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because of the Porsche Parade and so this is 13% changes on June 2025 in the report
it’s actually always significantly higher because of those Porsche Parade people were
spending a lot of money at the hotels and the local economy while they are here so this
data is likely a little low.
Speaking of visitor spending I talked a little bit about our Adirondack Market place where
all of our visits go onto one online sales platform to be shipped out to our few hundredthousand-person email data base and we have somewhere around 30 different
businesses signed up and onboarded onto the system although we are always looking
for more so if you have a business that you think would be a good fit please send them
our way. One of the things I want to stress is they don’t have to have a brick-and-mortar
store. The other day I was talking to a woman she said, my husband is looking to retire
and he’s building a wood carving business to go to craft fairs and I said, well that’s exactly
who we are looking for this online platform because we can help him reach markets
without having him build his own online store, he won’t have to build his own brick and
mortar store, he won’t have to go the whole sales tax so for any of those people out there
who have a side hustle and we talked about your person who has the lures this is an
opportunity to get their side hustles in front a very large audience and hopefully scale that
into businesses that can eventually employ people here in Essex County so please be
sending all those people our way.
Finally, we are going to be sending out later this week an event planning calendar so that
people can look at what’s going on around the region that’s coming up and plan their
events around that. This summer we had 990 individual events in our calendars for just
June, July and August so there are only 12 weekends in that period there’s a lot of events
going on different days and so we want to get this calendar out to you all and to your
event planners so they can think about how they fit into that matrix and help to make sure
their attendance is high and reduce some of that competition that is caused by so much
going on but which is always exciting to have.
I said finally but this is actually finally, we are currently launching our new Adirondacks
USA platform for leaf peeping season this is the period of year where people are most
likely to travel between communities because they want to see the foliage on the
mountains so this new Adirondacks USA platform gives us great way to build multi-region
itineraries and really get the travel, they are traveling around the region and then we are
also planning for winter already because people are already starting to book their trips so
that’s my report for this morning. I’m happy answer any questions you all may have.
STANLEY: Would you be able to get that Adirondack Market place info back out to the
supervisors so we have it and be able to spread that word?
KELLEHER: Sure, yes.
STANLEY: Awesome. Any questions?
HUGHES: Good morning sir. I noted that your award for your highlighting the ADKData
backend there’s a joke there but I’m not going to make it but –
KELLEHER: I’ve never thought of that joke

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HUGHES: I did want to say I do want to ask, is it your in-house people, in-house folks
who are responsible for creating that data for backend or do you contract with a
technology company for that work?
KELLEHER: Yeah we built that ourselves.
HUGHES: Okay, all in house?
KELLEHER: Yes and what’s special about that is we have the five regional websites for
Essex County which is the Lake Champlain region, Whiteface region, High Peak region,
Saranac Lake region and Adirondack Hub region all five of those websites pull directly
from that backend as well as some of them have partner sites like the Elizabethtown
Social Center or the Schroon Lake Chamber they are also being fed by that backend and
what we can do is say we want to update the trail information for Big Slide Mountain we
just change it once in the backend and that goes out to all those sites and it’s not just
what the customer sees it’s what the AI box is so the structural data feeding all those sites
also changes so they are getting AI authorization from that.
HUGHES: Thank you and congratulations.
STANLEY: Any more PG questions?
O’BRYAN: Dan I noticed on here you attended Governor Hochul’s roundtable discussion
on moratoriums put in place for battery collection centers also for more importantly
electricity costs for here in this part of the State. Can you comment on that?
KELLEHER: Yeah, sure so Governor in mid-July put out a moratorium on hyperscale data
centers anything over I think it is a very large scale data center so the data center feeding
the hospital isn’t impacted by this and so was looking for a variety of business leaders
and chamber executives come and talk about what the impacts could be of these
hyperscale data centers on their communities and those were my comments exactly well,
we’re seeing very high electricity rates in our region, we’re seeing our businesses operate
on very thin margins because we are small and tourism based and the margins are thin
and so I had an opportunity to talk to the Governor about how further increases in energy
costs could unduly hurt our small businesses and our residents too who are working in
these small businesses.
O’BRYAN: They will hurt our small businesses. Our small business last year in November
we paid $600 which is our average every month for our power. It jumped to $1200 in
December, it jumped to $1900 in January and just under $3000 for the month in February
and we did nothing new. It’s ludicrous. I called the service commission and you might as
well talk to the wall. We can’t go through that. We are going to lose a lot of small
businesses. I appreciate you doing that.
KELLEHER: Agreed.

