News Archives: 2019

Taking A Stand, a tab on the top menu, provides my take on various issues of community concern in Enfield; commentary on our Town’s Current Events. I hope my words will prompt robust debate.

Highlights :

May 2024: Priority One: Our Boeing Problem; (Addressing poor academic performance in Enfield Elementary School and elsewhere in light of the district’s current budget controversy.)

November 2023: Flycars, Fund Balances, and “Flat-Broke” Towns; (Addressing a committee of the Tompkins County Legislature on the merits of cost-sharing for a Rapid Medical Response Service.)

September 2023: Think Before You Act (They Didn’t); (Addressing the Tompkins County Legislature to urge delay in proceeding with a Center of Government.)

August 2023: Democracy, Clinging by a Thread; (Addressing the Enfield Town Board on the controversy surrounding its appointment of Enfield’s initial Board of Fire Commissioners.)

July 2023: I am Impatient. They are Hungry. (Addressing the Tompkins County Council of Governments regarding the Tompkins County Food System Plan’s “Roadmap” and how it needs improvement.)

Prior postings and statements, (2019-2022) are now included in the Commentary Archives.

(July 4): Plainly put, Daniel Nolan is a “placeholder.” And his official elevation to the Tompkins County Legislature this week puts him in a seat he won’t hold long.

In a quiet ceremony July 3, apparently covered only by Tompkins County’s Communications Department, Democrat Nolan took the oath to succeed the likewise short-tenured Susan Currey to represent an Ithaca City district that swings counter-clockwise from South Hill to East Hill.

“I am incredibly grateful for this opportunity to once again serve the people of Tompkins County and to represent my friends and neighbors in Belle Sherman and South Hill,” Nolan said in a prepared statement.

“Though my time on the Legislature will be limited, I look forward to making the most of it and working with my colleagues to take on the pressing issues that continue to face our County,” Nolan concluded.

Indeed, brief his term will be. Nolan won a special election in late-June. Currey’s unexpired term runs only through December. New terms under redrawn district lines begin in January. Nolan did not compete for those positions, and none of the people who plan to succeed him ran in Nolan’s own uncontested race.

Why they didn’t remains confusing in its own right.

(July 3): A powerful storm—the National Weather Service warned it could have packed a tornado—roared through Enfield and other places in west-central Tompkins County Thursday, toppling trees, downing power lines, and shutting down key roadways.

“It was pretty intense,” Enfield Volunteer Fire Company First Assistant Chief Kevin Morse Jr., the Chief-in-Charge at the time, said of the suddenly-erupting storm that came almost out of nowhere and pummeled Enfield for the better part of an hour.

Morse and Fire Chief Jamie Stevens reported the fire company answered 14 calls itself. Twenty-six 911 calls came in for storm-related damage in other areas.

Enfield firefighters responded to two instances of trees having fallen on homes, one of which briefly trapped an elderly Applegate Road woman. (At least one other Enfield home was tree-damaged, but went unreported.)

Stevens said there were no injuries or fires. Nor were there immediate reports of buildings destroyed.

The National Weather Service’s 1:45 PM warning said “radar indicated rotation,” suggesting a tornado. Originating in Mecklenburg, the storm headed east into Ithaca, where it forced at least one big-box store to run on generators.

All of Enfield Center and Millers Corners remained without electricity into the evening. A nasty tree and power line tangle forced the closing of Route 13 between Route 327 and Five Mile Drive. It re-routed pre-holiday traffic onto Enfield country roads like Gray and Colegrove.

(July 2): The gulf between Ithaca’s home prices and Enfield’s couldn’t be wider, if one accepts numbers shared by the Enfield Town Planning Board Wednesday.

The median home price in Tompkins County was $377,000, last December, Planning Board alternate Greg Hutnik quoted a Board of Realtors’ statistic.

Meanwhile, data drawn by Planning Board Chair Dan Walker pointed to about 50 percent of Enfield homes valued at $200,000 or less. Thirty-one percent came in between $200,000 and $300,000.

Pricing and availability questions arose as the Planning Board reviewed the “Housing” section of the Enfield Comprehensive Plan July 2nd, announcing no major revisions beyond the numbers.

It’s “almost a traffic jam” seeing cars coming to Ithaca in the morning, Planner Mike Carpenter remarked, “because there’s nowhere to live here.”

