Monthly Report
Tompkins County Council of Governments
for December 10, 2025
by Councilperson Robert Lynch
Enfield TCCOG Representative
The Tompkins County Council of Governments (TCCOG) has not met since September 26. It next meets this Thursday, December 11 for its final meeting of 2025. Customarily, there’d be no TCCOG report at this December Town Board meeting. However, within recent days, various officials of Tompkins County and TCCOG’s member municipalities have raised significant organizational and relational issues which warrant discussion within the governing boards of Enfield and other participating TCCOG municipalities. They impact the future direction of TCCOG and even whether this organization will continue to exist.
The principal issue is the degree to which TCCOG must adhere to the dictates of New York State Open Meetings Law (OML), particularly as it affects the conduct of TCCOG’s several “subcommittees.” (Note: these are really “committees” of TCCOG, since they are subordinate to no other committee. But I’ve given up fighting that semantic battle.) I chair one of those four subcommittees, the Transportation Subcommittee. However, since I am that subcommittee’s only member, my sub-group’s role holds little relevance here. Due to the circumstances below, I may resign as chair of the Transportation subcommittee at year’s end.
Background: Discussion of the subcommittees’ compliance with the OML began at mid-year and followed a pair of meetings of the Emergency Planning and Preparedness (EPP) subcommittee in April and May. Caroline Supervisor Mark Witmer chairs the EPP subcommittee. To my knowledge, Rordan Hart, Trumansburg Mayor, and Dan Lamb, Dryden Councilperson, are the only other EPP members.
As I detailed in my TCCOG Report for this year’s April 9 Town Board meeting, the EPP subcommittee met April 2 to discuss potential expansion of Emergency Medical Service (EMS) operations within Tompkins County. Paul Bishop, whose firm would later compile an EMS analysis for the Tompkins County Legislature, was the meeting’s principal speaker. The April 2 meeting had been poorly-publicized, but I’d found out about it and attended as Enfield’s representative. No minutes were taken. And if there was any Zoom link that day, it was not shared. Afterward, subcommittee chair Witmer strongly encouraged me to confine any public statement I might make—including to this Town Board—to a brief, generic, two-sentence paragraph that omitted the major substance of the two-hour session. Against my better judgment, I complied with Supervisor Witmer’s request.
The full membership of TCCOG subsequently met May 22, only a few days before the Tompkins County Legislature’s Public Safety Committee would convene to discuss EMS, including Paul Bishop’s potential involvement. As I detailed in my June 11 report to this Town Board, I’d been unaware at the May 22 TCCOG session of yet a second meeting of the EPP subcommittee, one to which neither I nor apparently any other TCCOG non-committee member had been invited. At that second, private meeting, staff from the Tompkins County Department of Emergency Response (DoER) had discussed its own plan for expansion of the Rapid Medical Response (RMR) program, elements of which could potentially conflict with whatever recommendations Paul Bishop’s consulting study might make.
At the May 27 Public Safety Committee meeting, EPP subcommittee members endorsed the DoER plan to expand the RMR. At times, subcommittee members’ endorsement conveyed, by inference, an endorsement by TCCOG. It had not. Attending the Public Safety Committee that day, I felt blindsided.
Tompkins County’s Position: Likely influenced by the EPP subcommittee’s actions and this Enfield Councilperson’s questions concerning them, Katrina McCloy, Clerk of the Tompkins County Legislature, sought advice from Tompkins County Attorney Maury Josephson concerning the application of the New York OML to TCCOG meetings, including to subcommittee deliberations. Following that consultation, Clerk McCloy circulated a memorandum to TCCOG members on December 3. It stated, in part, that:
“TCCOG is considered a public body, and a public body is required to conduct its meetings in a manner which is open and accessible to the public and they need to follow Open Meetings Law (OML). TCCOG is meeting as a group and making recommendations to a larger elected body….”
As to whether TCCOG subcommittees are required to adhere to the OML standard, McCloy wrote:
“Under OML, TCCOG subcommittees are public bodies and are required to adhere to OML. TCCOG subcommittees are meeting groups which provide input to the Tompkins County Legislature through TCCOG.”
