Volunteers, including several members of the Liverpool Village Planning Board and at least one village trustee, will roam village streets Wednesday Nov. 29 and Saturday Dec. 2, counting the number of parked cars throughout those days. The baseline parking survey — which is part of the design implementation for the village’s recently adopted Comprehensive Plan — is being coordinated by municipal engineers from Clough Harbour & Associates, Walt Kalina, Tim Faulkner and Mike Alexander.

“We want to see where the parking is heaviest in the village during certain times of the day,” Faulkner explained at the planning board’s monthly meeting Monday Nov. 27 at the Village Hall.

Seven surface lots

The survey, which focuses on the village business district, will examine 12 specific areas along Tulip, Oswego and First streets. The study area includes seven surface parking lots, such as the municipal parking lot on the south side of lower First Street, the Nichols Supermarket parking lot on upper First Street, Liverpool Public Library’s basement lot on Tulip Street and The Retreat’s lot at First and Vine streets. Volunteers, who include planning board Chairman Joe Ostuni Jr. and village Trustee Nick Kochan, planned to work from 6:45 a.m. until 6 p.m. Wednesday.

Saturday surveyors wanted

Additional volunteers are welcome to help out Saturday, meeting at the Village Hall, 310 Sycamore St., at 8:45 a.m. Dec. 2. Data will be collected until about 4 p.m. Saturday. To volunteer, call Ostuni at 457-3328, or e-mail him at [email protected]. Parking surveyors can volunteer for certain time slots or the entire day.

“We’ll be counting the number of parked cars,” Faulkner said, “not the number of unused spaces.”

The parking survey should continue through much of 2007 so that seasonal fluctuations can be detected.

“The parking study is part of the next phase of implementation of the Village of Liverpool Comprehensive Plan,” Ostuni said. “It’ll help the village assess the need for parking in order to guide future planning and development decisions.”

County sends greyhound issue back to L’pool

At its Nov. 21 meeting, the Onondaga County Planning Board sent on the case of Greyhounds of Central New York back to the village planning board. The home-based business, which trains former race dogs to become family pets, is operated by Jonna Skehan at 305 Third St., in Liverpool

County planners found that Skehan’s enterprise, in which which houses and trains retired racing greyhounds, poses “no significant adverse inter-community or county-wide implications.”

Village planning board Chairman Joe Ostuni Jr. read the county planning board’s resolution at the village planners’ Nov. 27 meeting, as part of an ongoing public hearing on Skehan’s application for a special permit to operate the greyhound-rehab business at her longtime Liverpool home.

The public hearing on her application will continue at the village planning board’s

Jan. 22 meeting

Signs of the times

Signs may become the focus of attention of Liverpool’s new codes enforcement officer, Gail Swistak, who started work here Nov. 20.

At the village planning board’s monthly meeting on Nov. 27, board member John Eallonardo expressed concern about the proliferation of signs on front lawns throughout the village.

Assistant Codes Enforcement Officer Kurt Field explained that such signs — many expressing anti-Wal-Mart sentiments and some promoting the retention of Liverpool

Elementary School — are examples of free speech.

“Our ordinance doesn’t cover free speech,” Field said. If the signs promoted a business or even a yard sale, he said, they would be regulated.

Eallonardo pointed out that signage at some new businesses along First Street may also need to be looked at more closely, and Ostuni pointed specifically to the relatively new Retreat sign at the corner of Second and Vine streets.

“That used to be the DeWitt Bagelry sign, but there was never an application made to change it,” Ostuni said. “It just kind of appeared.”

Ostuni said he’ll ask Swistak, the new codes enforcer, to discuss the matter with The Retreat’s owner, John Gormel.

“We’ll discuss that sign at our January meeting,” Ostuni said