The afternoon's central fight was over concrete that has not been poured. Regency Builders, LLC had asked the Town Board to waive the requirement to install sidewalks along Birch Lane, the private roadway inside its 18-lot Regency Commons subdivision off Klein Road — a condition the Amherst Planning Board attached when it approved the final plat in July 2024.^[1] The developer had already built the required public sidewalk along Klein Road; what it wanted to skip was the walk along the private street itself. To air the request, the board suspended its rules so the developer's counsel, Jonathan Schechter^[*], could present ahead of the vote.

Schechter argued the board had “full discretion” to waive the walk on the facts: Birch Lane is a private, dead-end street that ends at a cul-de-sac the sidewalk would not even wrap; the walk would run over the main gas line, meaning repairs would tear it up at the HOA's expense; the patio homes are marketed to retirees, not families, so no children would walk to a bus stop; and, he said, three-quarters of current residents winter in Florida. It was, in his phrase, “a sidewalk to nowhere.”^[1] Deputy Supervisor Marinucci pushed back hard on the liability logic, pressing whether the HOA would accept “100 percent” of the exposure for anyone injured walking in the roadway, and arguing that injuries to pedestrians hit by cars are worse than falls on a sidewalk.^[1] Supervisor Lavin noted the record: the project went before the Planning Board, which recommended the sidewalks; “this matter has been vetted,” he said.^[1]

The public-expression period that followed was almost entirely about this development. Neighbors on Kingswaye Drive^[*] and Bentley Court described a builder they say clear-cut a promised buffer of mature trees, built patio-home porches that tower eight feet above their six-foot fences, and worsened drainage that has turned backyards into standing water. One resident thanked the board “for making them put in the sidewalk and adhering to their agreement.”^[2] Another neighbor's account veered into a disturbing, unverified allegation about a worker on the site — a claim the Listening Post is not repeating here absent any confirmation. (See Editor's Note.)

When the resolution reached the floor, the town attorney^[3] clarified the counter-intuitive mechanics for the board and the room: a “yes” vote on Resolution 2026-457 denies the waiver — that is, it requires the sidewalks. On a roll call, all five members voted yes. The waiver was denied 5–0; the sidewalks stay.^[4]

The board voted to set a July 6 public hearing on Resolution 2026-458, which would repeal Chapter 22 of the Town Code — the Town's own local Freedom of Information law, Local Law 3-2003. Under the town attorney's memo, the repeal is meant “to allow for a less restrictive process to access government information”: with Chapter 22 gone, Amherst would be governed instead by New York State's Public Officers Law and a Town policy.^[5] Two residents used public expression to ask for more before the hearing. Jane Cox^[*] asked for “more information put out about what exactly the town would like to change and why.” Don Smith^[*] pressed harder — why now, who initiated it, and whether it would produce “a better result” — noting neighboring municipalities do not maintain their own FOIL laws.^[6]

Supervisor Lavin said the board was “simply requesting a public hearing,” not voting on the repeal itself, and that the hearing would carry “additional documentation of what we're repealing.”^[2] The vote to set the hearing passed 5–0. Note a date discrepancy in the record: the supervisor referred at the dais to a hearing “on the 22nd,” but the resolution text and official minutes both set the FOIL hearing for July 6, 2026; the written record governs.