By Ashley M. Casey

Staff Writer

Sorry, sports fans — you’ll have to park somewhere else.

The Van Buren Town Board voted July 5 to prohibit parking on both sides of O’Brien Road between Jones Road and Blanchard Boulevard because of issues with people attending tournaments at CNY Family Sports Centre.

“The situation has been getting worse every year,” Tom Dodson, a resident of Hosmer Drive, said at the public hearing. “With that amount of parking, it is not possible for a fire truck to get down that road. You have kids running in and out. You have public drinking.”

Dodson said it is difficult to exit the senior living facility on Blanchard Boulevard when cars are parked on both sides of O’Brien Road.

He said the soccer center installed a fence and put up signs to no avail, and there is litter from the leftover signs.

“It’s time for the town to step in,” Dodson said.

Supervisor Claude Sykes said he has spoken with Pete Ramin, the owner of CNY Family Sports Centre.

“He fully expected after this last time that we would take this action,” Claude said.

Councilor Mary Frances Sabin asked if sports event attendees could park behind the former Thunderbird Lanes bowling alley. Sykes said Ramin told him he has an agreement to use the roughly 100 parking spaces there.

Councilor Ron Dudzinski asked about enforcement of the local law.

“When we contact the sheriff’s department when these types of situations start happening, will we be able to tow vehicles out of there?” Dudzinski asked.

“Depends if you can catch up with the person and speak with them directly,” Sykes said. “They can probably just put a parking ticket on their car.”

Sykes noted that many sheriff’s deputies prefer to write tickets under the New York State Vehicle and Traffic Law rather than under a town ordinance.

Also on the agenda

In addition to approving the O’Brien Road parking ban, the town board addressed the following issues at the July 5 meeting:

• Water district: The board approved an extension of the Connors Road Water Supply District, covering four properties with a total assessment of $983,500. Sykes said Faith Baptist Church and Jim Nobles were willing to pay for the cost of the extension.

Affected property owners will pay about $456 per year in addition to the cost to hook into the water line. A fire hydrant will cost $71.61 per year.

Gene Brock and several other residents, many of them wearing Faith Baptist T-shirts, stood in support of the water district extension.

• Clerk audit: The board accepted Town Comptroller Greg Maxwell’s audit report of the town clerk/tax receiver’s office for 2016. The report noted that Town Clerk Lynn Precourt receives funds from the public, logs transactions, makes bank deposits and prepares bank reconciliations.

“No one person should be able to have physical custody of funds and perform the accounting of the transaction,” the report reads.

Maxwell’s report said “there is a lack of segregation of duties” because of the limited staff at the clerk’s office. Sykes said he will meet with Precourt and Maxwell to determine how to split up the transaction duties, but he likely will take on some of them.

“Sounds like you are going to have another job,” Deputy Supervisor Pat Dickman said.