Town of Lancaster Town Board
Told it had made a SEQRA procedural error on September 21, the board reconsidered 13 Silent Meadow — adopted the negative declaration it rejected 0–5 two weeks earlier, then denied the lot conversion 0–5 again, without stating a reason. An asphalt plant permit at 5466 Genesee drew no speakers and passed 5–0. Also: a 2027 budget under the cap.
On September 21 the Lancaster Town Board did two things to a half-acre parcel at 13 Silent Meadow. It refused, 0–5, to find that converting the lot would have no significant environmental impact. Then it refused, 0–5, to convert the lot. On Monday night it did the first of those things over again — and came to the opposite conclusion, unanimously.
The reason was printed in the resolution itself: “to correct a procedural error with SEQRA at the September 21, 2026 Town Board meeting, the Town Board must reconsider the application at this time.” Resolution 10, moved by Council Member Mark R. Burkard, recited that the board had “taken a hard second look” and adopted the negative declaration 5–0. The identical finding had been voted down by every member present a fortnight earlier.
Resolution 11 followed immediately: approve the conversion of the exception lot to a building lot. Anticola, no. Burkard, no. Schroeder, no. Studley, no. Leary, no. 0–5. Not one member spoke to it before or after the roll.
What had changed in the room was representation. Attorney Sean Hopkins[3] rose during the comment period on prefiled resolutions, with a colleague and with Eric Greco[3], and made the applicant's case for the record in about ninety seconds. A negative declaration was warranted because it is “almost axiomatic that one single-family lot within the existing residential subdivision will not result in any potentially significant” impact. The conversion was warranted because the lot qualifies: “it does meet all the requirements set forth in the town code and the town subdivision regulations.”
Then the line that explains why he was there at all: “To date, during the extensive review process, we've yet to hear anyone elaborate on a reason why this should not be approved based on the code itself.” He conceded the politics without conceding the law — “while some people in that neighborhood may not like this idea, it is again a lawful lot, it's a legal lot” — and asked that a letter and a DEC jurisdictional determination of non-significance be entered into the record. The clerk took them.
Nobody from the board answered him. The denial that followed, like the one before it, was recorded without a stated reason.
Adopting a negative declaration and then denying the project is not a contradiction, and the sequence matters.
SEQRA asks one narrow question: could this action significantly harm the environment? A negative declaration answers no, and ends the environmental inquiry. It says nothing about whether the project is a good idea, fits the neighbourhood, or satisfies the code.
The lot conversion is a separate, discretionary land-use decision. A board can find a project environmentally harmless and still refuse it — which is exactly what happened here, twice over.
What a board may not do is decide the action before completing the environmental review. That ordering is what the resolution means by a procedural error: on September 21 the board voted down the environmental finding and the project in the same breath, leaving no valid SEQRA determination underneath its decision.
The evening's other land-use decision was larger by every measure and drew no opposition at all. New Enterprise Stone & Lime Co., Inc. asked for a special use permit to operate an asphalt plant at 5466 Genesee Street. The public hearing, set two weeks earlier and advertised in the official newspaper, opened at 7:05 p.m.
“Does anybody want to address the Town Board on the special use permit for 5466 Genesee Street? Please raise your hand.” Nobody did. The hearing was closed inside a minute.
The board then approved the site plan 5–0 — a 188.86-acre site spanning 5466 Genesee Street and 360 Harris Hill Road, SBL Nos. 82.04-2-1 and 82.04-1-5, submitted by David Colarusso[*] of LaBella Associates[*] on drawings dated July 21. The Planning Board had recommended approval on August 19, finding it compliant with the town's building and zoning codes; the board determined the action was Type II under SEQRA, requiring no environmental review, and recorded that a stormwater maintenance agreement was unnecessary and that the special use permit would cover the height of the structure.
