Meet Webster's Conservation Board: the environmental review board you've probably never heard from
A five-member board most residents have never heard of just pitched Tree City USA to the Town Board. Here is what Webster's Conservation Board actually does, and how it landed real say over development review.
On July 16, Conservation Board member Charlotte Cabili stood before the Webster Town Board with a pitch: put Webster up for Tree City USA, a recognition program run by the Arbor Day Foundation for municipalities that formalize how they plan for and manage trees on public property. It was a routine 6:30 p.m. workshop presentation, no vote required, and it produced none of the sharper exchanges that dominated the rest of that night's meeting. It was also something else: a rare public appearance by the town's Conservation Board, which doesn't vote on the kind of business that regularly makes the agenda and isn't listed on the town's centralized Agenda Center.
Tree City USA applies only to town-owned property, not private land. To qualify, Webster would need to clear four standards: an active tree board or department with legal authority over public tree-care decisions; a tree-care ordinance (which can be language folded into existing town code rather than a standalone document); documented minimum spending of $2 per resident per year on tree-care activity, which can include contracted work, paid staff time and volunteer hours; and an annual Arbor Day observance, such as a public tree-planting event.
Cabili cited two dollar totals for that $2-per-capita threshold during the same presentation: about $90,000 at one point, and $94,000 at another. Webster's population is estimated at about 45,200 residents, per the U.S. Census Bureau's 2024 American Community Survey estimate. That population figure puts the $2-per-capita threshold at just over $90,000, closer to the lower of the two numbers Cabili cited.
Cabili offered to hold individual half-hour conversations with each Town Board member, alongside fellow Conservation Board member Gregory Lawrence, to gather feedback before bringing a second workshop back to the full board. If Webster pursues Tree City USA, the application deadline with the Arbor Day Foundation is December 2. Board members raised two practical questions during the discussion. The first: whether the Highway Department, already described as stretched thin, and the Parks Department had been looped in on the added tree-management workload. Cabili said they had not been yet, and agreed they should be. The second: whether volunteer labor could be used for higher-risk tree removal work as opposed to lower-risk planting and pruning, a liability question flagged for the town's insurance carrier and Town Attorney Kyle Taylor. Establishing a formal tree board or ordinance would require a local law; discussion suggested Taylor would draft that language with Conservation Board input, using a similar ordinance in the Village of Fairport as a model.
Who is the Conservation Board, and how did it get real authority?
Most Webster boards residents can name (the Town Board, Planning Board, Zoning Board of Appeals) get regular coverage because they vote on things: variances, site plans, budgets. The Conservation Board doesn't run on that rhythm, which is part of why it's easy to miss. But it isn't a ceremonial committee either. New York's General Municipal Law, Article 12-F, lets towns create a baseline conservation advisory council: a purely advisory body of three to nine members with no formal standing in land-use decisions. A town can upgrade that council into a full Conservation Board, with more formal standing in development application review, once it completes a town-approved inventory of open space. Webster has cleared that bar: its board operates under General Municipal Law Sections 239-x and 239-y as a Conservation Board, not the more limited advisory-council version many New York towns never move past.
A real voice in development review
According to the town's own description of the board, the Conservation Board reviews development applications for environmental impacts (wetlands, tree mitigation, erosion, visual impact) and formally advises the Town Board, Planning Board and Zoning Board of Appeals on what it finds, referencing the Town Comprehensive Plan, Town Code and SEQR guidelines. That review has shaped real outcomes: when the Planning Board granted preliminary site plan approval to a 7 Brew Coffee kiosk at Hard Road on June 2, the approval carried a condition, drawn from Conservation Board recommendations, for landscaping along Hard Road. The board's authority to review and advise on those referrals comes from New York General Municipal Law Sections 239-x and 239-y. The town's own page describing the board does not specify a review timeline for how long the board has to weigh in.
Who sits on the board
Five members currently sit on the Conservation Board, all appointed by the Town Board: Chair Dennis Gorlick, and members Charles Zlotkus, Susan Deasy, Charlotte Cabili and Gregory Lawrence, according to the town's Conservation Board page.
Town Board resolutions show appointment terms don't all run on the same clock. Susan Deasy was appointed Feb. 6, 2025 (Resolution No. 82, approved 4-0) to a two-year term ending Dec. 31, 2026. Gregory Lawrence was appointed March 5, 2026 (Resolution No. 114, approved 5-0) to a three-year term ending Dec. 31, 2028. The town's board page describes seats generally as three-year terms; Deasy's shorter term is consistent with filling a vacancy mid-cycle rather than a different underlying rule for her seat specifically, but that inference was not confirmed directly against the Town Code's own stated term length.
How residents can engage
Unlike the Town Board, Planning Board and Zoning Board of Appeals, the Conservation Board's meetings and minutes are not posted on the town's centralized Agenda Center. The board meets the third Wednesday of each month at 6:30 p.m. in the Webster Town Board Room, 1002 Ridge Road, according to the town's Conservation Board page. Residents with questions about a specific development application, or interest in a future seat on the board, can start with the town's Conservation Board page or the town's general contact line, 585-872-1000, 1000 Ridge Road.
For now, Tree City USA doesn't require a public hearing or a vote to keep moving forward. What's scheduled next is individual conversations between Cabili, Lawrence and each Town Board member, plus a second Conservation Board workshop, before any formal application goes in. If Webster applies, the Arbor Day Foundation's deadline is December 2.
AI tools were used in drafting and research.