Munsey Park trustees OK village filming fees

Bill San Antonio

Before more film crews use Munsey Park locations for Hollywood and television features, the village’s trustees wanted to firm up a few ground rules.

Munsey Park trustees Wednesday approved a local law that establishes fees and deposits for film companies that seek to use the village as a location and defines who pays for expenses incurred during production.

The law establishes a $500 filming permit that must be paid to the village and makes the film company liable for any fees or expenses incurred by the village during production. The film company must also make a $15,000 deposit to be put toward village fees and expenses. Any unused portion of the deposit would be returned to the film company within 60 days of the production’s conclusion in Munsey Park.

Village of Munsey Park Mayor Frank DeMento said the board of trustees passed the law because the village incurred a large bill for legal fees due to work done in preparation for the recent production of the Jason Bateman film “This is Where I Leave You,” which shot at 9 Burnham Place in May and early June. At the time, the village code did not specify who would pay any consequential expenses that arose from filming. 

“There was no mechanism to have the movie pay for the attorney bill, so the village had to pay for the attorney bill, so this law changes it so the movie has to pay for the attorney’s bills in the future,” DeMento said.

In the last decade, the feature films “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” and “The Good Shepherd” have also used Munsey Park as a filming location. The CBS drama “The Good Wife” once filmed a few houses away from the location used for “This is Where I Leave You.”

Village of Munsey Park Deputy Mayor Sean Haggerty said the law served as an example of the fiscal conservatism with which he thinks the board is following since he, DeMento and Trustee Patrick Hance were elected in March.

“We passed the film law because the old board did not,” Haggerty said.

The board also introduced a proposed local law amending the village’s removal process for trees on village property, a homeowner’s property and a neighbor’s property. A public hearing on the bill was set for the trustees’ next meeting Sept. 11.

DeMento, who drafted the bill with Hance, said the proposed law does not represent a dramatic change from the law currently, but now gives a more clear description of how a homeowner can have a neighbor’s tree pruned or taken down. “The reason I restructured the old law to include trees on Munsey park property, trees on your property and trees on your neighbor’s property is because I didn’t feel the old law was really clear,” DeMento said. 

The tree law currently in place requires residents that have issues with a neighbor’s tree to give that neighbor 48 hours notice prior to having the tree pruned or removed at the neighbor’s expense – a process DeMento said was “unfair.” 

The law, Demento said, also does not incorporate scenarios such as a resident’s tree that hangs over a neighbor’s property or a tree that could fall onto a neighbor’s property or home.

The revised law would allow residents to offer to pay for the removal of their neighbor’s tree. The law would also require the village’s tree committee to conduct an inspection and provide a recommendation on the removal of the tree to the board of trustees, who would then make a determination. 

If the board’s decision is appealed by the tree’s owner and the board of trustees still determines the tree must be removed, the village would pay for the removal and a lien would be put on the person’s home for reimbursement. 

“We tried to put in a mechanism that would cover every possible scenario,” DeMento said. 

The proposed law would eliminate the requirement for a resident to hire a village-approved arborist to work on a tree, which DeMento said “made almost a monopoly on who the residents could use and because there were so few tree services that residents could use. The rates to take your trees down were astronomical because you were cutting out the competition.”  

Arborists must still supply the village with proof of insurance and display the tree permit on their trucks, DeMento said.

Trustee Susan Auriemma suggested the village change its emergency management e-mail notification system from the online service StreamSend to North Shore Alert, operated by the Port  Washington-Manhasset Office of Emergency Management.  

Auriemma said she met with the office’s commissioner, Peter Forman, who told her the village would be able to send messages and newsletters to residents independently from the ones issued by the Port Washington-Manhasset Office of Emergency Management. 

If the village were to change providers, its list of 475 e-mail addresses over StreamSend would be added to North Shore Alert. Auriemma suggested the village send multiple e-mail notifications of the change with a link enabling residents to approve the change and update their e-mail address. DeMento said the village should send a printed notice of the change as well.

Trustee Matthew Seidner, who announced at the board’s previous meeting that he would be stepping down from his position because he would be moving out of Munsey Park, was not in attendance Wednesday. Miller said Seidner’s absence marked his final meeting with the board.

Seidner must file a letter of resignation with the village before his replacement is found, but Haggerty said “four or five” people have e-mailed him with interest in filling Seidner’s position.

“We haven’t really determined it yet,” DeMento said, adding he expected the board to have chosen Seidner’s replacement by its next meeting.

Clerk-Treasurer Barbara Miller said the village retained $9,655 in court fines in the previous month, attributing the amount to a high number of violations that came as a result of motorists caught using cell phones while driving. 

A resolution was also passed making Miller the village’s recipient of notice of claims to the state secretary.

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