(The Deschaine wood-chipping project in front of the Cairo Planning Board 100709.)

Click here to listen to the Oct. 7, 2009 Cairo Planning Board meeting. Does not work in Internet Explorer. You need Quicktime Player Pro to download file.)

Cairo Planning Board chairman interrupted the monthly meeting tonight to quell the rumor that apparently packed the Town Hall meeting room that there was going to be a new presentation from the folks who previously withdrew their Alden Terrace project from the board. "Alden Terrace II," he called it, phoned him in mid-August, saying they would like to appear before the September meeting, and then called back and said they would come in October. He has not heard anything from them since, they were not in attendance tonight, and much of the crowd left after he announced this. Also during the meeting, the board approved the Cuti and Culoso subdivision projects, even though both have border disputes with lawyers involved. They also approved Planning Board member Allen Veverka's subdivision, and one for Erdmann, and site plans for American Dojo and Raffa. The ongoing Deschaine wood-chipping project took up much of the meeting, and set new policy, as the board voted 6-1 to use a project's operating hours as a standard to measure the site plan law's 70db noise level. The board then voted 5-2 to give the Deschaine project a negative SEQR declaration (saying it had minimal environmental impact). The Kids Zone project, a Chuck E. Cheese-like indoor playground and arcade on Main St. also got a negative SEQR declaration. And the Round Top Men's Association, with former Planning Board chairman Peter Maasmann, got a waiver to replace a sign knocked over years ago by a snow plow even though they did not fill out an application. At last month's meeting, the board had told a woman arrested for operating a business on Main St. in violation of the town's site plan law that they could not give her any opinion about whether her business needed to go before the board without first filling out an application.