The permit itself followed, also 5–0: October 5, 2026 through October 4, 2028, subject to three conditions and to the code's standing requirements, with Code Enforcement Officer Matt Fischione having responded to the application by letter on September 3.
A useful contrast sat inside one meeting. An asphalt plant on 189 acres cleared its public hearing with zero speakers and passed unanimously twice.
A single house on half an acre brought a land-use attorney, a DEC determination, a letter for the record, two Planning Board reviews, four roll calls across two meetings, and a unanimous denial.
Neither outcome is wrong on its face. But the meeting is a reminder that the volume of process a proposal attracts tracks the number of neighbours who object, not the size of what is being built.
The work session was given over to the proposed 2027 budget, presented by Nicholas Swanson — who stepped down as Director of Administration & Finance at the end of September, with Supervisor Robert E. Leary taking the post unpaid on October 1. “This 2027 budget was probably the most difficult budget that I've had to put together in my career,” Swanson told the board, “and that's all throughout COVID as well.”
It comes in about $115,000 under the tax cap, which matters beyond this year: unused room carries forward and can be added to next year's allowable increase. The levy rises roughly 5 percent, of which about 1.5 points is the state retirement system alone. Swanson put Lancaster on the low end of its neighbours — Cheektowaga at 9.8 percent, Orchard Park at 8, Amherst at 6.9, even Clarence at 4.4. “We're all feeling the burden right now.”
The pressure is the Tier 6 pension change. A state law reduced what employees contribute without the state picking up the difference, leaving towns to absorb it — more than $1 million for Lancaster. “There's no way we could anticipate it,” Leary said. What offset it was luck of the amortisation schedule: a large tranche of town debt expires at the end of this year, cutting debt service by about a million dollars.
Refuse is the other sore point. With the 2 percent cap removed from the hauling contract, increases have run 6 to 7 percent a year while tonnage climbs. The contract runs to 2028; Leary has asked Waste Management for an extension proposal that would restore a cap and add door-to-door e-waste collection, and an RFP is the alternative. One unpopular lever was named and left alone: reducing bulk pickup.
No positions were cut, but requested additions in the police, code enforcement and highway departments were not funded; the budget is “the absolute max before we go over the tax cap.” It runs 159 pages, built to Government Finance Officers Association presentation standards. A council member asked for a one-page summary showing how many people sit behind each wage line; Swanson said the labour-detail schedules already exist and can be circulated. Department heads are up at the next work session.
The property that has run through Lancaster's coverage since the summer took two steps on Monday. The board set a public hearing for October 19 at 7:05 p.m. on issuing a notice to repair under the town's unsafe-buildings chapter, the resolution describing the primary structure, every accessory structure and the contents and equipment as “dilapidated, deteriorated, decayed, damaged, and unsanitary to such an extent as to endanger the health, safety, and welfare of the public.”
It also sent the first bill to the tax roll. Having declared a public health emergency at the property on July 6 and retained Campco General Contracting, Inc. for Phase 1 cleanup, the board voted to relevy $17,360 onto the 2027 county and town tax bill against SBL No. 116.05-4-75. Both resolutions passed 5–0.
At the work session the town engineer described what Phase 2 looks like: two separate requests for quotes, one to clean the house out and one to remediate mold — “my guess is, taken to the studs, but I don't know that for a fact” — with extermination folded into the remediation scope. Interior photographs from the code enforcement officer will go into the RFQ so bidders understand the condition.
Two residents used the open floor. The first asked about a disability exemption for veterans; the supervisor said the assessor has supplied the numbers, the town attorney is drafting, it requires a local law change, and a resolution may reach the board at the next meeting.
The second brought paperwork and stayed twelve minutes. Reading from Freedom of Information Law responses obtained by the town's Republican committee chairman, Greg Sojka, he put four items to Supervisor Leary. That Leary had said from the dais he held texts and communications about a council member's role in union contract talks, while a FOIL answer from the then-town clerk stated “there are no such texts or communications.” That a FOIL about a directive suspending the supervisor's town board committees came back with no records — and that he had a March screenshot from a town staffer advising that, per the supervisor, all such committees were suspended and communications should be routed to his office.
