Special meeting held to ‘expedite the process’
By Ryan Spoehr
Editor
The Palmyra Town Board held a special meeting late last week to accept a land donation from Carol Calkins, the widow of former Town Chairman Stewart Calkins.
Accepting the land could create further expansion of the Palmyra Municipal Airport and potentially block the village from installing a road that potentially could create more expansion to the industrial park.
The agenda for the meeting was dated and posted on March 2 for the 8 a.m. meeting to be held March 3. The posting of the agenda narrowly met the state statute requirement to give residents the required notice of a community government board meeting, which is at least 24 hours.
The donation accepted at the meeting was for parcels near the Palmyra Industrial Park immediately southwest and south of Highway 106. Potential uses for the donation were not revealed.
The parcels were highlighted with blue ink on a document entitled “Village of Palmyra Annexation Exhibit,” copies of which were available at the meeting.
“We are going to vote to accept the land on the Calkins farm that was annexed to the village in 2011 shown on this map,” Village President Larry Kau said. “On the advice of (the town’s) attorney, we can also vote on an avigation easement, not today, but at a future date, plus the adjacent parcels – the parcels to the north and the parcels to the south.”
An avigation easement is a property right acquired from a landowner that protects the use of airspace above a specified height, according to the International Right Of Way Association website. It also imposes limitations on the use of the land subject to the easement.
Initially, Town Supervisor Ed Miller made a motion to accept the donation. After a request from the audience, Town Clerk Bill May announced the parcel numbers.
However, prior to a vote being called for Miller’s motion, Town Supervisor Weenonah Brattset made a motion to accept the donation of the land corresponding to the numbers announced by May.
“I will make a motion to accept the parcels just numerated, in addition to that, future parcel numbers that fit the legal descriptions,” Brattset said.
The future parcel numbers are the north and south parcels that Kau referred to in his statement at the beginning of the meeting.
After it was addressed that no vote had been made on Miller’s motion, Miller rescinded his motion, followed by Brattset again moving to accept the parcels.
Kau, Miller and Brattset all voted for acceptance of the land. There were no other items on the agenda.
After the meeting, Kau went into little detail on the timing of the meeting notice.
“We have to give 24 hours notice,” he said.
He also did not go into details as to why the land donation could not wait for the next regularly scheduled monthly Town Board meeting, which is scheduled for this Monday, March 13, just 10 days after the special meeting was called.
“We were contacted by Carol Calkins and she made the offer for the property. She needed to make agreements and work was needed to be done,” Kau said. “She spent time doing all this and she asked us to expedite the offer.
“She had been contemplating this for a while apparently,” Kau added. “She asked us (and) she had her attorney do the paperwork, and asked us if we would act on it when the attorneys had the paperwork. So, we did this for her. It was her wish.”
Following Kau responding to what led to the decision for the special meeting and the decision to accept the donation, Deputy Clerk Peggy Miller requested further inquiries be done in writing, so they could be addressed after town officials received guidance from the town’s attorney.
Calkins was contacted following the Town Board meeting but she declined to comment.
The town’s special board meeting regarding the land donation came 16 days after the conclusion of the annexation trial in which the town filed suit against the village. Judge David Wambach ruled in favor of the village at the conclusion of the trial on Feb. 15.