Enfield’s population remains stagnant at best. It actually fell by 150 over the decade to stand at 3,362 in 2020, about the same as in 2000.

“Younger persons in the family have moved out,” Walker surmised.

Hutnik and Carpenter talked of initiatives at the county level to have government itself step up to increase the housing stock. But for Enfield, that could prove a task beyond the town’s ability.

“Having private developers to solve the housing crisis is not working,” Hutnik asserted

(July 1): For the third time in two years, the Enfield Fire District has new legal counsel.

Dictated by the planned retirement of its current attorney, Mark Butler, this December, the Enfield Board of Fire Commissioners Tuesday retained Niagara Falls-area lawyer Kevin Mahoney to represent it, effective immediately.

“We’re going to have two lawyers?” Fire Commissioner Barry “Buddy” Rollins asked.

“Technically, yeah,” Board Chair Greg Stevenson answered.

“It doesn’t make sense to involve an attorney who can’t be around in 2026,” Stevenson explained, noting that fire station lease negotiations with the building’s owner, the Enfield Volunteer Fire Company, will start soon, with lease terms to spill into next year.

As to billable hours, Stevenson said the board will attempt to avoid overlap. The newly-approved retainer specifies Mahoney’s hourly rate at $350, with lesser amounts for associate lawyers and clerks. Stevenson recalls Butler’s rate is comparable, if not higher.

Tuesday’s Commissioners’ action allows Mahoney and Butler to share files now and thereby ease the transition.

Two years ago, the Fire District’s first Board of Commissioners used yet a third attorney, Brad Pinsky. But Pinsky was jettisoned as soon as a newly-elected board reorganized the following January.

Picture a Parade., again

(June 27): It’s the longest of long shots. But the Enfield Community Council (ECC) has not given up on hosting a community parade to coincide with its 50^th Anniversary Enfield Harvest Festival, Saturday, September 20.

“It’s not that difficult to do; it’s just time-consuming,” ECC President Cortney Bailey advised the agency’s board of directors Thursday. But a parade would be “awesome,” Bailey exclaimed.

There hasn’t been a parade down Enfield Main Road since the Fire Company canceled its annual carnivals decades ago. ”The fire department is on board,” ECC board member Debbie Teeter said of firefighter interest.

The ECC board Thursday extended an open invitation for anyone who’d like to organize a Harvest Festival parade. If no one steps up, it probably won’t happen.

ECC’s June 26^th meeting focused on Harvest Festival preparations. Once again, ECC seeks to revive the ping-pong ball drop, a pre-pandemic tradition, but canceled for recent festivals, last year by bad weather.

There’ll be a barbecue, a cider press, perhaps farm animals, but no hay ride.

“The problem is control; misbehaving children and parents,” Bailey said, recalling hay rides in the past. The tractor’s driver complained of kids jumping on and off the wagon without supervision.

(June 26): On the heels of the Republican Primary results Tuesday, Town of Newfield Democrats this week announced their political choices, the result of a June 18^th Democratic caucus.

All those nominated were incumbents. Caucus results assure Democrat Michael Allinger another four-year term as Newfield Town Supervisor. Democrats renominated Allinger. No Republican or Independent challengers have entered the Supervisor’s race.

Indeed, the only Newfield contest this November will be a three-way race for two seats on the Town Board. Democrats nominated only one candidate for Councilperson, namely incumbent Joanne James. The party nominated no one for the second position, meaning that Republican incumbent Christine Seamon, top vote-getter in Tuesday’s GOP Primary, could continue on the Board next year as well.

Republicans have also nominated Michael Corbett for Town Board, thereby putting Joanne James’ reelection at risk.

Newfield Democrats cross-endorsed Republican Town Clerk Karen Miller Kenerson and Highway Superintendent Kevin Berggren. Neither faces any opposition.

Winn: “Best use of $50M?”

(June 25): Maybe it was the 92-degree heat. Only four members of the public ventured to Legislative Chambers Tuesday night for the fifth and final Community Engagement session seeking input on Tompkins County’s proposed $50 Million Downtown Center of Government.

Because of the slim turnout, officials, lacking—and at times pleading for—additional comment, closed the scheduled 90-minute discussion after only 52 minutes’ time.