Then he began reading the Chief of Police's report on an investigation into an alleged workplace-violence complaint against Sojka — a complaint whose status, he noted, is unfounded. The report as read describes Leary telephoning the chief on August 27, supplying a completed workplace-violence incident report and a flash drive of silent video, and the alleged statement at issue: that the chairman told clerk's-office staff he would back them completely, but if they “go rogue or do anything crazy” he would “destruct you like Frankenstein.” It also records that the complainant later told Town Attorney Jennifer L. Strong she was not comfortable pursuing the matter and “felt coerced,” and that the video, which has no audio, shows the chairman entering, working at a desk, and talking and smiling with staff.
The board granted him extra time on the precedent of a speaker it had extended at the previous meeting, then stopped the reading partway. “Anybody who wants a copy of a police report can foil it themselves if they're interested to see the rest of it, but I don't see the point of reading the rest of it.”
Leary answered at length, which he said he usually does not. On the first item: he had emails, showed them to the town attorney, and she determined they did not answer the FOIL as framed, so they were withheld then and released on a later request — “a couple of emails between myself and Council Member Studley. … There were no emails other than those two emails.” On FOIL generally: requests go to the town attorney, who decides what must be produced.
On the workplace report, he gave a sequence. He was walking paperwork to the clerk's office; the town clerk told him something had been said that needed reporting and asked him to take the report on her behalf, it being near her last day. He found the form, took statements, filled it out, and brought it to the chief — “because potentially there was an alleged threat against town employees.” He said he was not the complainant in any criminal investigation, did not request one, and pointed to the form itself: “I did not check the boxes on this form that said intimidation or threats of assault.” He invoked an obligation under state labour law to report threats and to keep employees safe. “I did not coerce anybody into doing anything.”
Asked directly, twice, whether the statement had been made at all, he declined to engage — “I don't care what that was saying” — and closed the exchange on procedure: “this isn't a question and answer session. It's an addressing to town board.” He also dismissed material circulating on a local Facebook page under a pseudonym as false, and said he does not know who runs it.
The meeting adjourned a few minutes later. This brief does not name the complainant, the witness, or the clerk's-office employees described in the report; the one official determination in the record is that the complaint was unfounded.
Money. Audited claims of $371,153.98 on check run 1005-2026. Eighty building permits reaffirmed — 23 in the village, 57 in the town. A police budget transfer of $24,900 out of public safety equipment into office supplies, telephone, and gasoline and oil, at Chief of Police William Gummo's request. A general transfer from interfund health insurance into judgments and claims. And, on a suspension of the rules, $38,058 moved from the gun range's unappropriated fund balance into gun range miscellaneous.
People. Samantha Rocco appointed part-time permanent Recreation Instructor at the Senior Center — yoga — at $32.50 an hour starting October 6, on Recreation Supervisor Marybeth Gianni's[*] recommendation. Michelle Barbaro's deputy highway superintendent arrangement was amended to name the specific CSEA blue-collar and white-collar contract articles that apply to her, given her overlapping role as Park Crew Chief, retroactive to January 1, 2022 — seventeen articles in all. The resolution was briefly skipped and recovered when a member asked, “What about 19?”
Youth. The board granted retroactive approval for the Lancaster schools' Symphonic Band pops concert to have used the Youth Bureau band shell and Lions Club picnic shelter on September 27 — a week after the fact. It authorised the Erie County Department of Social Services youth program agreement for October 2026 through September 2027, and an amended agreement with the Depew-Lancaster Boys' & Girls' Club for a youth development program, retroactive to September 1 and running to the end of 2027.