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STANLEY: Any other comments?
TYLER: You have these comments with Hochul and her office I was thinking you are
probably thinking there is two or three hours in your life you are never going to get back
again.
STANLEY: Any other comments? You’re excused. Up next we have Ms. Justice-Green
with the Essex County Land Bank.
JUSTICE-GREEN: I do not have any jokes this morning, sorry.
HUGHES: We entertain ourselves.
STANLEY: You don’t need to cover jokes for this group.
JUSTICE-GREEN: We had a really productive month of July. I spent a significant amount
of time in the Northern part of the County. Clayton in Chesterfield is going to set up an
office for me but we were successful in not only getting the Move in New York subdivision
approved in Chesterfield but also the town is graciously partnering with us to extend their
water lines for subdivision just like the Town of Newcomb so it’s not as much exciting
shovels in the ground but it’s part of that really important pre-development process to
make these projects shovel ready and responsible as well as communicating over
communicating it sometimes this but also equally important the community about what
these developments are, what they are not, how critical they are for downtown
revitalization, affordable housing. We also gotten through a pretty vigorous environmental
review on our property on Burt Lane in Jay given its proximity to flooding zones and so
we are ready to final break ground and we are very, very close to getting our certificates
of occupancy for our development in Willsboro for Veteran’s housing a ribbon cutting
invitation will be going out to the entire board so please keep your eyes open for that.
We’ve also been working diligently in Ticonderoga with Regan Development to get their
project through the planning board process in coordination also with code enforcement
so they can break ground in September which as been a pretty monumental task.
The Land Bank also received a Small Green Buildings Award which is an additional addon for our projects and we are putting in mini splits and new electrification in our units
which means it brings down our cost of construction so we are already required to do this
so it just means more Land Bank funding is going to be stretched further in our civilization
projects.
We continue to work in the Town of Wilmington to also advance their subdivision for MoveIn New York and with Beardsley he’s helping us with that process and above and beyond
that we also launched and I wanted to thank the board and Judy and Mike and Anna’s
office for sharing the CDBG Well & Septic Program that we’re working on with the county
and we’ve gotten an enormous amount of pre applications and interest and so it takes –
you’re smiling back there, I’m so appreciative of you. It takes a team effort to get the word
out and it’s such a easy blessing to stamp one of these given how much our septic and
wells and even laterals cost and a good example of that is we just did a pretty in-depth

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home replacement in the Town of Moriah and I noticed that this resident was not on the
water system yet, even though she had a waterline that ran right in front of her home she
just didn’t have the ability to hook into it this grant wasn’t available at that time this project
started about eighteen months ago and so there’s still also a lot of people in your
communities with the ability to hook into municipal water systems who just don’t have the
resources available to help them with that and so when we can do that that’s going to
lower the costs of just the upkeep of their home, their septic and their wells but in those
instances in which they can’t hook into and there isn’t a municipal wastewater or
sometimes water system available it’s going to help them have more money to actually
maintain their home and not worry about clean water and sanitation.
STANLEY: Any questions for Nicole?
PIERCE: I’m not on this committee but just for clarification on the Veterans housing in
Willsboro is that designed for specific Veterans or specific homes in mind? Do they have
to apply for it? Just some clarification on that.
JUSTICE-GREEN: It will open up for applications through the nonprofit which is actually
led by our former Chairman Shaun Gillilland and the county board and Veterans will apply
to the nonprofit and then they will be able to have that housing so we aren’t responsible
for that portion of the project we are just responsible for the rehabilitation as well as
monitoring to ensure that it is going to Veterans and that they are also under a certain
income limit there is still an income limit so that it is affordable housing.
PIERCE: Thank you.
STANLEY: Any other questions?
MENSER: How many Veterans will be able to be housed there?
JUSTICE-GREEN: There will be four units so four Veterans and potentially if they have
partners and dependents with them depending on how large their families are potentially
house more people but there will be four certificates of occupancy so at the very minimal
there will need to be four Veterans in each unit.
STANLEY: Any other questions? Alright you’re excused. Adirondack Roots is excused
today so is there anything else?
TYLER: Yes I was kind of hoping somebody from Adirondack Roots would be here today.
I’m not sure what direction Adirondack Roots is going but I’m not very happy with it. We’ve
had communications with the new Director there or something?
STANLEY: Interim Director.
TYLER: We’ve had several communications in the Town of Westport that were very
negative attitude from that person and I’m very – the way it was years ago they were

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positive and friendly it just seems like the last half a year it has gone down hill greatly to
do business with I just want to make a statement because if other people and towns deal
with them I’m pretty sure you’re going to have the same issues.
MASCARENAS: I’ll pass on the concern. I know we have some board members here that
sit on that committee and will share your concerns as well. We’ll have conversations and
see what’s going on there.
TYLER: Thank you.
STANLEY: Anything else to come before this committee? Alright it is 10:30 we are
adjourned.
As there was no further discussion to come before this Economic Development/
Planning/Publicity Committee it was adjourned at 10:30 a.m.
Respectfully submitted,

Judith Garrison, Clerk
Board of Supervisors