Just two observers spoke, one of them this writer. Both commenters criticized the project.

“The presentation; very polished, very good,” this Enfield Councilperson, Robert Lynch, told assembled legislators, “but there is an underlying premise that this is a done deal… We’ve got to realize there are options still on the table, and I would like to see those options pursued.”

“Is this the best use of like $50 Million?” former Ithaca mayoral candidate and current Common Council aspirant Zach Winn asked. “There’s commercial property all over the place,” Winn observed. What’s more, he added, “There are people who don’t find downtown very inviting.”

With time to kill, the seven attending legislators spent much of it talking among themselves.

Lansing’s Mike Sigler signaled he’d welcome alternative sites, but conceded the majority rules.

“We have a Legislature of 14 people,” Sigler acknowledged. “Whether I agree that it should be downtown or not is not irrelevant, but the votes are that most people want to see this downtown.”

(June 24): It was Tompkins County’s only Republican Primary contest Tuesday. And results released June 24—unofficial, yet predictive of the final result—allow Newfield Town Board incumbent Christine Seamon to advance to the November General Election for another four-year term.

Seamon polled the most votes in a three-way race for two seats on the Newfield Board.

Michael Corbett finished second, yet well ahead of third-place finisher Christopher M. Hyer, Jr. and secured the second nomination

Amidst a very light turnout Newfield election, Seamon garnered 49 votes, Corbett 40 votes, and Hyer only 15 votes. There were also a couple of unnamed write-ins.

Seamon and Corbett will face Democratic nominees in November. Newfield Democrats select their candidates by caucus.

A local banker planning soon to retire, Michael Corbett responded to a League of Women Voters questionnaire saying that ”budget and finances” will become a “prime concern,” if he’s elected.

“I think it important for any governmental body to make all decisions, budgetary or other, in the most fair, balanced manner,” Corbett wrote.

ITA’s Kathryn Cernera

(June 23): Local Home Rule legislation, backed strongly by Tompkins County’s governments and school districts toward expanding the community’s voice in development decisions, must wait until next year to win adoption.

The measure, which would have expanded membership on the Tompkins County Industrial Development Agency (TCIDA) from seven to nine members, failed to reach a floor vote in the New York State Assembly before that lower house adjourned early June 19.

The Enfield Town Board, the Tompkins County Legislature and the Tompkins County Council of Governments had each endorsed the bill. It would have impacted only Tompkins County and was seen as non-controversial.

The Ithaca City School District (ICSD) had initiated the expansion idea. It had hoped that a school district representative added to the TCIDA would allow a more critical voice in tax abatements that some have argued cost the ICSD tax revenue and endangered school programs. The Ithaca Teachers Association’s (ITA’s) voice proved particularly vocal.

Assemblymember Anna Kelles and State Senator Lea Webb had introduced the Home Rule bills in their respective houses. Kelles’ bill got no farther than the Assembly’s Local Governments Committee. Senator Webb’s measure passed the Senate June 13, by a vote of 58-to-one. Only Senator James Skoufis opposed it.

Assemblymember Kelles

(June 23): Empire State environmental activists have little to cheer about as the 2025 New York Legislative Session ends. Several of their signature initiatives stalled this term, mostly in the State Assembly.

Inaction on a couple of bills dealt Assemblymember Anna Kelles a particular setback.

Assembly leadership never put to a floor vote a Kelles-supported bill that would have sought to reduce packaging waste and made packagers pay for the waste they produce. The Tompkins County Legislature in February had endorsed the measure.

Industry lobbying against the waste-reduction bill was fierce. “There were more lobbyists in the hallways … than a session typically would have,” Kelles told The Gothamist, a downstate news source.

“There was the most obscene amount of lobbying,” Manhattan Assemblymember Deborah Glick told its reporter. “Every lobbying firm in this city was on the clock. We had Washington, D.C. lobbyists coming to Albany. That was unlike anything I have seen.”

A second Kelles-backed bill failing to reach a vote would have banned for five years the application of processed sewage sludge onto farm land.

Yet again, industry lobbyists prevailed. The Ithaca Assemblymember cited locally-contracted waste hauler Casella as among those who seek to profit from “biosolid” sales.