One objection and one recusal. The Family Support Center resolution — the town reimbursing Lancaster Central School District half the program coordinator's salary, $36,368.92, and half the health insurance, $17,868.20 — drew the night's only dissenting speech. “Why are we subsidizing a position with the Lancaster School?” Anticola asked. “They're collecting an inordinate amount of taxes. … I feel like it's bloated a lot. Maybe they could spend a little more fiscally responsibly and pay for their own employees.” Told the 50/50 split predates the current board, he relented: “I guess we'll let it slide this time.” He then voted for it. Deputy Supervisor Dawn C. Schroeder recused herself — “because there's money involved here, I must recuse myself” — and the resolution carried.
Housekeeping. Updated site plan application forms adopted. Halloween trick-or-treat set for Saturday, October 31, 6 to 8:30 p.m., in consultation with the mayors of the villages of Lancaster and Depew, and settled between two members by coin flip for the second. A public hearing was set for October 19 on a special event permit for Stony Brook Legendary Lights. Bleachers for the visitor side of Walden Pond Park — about 85 seats — bought for $13,972 from Highland Products Group, LLC, doing business as The Park Catalog, through Sourcewell contract 081523-NRS and fully funded by an Erie County Legislature grant.
Town Hall's front entrance closes October 13 and stays closed for the rest of the year while the stairs and sidewalk are rebuilt; entry moves to the Clark Street side. The Westwood Pond turf field is finished — turf in, site work being cleaned up — with a ribbon-cutting expected within weeks. At Walden Pond, touch football is drawing roughly 150 children an hour between 9 and noon, and the town is pricing additional parking off Walden Avenue that would take out part of a treed area while leaving some trees standing.
Two matters need resolutions at a future meeting. The Town of Alden needs a water district extension off Town Line Road and must tap Lancaster's main; the town attorney wants a board waiver so she can fold Alden, Lancaster and the Erie County Water Authority into a single agreement, at no cost to the town. And a town-owned sliver on 353 Seneca[3], currently serving as a resident's driveway, will be offered to that resident at its established value of roughly $2,500 to $2,600 — with the wry note that buying it transfers the snow removal too.
Council Member Melissa A. Studley reported “quite a few applicants” for the Ethics Board with no selection made yet and the door still open, and that the Term Limits Committee meets Wednesday at 10 a.m., with November's session moved to the evening for people who cannot come during the day. A two-question questionnaire is available in the clerk's office and on the back windowsill — collection apparatus candidly described as a Nike shoebox, pending an upgrade. Schroeder reported that criteria for the Bowmansville historical overlay district were defined with residents and handed to the town engineer, who has begun drafting with help from the village historical commission chair; the specifications go to the legal office and then back to the board.
The work session also heard a concept presentation for 5067 Transit Road, an addition atop an existing building near the corner of Polo and Transit to serve as a body and collision shop, with an existing curb cut on Transit to be closed and materials matched to the classic-car building the same owner put up a few years ago. The presenter sought only the board's clearance to pull formal applications from the building department. The board had no questions.
All five members sat: Supervisor Robert E. Leary, Deputy Supervisor Dawn C. Schroeder, and Council Members Thomas Anticola, Mark R. Burkard and Melissa A. Studley. Roll-call votes are 5–0 unless noted; the public hearing and the suspension of the rules were taken on voice votes. One recusal was entered, on Item 8. The meeting was closed in memory of Carol Misnick[3]. There was no executive session.
Noticed September 21 under Chapter 400, Article 14, §400-78 and advertised in the official newspaper. No member of the public asked to be heard. Closed within about a minute.
Offered by Leary, who misread the date and was corrected from the table.
Total authorised: $371,153.98.
23 in the village, 57 in the town. Permits coded for conditional sidewalk waiver carry the town's standing reservation to order sidewalks later at the owner's expense. Offered by Burkard.
Set after consultation with the mayors of the villages of Lancaster and Depew, who approved the date and time. The second was decided by coin flip. One member volunteered that he had bought full-size candy bars.
