Town Board Extends Deadline To File Property Taxes To Friday

SOUTHOLD, NY — The Southold Town board held a special emergency meeting Tuesday at the Town Hall conference room and passed a resolution to extend the deadline for residents to pay the first half of their property taxes to Jan. 12.

Councilman Bill Ruland said similar situations have arisen when the day to file fell on the weekend, and due to extenuating circumstances. "It's the right thing to do," he said. "It's more than reasonable."

Taxes will be due by close of business on Friday, Jan. 12.

Southold Town Supervisor Scott Russell said he called for the emergency to ask the board to support extending the deadline for paying property taxes. The first half is due each year by Jan 10, he said.

"People who pay after that date incur late fees. I am asking the board to extend the deadline for the first half due to the close of business Friday." Russell said because Town Hall was closed for one day, people had 1 less day to pay.

"This property tax season has been confusing enough. We are all trying to figure out the impacts of the tax reform package will have on us. By extending the deadline, maybe we can ease some of the pressure," Russell said.

The board discussed the burst pipe in the Town Hall fire suppression system that led to flooding in the east side of the building. Councilman Bob Ghosio asked about what had led to the burst pipe and asked about antifreeze.

Russell said the building was old and there had been "bitter cold" temperatures.

In an email after the meeting, he added, "The fire suppression systems in all buildings are inspected regularly. They are standard systems like you would see in any other building. The temperature was bitter cold for 2 straight weeks. Pipes burst. It happens in new buildings with new equipment and older buildings with older equipment. The heat was on and fully functional.The only cause for the break was a long period of cold weather."

Ghosio agreed and said even newer homes had frozen solid during the plunge in temperatures.

Councilman Jim Dinizio brought up a subject residents have been discussing, whether or not property tax cards were damaged in the flood. Some residents have suggested digitizing the cards. While all other Town Hall offices opened Tuesday, the assessor's office remain closed.

Russell said Monday that the no cards, as well as no official documents in Town Hall, had been damaged.

The board agreed to discuss the property tax card issue in the future and passed the resolution extending the date to pay property taxes unanimously.

Russell added, after the meeting, "The property record cards are fine. They were fine before the pipe burst, they were fine during the pipe burst and they will be fine moving forward. Whether or not they should be 'digitized' is an issue we can take up at another time."

Southold Town Hall was closed Monday due to a frozen fire suppression system that caused flooding in the entire east side of the building Sunday, Russell said.

Russell said while the town doesn't yet have an estimate of the cost for repairs, "We had about 2 inches of water on the floor and since it came from the fire suppression system located over the ceiling, we had damage in the ceiling, with tiles becoming waterlogged and falling," he said.

In an email Monday, Russell said, of the damage, "The clean-up will be a large task. Inspections are taking place now which require assessing damage behind office walls, removing trim and portions of walls etc. Currently, the rugs, ceiling,and insulation are all being removed. We will not know the full extent until the current thorough inspection is done."

In addition, Russell said, work was being done to identify areas where there was a need to replace pipes. File cabinets were relocated to the conference room Monday, too, he said.

"We are also doing an inventory of all documents and, so far, we haven't found damage to official documents," Russell said. "Primarily, damage was restricted to documents that are easily replaceable. We do not have an approximate cost. The ultimate cost is not limited to building damage but equipment damage."

Belfor Property Restoration was hired to do the cleanup, Russell said.

The Town Hall meeting room did not sustain any major damage, he said.

Southold Information Technology Director Lloyd Reisenberg began surveying all of the IT computer equipment, "although it may take a while to determine the extent of the damage," Russell said, adding that the insurance company was called to come survey the damage.

Patch photo.