“We can protect our land by holding mega corporations accountable, so that they’re not just polluting our land indiscriminately,” Kelles told the reporter.

(June 20): Locals thought it dead in the political water. Not so.

“New York State is not going to save us,” Dryden Councilperson Dan Lamb—well-connected to Albany politics—advised a Tompkins County legislative committee May 27^th of a bill to elevate Emergency Medical Services (EMS) to an “Essential Service.” Lamb had thought the initiative had died during budget negotiations. He was mistaken.

On June 12, by a nearly-unanimous vote, the New York State Senate adopted a bill declaring EMS that “Essential Service.” Four days later, the Assembly concurred. Governor Hochul must still sign the measure.

The bills provide no money. But they do direct each county to, “convene meetings and a planning process with cities, towns, and villages within their jurisdiction for the purpose of developing and maintaining a comprehensive county emergency medical system plan that shall describe how coordinated and reliable emergency medical services within the county would be provided for all residents within the county.”

The bills would demand each county submit a report within six months of signing.

In meeting the requirement, Tompkins County stands ahead of the curve. The County Legislature June 3 commissioned a $48,000 study into EMS coordination. Tompkins’ Department of Emergency Response also has a plan to gap-fill the local ambulance shortage.

Some New York towns oppose heightened EMS status, fearing it could later lead to mandated ambulance services.

NY Sen. Julia Salazar

(June 20): It would seem like a slam-dunk for New York’s Democratic legislative super-majorities to pass. But they couldn’t. It never got out of committee.

And although State Senator Webb and Assemblymember Kelles were among its many co-sponsors, the “New York for All Act,” an immigrant rights protection bill, never grabbed local attention.

Now, however, bill sponsors want a special legislative session later this year to revive the measure.

Think of “New York for All” as a sanctuary statute applied statewide.

For starters, it would prohibit state and local law enforcement under most situations—or any state employee, for that matter,—“from questioning individuals regarding their citizenship or immigration status.” The bill would also severely limit cooperation between those officials and federal immigration authorities.

“I’m calling on the New York Legislature to convene in special session,” Brooklyn State Senator Julia Salazar wrote. “It’s never too late to protect New Yorkers,” she said.

“For the next six months, Trump will be escalating attacks on New York without our state government scheduled to pass ANY legislation to respond and protect New Yorkers,” Salazar’s downstate Senate ally Jabari Brisport posted on X.

Activists partly blame New York’s drawn-out budget deliberations for impeding their progress.

Legislative Republicans oppose the bill. “You are breaking the law, and I think local law enforcement should work hand in hand with federal ICE authorities,” Spectrum News quoted Assemblyman Mike Fitzpatrick.

Nope, not this year.

(June 18): Enfield SkateGarden visionary Dan Woodring is gone for the moment—reportedly living out-of-state. And with his departure goes any talk of SkateGarden concerts this year.

At the Town Board’s meeting June 11, Deputy Enfield Supervisor Greg Hutnik confirmed that no concerts are planned this year. SkateGarden promoters had staged weekly musical events from late-summer through Halloween last season to raise money.

But aside from the half-pipe that grant money built last year, along with the mulch-covered garden and stage area surrounding it, the Enfield SkateGarden looks very much like an unfinished construction site… which, frankly, it is.

“Some of the rougher edges were left to get going this spring,” Hutnik explained. But Tompkins County canceled the Parks Grant program. There’s no money to do anything more.

“Now we have to rethink what to do with those rough edges,” Hutnik advised the Board.

Supervisor Stephanie Redmond, and Councilpersons Hinkle and Millspaugh have worked to smooth slopes and remove junk. Four or five trailer loads were taken away, they said. The effort now is to ensure visitor safety and make SkateGarden look respectable.

“We want it to be a happy place,” this Councilperson told colleagues. / RL

Amanda Walrad

(June 17): “Something had to go, and this was the odd man out,” departing Enfield Fire District Secretary Alexis Beckley explained Tuesday as she disclosed her plans to leave the appointed post she’s held since the Fire District’s inception nearly two years ago.

Wasting no time, the Enfield Board of Fire Commissioners—following a 40-minute Executive Session June 17—appointed Amanda Walrad as Beckley’s successor.