Revised by Code Enforcement Officer Matt Fischione for immediate use by the Building and Zoning Department, following the subdivision forms adopted September 21. Offered by Studley.
For a pops concert held Sunday, September 27 — eight days before the vote — from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. with restroom access from 11:30. A liability release and proof of insurance were executed before the event. Offered by Schroeder.
Authorises the supervisor to execute the agreement for October 1, 2026 through September 30, 2027, subject to the town attorney's review of insurance certificates. Offered by Schroeder.
The town reimburses the district 50% of the coordinator's salary, $36,368.92, and 50% of health insurance, $17,868.20, for September 1, 2026 to June 30, 2027, with instalments dated October 1, December 1, February 1 and April 1 and payments falling across December, February and April. Anticola objected at length to the town subsidising a district position before voting yes. Schroeder recused herself — “because there's money involved here.” Burkard's response was not audible on the recording.[3]
Under Chapter 115, Unsafe Buildings and Property Maintenance. The resolution finds the primary structure, all accessory structures and the contents and equipment dilapidated, deteriorated, decayed, damaged and unsanitary to the point of endangering public health and safety. Hearing at 7:05 p.m.; notice to be published on the town website and in the official newspaper. Offered by Schroeder.
Reverses the board's 0–5 rejection of the identical finding on September 21. The resolution states the reconsideration is required “to correct a procedural error with SEQRA” at that meeting, and recites that the board has taken “a hard second look.” Unlisted action; short environmental assessment form. The Planning Board had recommended a positive declaration on September 2. Offered by Burkard.
Applicant DJC Land Development, LLC. Fails unanimously for the second time in two weeks, with no member speaking to it. The resolution recites the Planning Board's positive-declaration recommendation and its findings of moderate-to-large impact on the use and intensity of the land, potential impairment of community character, potential adverse change to natural resources and small impact on erosion, flooding or drainage. Counsel for the applicant addressed the board beforehand and entered a letter and a DEC jurisdictional determination of non-significance into the record.
Yoga instruction at the Senior Center, $32.50 per hour, starting October 6, 2026, no more than 19.5 hours per week, no benefits beyond those mandated for part-time employees. Recommended by Recreation Supervisor Marybeth Gianni[*] by letter of September 28. Contingent on pre-employment checks and certifications.
Required by Local Law No. 5, §2C2 before a special event permit issues. Hearing at 7:05 p.m.; notice to be published and posted on the town bulletin board. Offered by Schroeder.
±188.86 acres, SBL Nos. 82.04-2-1 and 82.04-1-5. Submitted by David Colarusso[*] of LaBella Associates[*] on drawings dated July 21, 2026. Type II action under SEQRA, no further environmental review. The Planning Board recommended approval on August 19 as compliant with town building and zoning codes. A special use permit covers the height of the structure; no stormwater maintenance agreement required.
Retroactive term from September 1, 2026 through December 31, 2027, subject to the town attorney's approval. Offered by Anticola. Club funding was the subject of extended public comment at the previous meeting.
October 5, 2026 through October 4, 2028, on three conditions plus the standing requirements of the zoning ordinance. Code Enforcement Officer Matt Fischione responded to the application by letter dated September 3. Offered by Burkard.
From public safety equipment into office supplies, telephone, and gasoline and oil, at Chief of Police William Gummo's request and with the supervisor's review.
About 85 seats, from Highland Products Group, LLC d/b/a The Park Catalog under Sourcewell contract 081523-NRS, piggybacked under General Municipal Law §103.16 to satisfy competitive bidding. Fully funded by the Erie County Legislature grant accepted September 8. The supervisor thanked the county legislator who secured it.[3]
Amends the January 3, 2022 resolution establishing the position to identify the specific CSEA blue-collar and town white-collar contract articles applying to her, given overlapping duties as Park Crew Chief — seventeen articles, some with multiple sections. Supersedes conflicting personnel rules and prior resolutions; retroactive to January 1, 2022 except where a provision dictates otherwise. Offered by Burkard. The item was initially skipped and taken up when a member asked for it.
