I invited the chairs of different advisory/policy making boards to share information about their boards with residents. The town benefits tremendously from the hard work and dedication of our volunteers. Fran McLaughlin, chair of the Greenburgh Planning Board sent me the following summary highlighting the work of the Planning Board. If you visit our website: www.greenburghny.com you can watch meetings of the Planning Board and archived meetings of the Planning Board on our website. PAUL FEINER Planning Board Responsibilities The Planning Board of the Town of Greenburgh is an independent land use board that has approval authority over: In addition, the Town Board is required by code to refer a long list of requests within its purview to the Planning Board for recommendation. Applications before the Parks and Recreation Board for use of recreation escrow funds come first to the Planning Board for recommendation before going to the Town Board and the Historic and Landmarks Preservation Board also sends requests to landmark a property to our board for recommendation before the request goes to the Town Board. Who We Are Our Board consists of seven members, appointed by the Town Board for seven year staggered terms, and one alternate who can vote in place of a member who cannot attend a meeting. We are all volunteers concerned with good planning. We meet twice a month on the first and third Wednesdays and also may hold a third meeting during months that have five weeks. All members, including the alternate, are required to take at least four hours of continuing education annually on planning issues. Members are also asked to visit the site of all applications and, on large or complicated applications, the Board schedules noticed sited visits on a Saturday morning, inviting the public to join us. Members are drawn from throughout the unincorporated area and represent a wide variety of expertise. How We Work The Board applies the Town Code, the State Environmental Quality Review Act regulations and good planning and management practices in reviewing each application. We are an independent board. Most applications change several times for the better during our work sessions in response to members’ concerns and before they reach a public hearing. Our first question during our work sessions is usually, “have you spoken to your neighbors” and if the answer is “no”, we encourage the applicant to do so. During public hearings we encourage and welcome all to come up and speak. We also read and acknowledge comments received via mail or email. We consider all public comment in reaching our decisions and in determining conditions that may be applied to any approval granted. Currently there are no vacancies on the Planning Board.