Town considers improving lakefront property 
Spafford resident wants Borodino Landing more accessible to the public. 
March 18, 2004 
By Sara Errington 
Staff writer 

The town of Spafford may try to upgrade Borodino Landing, a town-owned 
lakefront on Skaneateles Lake. 

Spafford resident Frank Moran presented plans at the town board meeting 
March 11 about making the lakefront property more accessible to town 
residents. 

"I think the important thing . . . is you don't make it into Coney Island, 
you don't make it so attractive that people from Rochester are going to 
want to go swimming down there. 

"I think you've got to do it in a way that it serves the town's people and 
gives them an opportunity to have a place to go if they want to take a 
dip, but not to make it a real super development," Moran said. 

Moran said it appears that the town's portion of shoreline, which tax maps 
show as 48.5 feet, is not all being used. 

"Right now we're using, I would guess, about 20 to 22 feet of it," he 
said. "Who's using the other 28 feet?" asked town resident Gianfranco Frittelli. 
Moran said that the town should survey the property, but that it appears 
the property to the north has encroached on the town's land. 

"I do think the landowner on the north side puts up a little fence or 
whatever so people can't get over that property and I think he really 
infringes on the town landing. That's common knowledge. It's not something 
I determined myself," Moran said. 

A Pennsylvanian named Merrill Denslow owns the adjacent property. 
Also, it's not clear who owns two buildings on the southern edge of the 
landing that are in the town's right-of-way. 

"What I would like to do is have the town board review it and give us some 
direction on this thing," Moran said. 

Gordon Ireland said replacing a driveway culvert on the town's part of the 
landing might open up another 5 or 6 feet of town shoreline.

Other suggestions from Moran included: 
Removing boulders from the shoreline and replacing them with sand and 
crushed stone. 
Installing markers to delineate the town's portion of the landing. 
Keeping and maintaining two portable toilets at the landing. 
Installing two park benches. 
Performing a title search and possibly a survey to confirm town ownership 
of the property. 

Ireland said he'd try to find a copy of a survey of the property the town 
had done years ago. 

Moran said he was there when the survey was done and that it appeared the 
property line may run through the front of Denslow's house. 

Moran said the issue of whether other property has encroached on the 
town's land will be controversial, but that it should be dealt with now, 
before lakefront land gets even more expensive than it is. 

"I know from past experience that no matter what we do, we're going to 
have an argument. But to do nothing, in my opinion, doesn't serve the 
community," Moran said. 

"When you get to the point where your plan is pretty well completed, 
you're going to have to get some legal advice. . . . When you find out who 
owns those two buildings, then we can get into nuts and bolts for the rest 
of it," Ireland said. 

Grange Hall grant hangs in balance 

The fate of a $89,000 grant for the Grange Hall restoration hangs on the 
Spafford Area Historical Society's ability to answer questions from the 
state Historic Preservation Office. 

Ireland said the community development office has been waiting more than a 
month for a response from the society. 

Councilor Joyce Barnett said SHiPO's questions are complicated and that 
the society's architects are working on answers. She said Ireland and 
Councilor Bill Vinzant have thrown so many hurdles in front of the project 
that she's ready to abandon it. 

Ireland and Vinzant said they are completely supportive of the project. 

Codes report draft given to town board 
Richard Thompson, of the Department of State's Code Enforcement Division, 
presented a draft report of his findings to the town board. 

The session is part of an audit of the town of Spafford's code enforcement 
program. The office decided to audit Spafford after receiving a flood of 
code complaints. 

"We spent a matter of weeks reviewing the code office and documents and 
interviewing various individuals and we've developed a draft report for 
the town," he said. 

The town has until April 8 to comment on the document, after which a final 
report will be published. The final report will be available to the 
public, but the draft report is not a public document, he said. 

Thompson urged the town not to start making changes based on the report. 
"What I want you to do is take the next month and examine this for 
accuracy . . . when we write these reports, this is the state's perception 
of how things are going on. 

"We want you to have the opportunity to review, and to interview your own 
people and to either challenge us for things you think are erroneous or 
not challenge us for things that are accurate. 

"It's not a time for repair. It's not a time to fix the problems because 
you don't have any orders or any recommendations at this stage," Thompson 
said. 

© 2004 The Post-Standard. Used with permission.