Requested by the supervisor against the 2026 adopted budget. No amount was stated aloud.
Follows the public health emergency declared at the property on July 6, 2026 and the retention of Campco General Contracting, Inc. for Phase 1. $17,360 relevied onto the 2027 county and town tax bill against SBL No. 116.05-4-75. Effective immediately.
Taken up after a unanimous suspension of the rules. $38,058 moved from the gun range unappropriated fund balance to gun range miscellaneous. Not prefiled; announced at the opening as a transfer within the police department.
Two became resolutions the same night (528 and 532). Four went to planning and zoning and the town attorney (523, 527, 533); two to the Town Board (526, 530); the remainder received and filed. The clerk read dispositions by number only; subjects were not stated aloud.
What aired. The recording covers both sessions: it opens inside the 6:30 p.m. work session — where the 5067 Transit Road concept presentation and the full 2027 budget discussion took place — and runs through adjournment of the regular meeting, with about nine minutes of recess chatter in between that is disregarded. Per this publication's practice the work session is folded into this Town Board brief rather than written up separately. It runs 5,592 seconds (93.2 minutes).
Corrections. [*] marks a proper noun corrected against the agenda, the prefiled-resolutions packet or the municipal street index, which govern over the audio: David Colarusso and LaBella Associates (audio: “Calaruso,” “Labelle”), Marybeth Gianni (audio: “Mary Beth Tiani”), and the council members' surnames, which this microphone renders freely (“Anacola,” “Burkhardt,” “Berker,” “Stubbley”). The resolutions packet types the 13 Silent Meadow applicant as both “DJC” and “DJS” Land Development; DJC appears on the negative-declaration form and is used here. Resolution 21 was read aloud as declaring the Grace Way emergency in “2036”; the packet reads July 6, 2026.
Unconfirmed names. [3] marks detail the audio alone supports. That includes the applicant's attorney and his colleague, the resident who delivered the closing comment, the person in whose memory the meeting was closed, the 353 Seneca parcel, and the county legislator credited with the bleacher grant — whose surname the audio gives as both “D'Addaro” and “Dodaro” and which no document in this packet confirms, so it is not printed here rather than printed wrongly.
On the closing public comment. The allegations read into the record are reported as allegations, alongside the supervisor's answers, which were given at length. Two points of care: the only official determination in the material is that the police investigation closed as unfounded, and this brief does not name the complainant, the witness, or the clerk's-office employees described in the chief's report — they are private individuals in a closed matter that produced no finding. The statement attributed to the town Republican chairman is quoted as it appears in the report that was read aloud, not as an established fact. Readers wanting the underlying documents can request them under the Freedom of Information Law, as the board itself suggested from the dais.
Street validation. Run against the Lancaster street inventory. Eight names matched exactly — Central Avenue, Clark Street, Genesee Street, Grace Way, Harris Hill Road, Town Line Road, Transit Road and Walden Avenue. The tool proposed correcting “Village Boulevard” to a Lancaster street at full confidence; that correction was rejected, because Village Boulevard is the West Palm Beach, Florida address of the bleacher vendor and is correctly not a Lancaster street. Two further flags, “CSEA Blue Collar Highway” and “Deputy Highway,” are the extractor reading the word “Highway” as a street type. Addresses central to the night's decisions were cross-referenced against this publication's scanner address record; nothing in it bears on these matters.
Continuity. Items carried from September 21 and reconciled here: 13 Silent Meadow (reconsidered; see the lead), the New Enterprise hearing that was set that night (held, no speakers), the Stony Brook Legendary Lights permit application (hearing now set), the Walden Pond bleachers (purchased), and 9 Grace Way (hearing set, Phase 1 cost relevied).