A member of the Enfield Volunteer Fire Company for about two years, Walrad volunteers as a Certified First Responder and plans to take courses soon to become an EMT. Professionally, the appointee works in the Office of Student Life at Ithaca College.

“Thank you for your service,” Fire Commissioner Robyn Wishna said, wishing Beckley all the best.

Alexis holds down two, nearly full-time jobs, including service with Bangs Ambulance. She attends school, and had concluded there’s just too much competing for her time. She also serves the Fire Company as an Assistant Chief.

Walrad’s appointment marks the second Enfield Fire District leadership change in as many months. In mid-April, Cortney Bailey resigned as the district’s Treasurer, leading the board in May to name Jenna Oplinger to succeed her.

The Beckley-to-Walrad transition occurs July 1.

Whole Health Commissioner Appointee Sutcliffe

(June 17): The Tompkins County Legislature filled not one, but two top-level administrative positions Tuesday.

First, near meeting’s start, the Legislature confirmed Jennie Sutcliffe to fill the vacancy as Commissioner of Whole Health.

Sutcliffe, a Trumansburg native who’d worked with the City of New York Health Department before moving back locally, will fill the position Frank Kruppa vacated in January to join the local hospital corporation.

Then at meeting’s end, following a nearly hour-long Executive Session, the Legislature elevated Deputy Director of Finance Darrel Tuttle to assume the Finance Director’s post from the retiring Lorrie Scarrott.

“I’m really thrilled to work in my own community again,” an animated Jennie Sutcliffe told the Legislature. “It feels like a real homecoming.”

Among Sutcliffe’s priorities is what she called “meeting the political moment;” playing defense, but also offense in defending threatened programs.

“It feels a little bit silly to think it’s important to be forward-looking right now,” Sutcliffe acknowledged. But if systems are first dismantled, then rebuilt, “we don’t want to be caught flat-footed when that happens,” she said.

Finance’s Darrel Tuttle

Darrel Tuttle’s acceptance was shorter and more low-key. “I look forward to better serving the Legislature, the County, and working with my staff as I go into this new role as Director of Finance,” Tuttle said.

ICSD teachers addressing negotiators, June 12.

(June 17): Nobody likes Summer School. And that includes Ithaca City School District (ICSD) teachers and the district’s labor negotiators.

Teacher contract talks ended June 12. Negotiators failed to reach agreement. Nor did they declare impasse or suggest a teachers’ strike, an act prohibited under New York law.

Instead, they’ll take the summer off, reconvene September 18^th, and begin the 2025-26 year under an expired six-year agreement.

“So I encourage people to speak up to the school board; support your local teachers,” Enfield Councilperson Melissa Millspaugh, an Ithaca teacher herself, urged during the closing seconds of the Town Board’s June 11^th meeting, the night before that final negotiating round.

This year, for the first time, the Ithaca district and instructors negotiated in public and live-streamed the talks. Maybe there’s a reason negotiators usually bargain behind closed doors; to encourage candor and avoid grandstanding.

And why take the summer off? Wouldn’t it have been better to huddle privately and reach an agreement before September’s opening bell?

Teachers want salary restructuring; so called “step-and-lane,” which rewards instructors with more experience and educational credits. ICSD administrators reject the idea.

“That has me making the same amount as my co-worker, who’s worked twice as long as me,” Millspaugh informed the Town Board. She called the current pay practice “arbitrary.”/RL

(June 14): This year’s Enfield Community Council summer camp program almost didn’t happen. Now it will.

Xanthe Matychak, hired earlier this year as head of Enfield Teen Programming and Summer Camp Director, suddenly quit, effective the end of May, Community Council President Cortney Bailey disclosed to the Enfield Town Board June 11. The ECC kept Xanthe’s departure quiet, Bailey said, because without a director, summer camp would have died.

To its credit, Enfield holds many unsung heroes. Vera Howe-Strait is one of them. Howe-Strait, a long time former summer camp director (and one-time Town Councilperson) reluctantly pulled herself out of retirement and canceled a planned hiking trip all to return as director this summer and keep camp alive.

“Everybody should just say thank-you to her,” Bailey said in revealing Vera’s decision, “because she did not want to do this, but she also would not let camp end even for one year and put the families that count on us for their good day care to be left up in the No Man’s Land of ‘Oh, my God, what are we doing with our kids this summer?’”