Among McCloy’s further recommendations, McCloy stated that subcommittee meetings should be noticed with any Zoom meeting links provided to the public; quorum requirements must be met; minutes recorded and recordings retained; and voting recorded by roll call.
TCCOG Leadership Response: Reaction came later December 3 from Trumansburg Mayor Rordan Hart, Co-Chair of TCCOG. Hart reacted critically to the new limitations Tompkins County sought to impose:
“It should be noted that there is significant disagreement with the County attorney’s interpretation of OML by several municipal attorneys, particularly as it relates to sub-committees which are purely advisory…”
Mayor Hart’s message to Clerk McCloy, shared with TCCOG membership, continued:
“A broader issue which we (TCCOG) may need to address is whether the County is seeking to impose regulation on TCCOG, effectively treating TCCOG as a sub-agency of the County. Whether done intentionally or unintentionally, this would put a significant damper on the original spirit of TCCOG’s founding, and the Village of Trumansburg would have to reevaluate its participation in this organization…..”
Mayor Hart indicated that he planned to contact Trumansburg’s municipal counsel, Guy Krogh, to seek his legal advice. At least one other TCCOG member said she also planned to involve municipal counsel.
Tompkins County Response: On December 4, Legislature Clerk McCloy circulated a second memorandum, one seeking to focus the discussion. McCloy wrote, in part:
“There was no ill intent on my part or on that of the County to attempt to treat TCCOG as a sub-agency of the County…There is no intentional or unintentional attempt to impose any regulations on TCCOG. Rather, it was basically an attempt to provide transparency, which is something Tompkins County prides itself on upholding, for the public in regard to the meetings and meeting groups this office is responsible for….”
Clerk McCloy added that if TCCOG finds the processes she’d proposed objectionable, an alternate protocol would involve the delegation of recordkeeping responsibilities to municipal clerks:
“The responsibility could possibly rotate by allowing each municipality to take a turn developing and distributing the agenda, hosting a meeting, and taking the minutes. If these responsibilities were rotated through each municipality, it would only require a municipality to provide said support about once every two to three years. “
The Proposed Resolution: On December 8, Dan Klein, Tompkins County Legislature Chair and County Government’s representative on TCCOG, submitted a Resolution, posted for action at the December 11 meeting. Klein’s Resolution would have TCCOG adopt “structure and consistency procedures” designed “to enhance the accuracy of records maintenance of the Council.” The Resolution would require that:
- “All meetings of Tompkins County Council of Governments and its subcommittees be noticed in a manner which aligns with Open Meetings Law;
- All meetings of Tompkins County Council of Governments and its subcommittees shall be open to the public and if said meetings are conducted in a virtual manner, the ability for the public to attend be made available to the public;
- If a recording of a meeting is produced, said recording be made available to the public;
- All video cameras shall remain on for those attending a meeting remotely or in a virtual manner and visible to members of the public;
- Minutes of all meetings shall be produced and made available to the public in accordance with Open Meetings Law;
- If an executive session is necessary, this should be done so in accordance with Public Officer’s Law;
- Quorum shall be in attendance to call a meeting to order and to conduct business;
- If a member needs to be excused during the meeting, they shall announce they are leaving to ensure accurate records are being maintained, and
- All votes shall be taken by roll call vote to ensure the accurate recording of votes unless all members are physically present in one location when voting”.
The introduced Resolution would further instruct TCCOG to” initiate the process to amend the Tompkins County Council of Governments Bylaws to incorporate the intent of (the) resolution.”
Limited TCCOG member discussion has occurred since the Resolution’s introduction. On Monday, December 8, upon receiving the Resolution’s text, I responded to TCCOG members and to the County:
“Based on my first, quick read of the text, I, as the Town of Enfield’s representative to TCCOG, endorse Chairman Klein’s Resolution as circulated today.”
Barring contrary instructions from this Town Board, I will vote my support Thursday, December 11.
Respectfully submitted,
Robert Lynch, Councilperson
Enfield TCCOG Representative