Here are the highlights from the August 5, 2008, Town of Canandaigua Board meeting.

There were no public hearings.

Privilege of the Floor: Kris Hughes, the Director of Ontario County Planning, gave the Town Board a presentation on the services available to the Town by the County Planning Department. All the towns in the county are entitled to 40 hours at no cost. Our town is interested in utilizing their services in the upcoming Comprehensive Plan update.

Committee Reports:

• Codes Committee: Several town code updates are waiting for the completion of services by General Code in September before presenting them to the Board.
   
• Fire Committee: The negotiations concerning the future make-up of the Fire Department that serves the City and part of our Town is continuing. The State has just passed legislation designed to lower health insurance costs for volunteer fire fighters that will go online in 2009 and that should help recruit new members.
   
• Comprehensive Plan Committee: Next meeting is on August 21, 2008, at Town Hall. The Committee is looking to bring to the Board a proposal to utilize a citizen advisory group to work on the update. The Committee will be looking for interested residents to work on this advisory group. They expressed the desire to have all areas of the Town represented as well as to seek input from our surrounding communities.
   
• Parks and Recreation Committee: Updating the Pierce Park playground equipment is in progress.

Assessor's Report: Our tax base has now reached 1 billion dollars.

The Board passed a resolution to hire a consultant to prepare a grant application to purchase the development rights of farm land in the Town.

The Board rescheduled the Board of Health hearing to September 15, 2008, at 6:00 PM.