Cornell Cooperative Extension manages ECC Summer Camp now. Extension did not disclose why Matychak left unexpectedly. But Bailey said the new hire had appeared “pretty panicked” with the prospect of running the summer program.

(June 11): Maybe your GPS has better sense than the New York State Department of Transportation. We’re about to find out.

For months—perhaps years—drivers have found that their onboard navigation devices set the speed limit on Halseyville Road, in both Enfield and Ulysses, at 45 Miles per Hour. Yet there’s no 45 MPH sign posted anywhere, all the way from Route 96 south of Trumansburg to the Dandy Mart at Miller’s Corners. So the enforced speed limit remains the state’s standard, 55.

The Enfield Town Board will ask NYDOT to conform itself to Google. By a unanimous vote Wednesday, the Town Board requested a formal state traffic study aimed at lowering Halseyville’s speed limit to 45. Board members said safety dictates a lower limit.

Councilperson Cassandra Hinkle has seen kids crossing Halseyville to and from the school bus. “I hope to God they don’t get hit,” Hinkle said.

A few years ago, the Enfield Board attempted a similar speed reduction on Hayts Road. DOT staffers rejected the request.

As more of a reach, the Town Board also Wednesday requested a speed-reduction study on Tucker Road, where the Breezy Meadows subdivision is taking shape. Tucker is gravel, and traffic engineers have said they don’t cut speeds on unpaved roads.

(June 10): Ithaca High School students travel to exotic places like Morocco on school-sponsored trips. But the Ithaca City School District (ICSD) may soon suspend those learning ventures, in part, because of the Trump Administration’s multi-nation travel ban.

“Legal counsel has some concerns about ICSD sanctioning travel,” President Sean Eversley Bradwell informed the Ithaca Board of Education Tuesday. He said lawyers raised reservations even before Trump clamped a lid on certain foreign entry.

The board president reported that students in some other districts have found “extreme difficulty” returning to the U.S. once they leave.

The Ithaca Board of Education took no votes, and discussed the matter for no more than a few minutes June 10th. But members welcomed Eversley Bradwell’s suggestion to “ask legal counsel to come and talk with us.”

“It’s so enriching being able to travel,” Board member Erin Croyle remarked. “I won’t want to take that away based on fear.” Yet Croyle warned of “profiling at the border” and described federal policy has having put the district on a “roller-coaster.”

“The times change so rapidly, it’s difficult to make a decision now,” Croyle lamented.

ICSD foreign trips are planned for summer, so decisions must come soon.

“There’s always risk involved,” Eversley Bradwell conceded. So it comes down to risk management. “And the best way to manage risk is to have no risk,” he said.

Antonio Delgado with President Obama

(June 9): Gaining zero attention inside the Ithaca “media bubble” for a full week, New York Lieutenant Governor Antonio Delgado announced June 2^nd that he’ll challenge his current boss, Governor Kathy Hochul, for her reelection.

Delgado’s decision sets the stage for a June 2026 Democratic primary, as Hochul is expected to seek a second, four-year term.

“People are hurting and New York deserves better leadership,” Delgado told the New York Times in an interview, published the day of his announcement. “There’s an absence of bold, decisive, transformational leadership,” he told the paper.

Given the challenger’s stands on such issues as housing and health care, expect Delgado to run a campaign to the left of Hochul.

Born in and raised in Schenectady, the attorney and one-time hip-hop artist represented the Hudson Valley in Congress before Hochul tapped him to become Lt. Governor in 2022.

Delgado has set up a campaign website. Platform planks support expanded access to universal child care, widening the “public option” for health care, but stop short of advocating a New York “single-payer” system.

“He remains deeply committed to building a New York that works for everyone—no matter who you are, where you’re from, or how much money you make,” Antonio Delgado’s website boldly proclaims.

Let the contest begin.

“Maybe you get there…”

(June 5): It’s just a study, not a solution. But the Tompkins County Legislature June 3 agreed to retain a Rochester-based consultant to examine Emergency Medical Service (EMS) challenges within the county and recommend solutions.

Tompkins County will pay the Center for Governmental Research $48,000 from its contingency fund and expects to have a report on legislators’ desks by August or September.

