By MICHELLE MILLER
Staff Writer

SPRINGFIELD — During Thursday night’s Springfield planning board meeting, the board declared itself as the lead agency for the review of Madison Square Garden Entertainment’s (MSGE) proposal for a three-day music and art festival.

After reviewing MSGE’s responses to the EAF (Environmental Assessment Form) and pointing out some disparities between MSGE and board members’ own understandings, planning board members decided to wait to receive an updated site plan from MSGE before continuing with Parts II and III of the State Environmental Quality Review, or SEQR.

Members of the board said they plan to continue with the SEQR process at the next scheduled meeting, which is scheduled for Sept. 4 at the Community Center at 7 p.m.

According to planning board member David Staley, the Part III draft completed by the town’s consultant did not include all of the items that the planning board determined to have a potentially large impact, so now the consultant will have to redo his draft to include all of those items.

According to the Department of Environmental Conservation, the basic purpose of SEQR is to incorporate the consideration of environmental factors into the existing planning review decision- making process. SEQR requires all agencies to determine whether the actions they directly undertake, fund or approve may have a significant impact on the environment, and if it is determined that the action may have a significant adverse impact, the agency must prepare an environmental impact statement (EIS). MSGE has already agreed that its project will have a positive declaration and would like to push through to scoping and prepare an impact statement. Scoping is the process by which the issues to be addressed in the draft EIS are identified. According to Staley, the board would like to use the earlier steps, Parts I, II, and III, as a systematic way to focus what topics need to be covered during scoping and ultimately in the EIS.

The planning board received a letter from Paul Kuhn, chairman of the Otsego Lake Watershed Supervisory Committee, requesting that the committee be designated an involved agency for the SEQR process. Planning board chair Mary Clarke accepted and said that the committee will receive everything as it comes out. Code enforcer Henry Miller said he is most worried about the tearing up of the fields for parking.

Board member Bill Harman said he thinks the plan is too generic, and that the board should request something in writing from MSGE that will stop them from expanding plans in the future. He said he does not want what is happening with Dreams Park in Hartwick Sem- want it to continue to grow throughout the years.

Miller was also concerned about the wildlife, such as deer, that would be impacted by the project. The fencing may pose a problem, said Miller. Harman shared Miller’s concern for the wildlife and said, ``You don’t take 100 yards of alfalfa without impacting nothing but people.’’

MSGE has mentioned having to close a road during the event and that posed another concern. Miller said he thought it would be fine to close roads as long as farmers, milk trucks, and emergency vehicles were allowed to travel on them while closed to general traffic.

Board member Joy White said she would not like to see the site altered visually. She said she believes many of the people in Springfield, such as herself, like to drive by the site and take in its beauty. Public health and safety was another issue brought up at the meeting. Staley said the project imposes an overload on transportation systems as well as an overload for local hospitals.

MSGE has said it will conduct traffic studies; however, traffic remains one of the main concerns of the proposed project, especially if the event coincides with another big event such as the Baseball Hall of Fame Induction Weekend.

The Otsego Lake Watershed Supervisory Committee expressed concern about how the project will affect Otsego Lake. According to discussions at the planning board meeting, there are 23 streams within the proposed MSGE project site that run into Shadow Brook, which flows into Otsego Lake.

Springfield resident Maureen Culbert read a petition signed by 354 town residents who opposed the MSGE project. Culbert said the festival is the largest and most intrusive project to go before the town of Springfield and asked, why not ask for more time, and why be in such a rush. She said she did not believe the town is prepared to handle the growth and the amount of people the proposed project would attract.