Action followed a legislative committee’s wide-ranging review of EMS services May 27. It included a proposal to upgrade Tompkins County’s Rapid Medical Response service to provide limited ambulance coverage.

But funding any heightened County involvement remains uncertain.

“We may not want to do anything here this budget cycle,” Public Safety Committee Chair Rich John warned. “It’s a big commitment… Even if we don’t do it this year, we’re going to probably have to face this in the coming years.”

“As hard as it is to hear, there are people that are not getting timely services within our community,” legislator Greg Mezey asserted. He recounted the story of a colleague who’d suffered a heart attack and waited up to 30 minutes or longer.

“Those minutes seem like hours,” Mezey said. “We have police officers. We have fire. But EMS is kind of like, well maybe you get there and maybe you don’t.”

(June 5): It’s a story that’s flown under the radar since winter.

Now, the Ithaca City School District, according to a story in The Ithaca Times, has contracted with Cornell University to study school enrollment trends and propose solutions which could include elementary school consolidations.

The study’s outcome could put Enfield elementary School at particular risk. Of all elementary schools in the Ithaca system, Enfield has the lowest enrollment, just 162 students, according to the article.

“Could enrollment be shifted around?” Ithaca school board member Garrick Blalock asked at a January 14^th meeting. “How could we get there?”

Blalock claimed that building enrollments of 450-500 pupils are “optimal.” We’re told the average Ithaca elementary school has about 300 students.

To date, no one has openly discussed closing Enfield Elementary. Given that the building recently benefited from a new roof, better insulation, and a geothermal heating system, closure would make little sense. Yet, how much economic logic dictates academic decisions remains an open question.

The Times says the Cornell report is due by “around November” and would be non-binding on decision-makers.

Administrator Akumfi

(June 4): Taking its furthest step so far toward building a Downtown Ithaca Center of Government, the Tompkins County Legislature late Tuesday endorsed a Resolution committing itself to fund the project, one whose projected cost has risen to $50 Million just in recent days.

Legislative approval of the commitment, recommended earlier that day by an oversight committee chaired by Newfield-Enfield legislator Randy Brown, followed intense prodding by Tompkins County’s recently-hired Administrator, Korsah Akumfi.

“There needs to be a commitment,” Akumfi told the committee at its meeting. “There is a need for that commitment to be made right now so that we can continue with the project process and not look back.”

Although Akumfi believed the legislative votes fall short of actually pledging money, others think differently.

“If you vote for this tonight, you are committing to spending money at some time down the road,” Deputy County Administrator Norma Jayne cautioned the Legislature.

The Center of Government funding commitment passed the full Legislature by a vote of nine-to-four. All three Republican lawmakers—including Brown—joined by Ithaca Democrat Travis Brooks opposed it.

Current schedules calls for a groundbreaking early in 2027, with building completion by the end of 2028. Renovations elsewhere would follow.

Counting ballots in 2023

(June 4): Deciding by not deciding, the Enfield Board of Fire Commissioners Tuesday effectively nixed any prospects for the casting of absentee ballots in this year’s annual Fire District election.

“It’s a real pain and an administrative burden,” Board Chair Greg Stevenson advised commissioners. There are “a ton of requirements and quirks; an administrative burden for our little district,” he said.

The chairman reported that “a couple of town residents”—presumably snowbirds, gone for the winter—had requested absentee voting for this December’s election, one in which choice of a new member for the five-person commission would likely be the only matter decided.

The Enfield District’s legal counsel, Mark Butler, had recommended against absentee voting. Butler said the state law that governs it stands overly-complex.

“The potential for voter confusion and errors in the process does not, in our professional evaluation, justify the use of absentee ballots,” Butler wrote the Fire District in a memo.

The attorney knew of only one other district that had attempted absentee voting, but he believed they later abandoned the practice.

Akumfi: “Clarity”

(June 2): A resolution set for action Tuesday by the legislative committee overseeing plans for a Tompkins County Center of Government acknowledges inflation’s reality: The downtown office building’s projected cost has risen to $50 Million.

“Resolved… that the Tompkins County Legislature approves funding of up to $50 million for the development of the Center of Government (COG) project to be located on the 300 block of North Tioga Street,” a resolution affirming the Legislature’s “Approval of Funding” for the project states.

The resolution faces a vote by the Downtown Facilities Special Committee June 3, with a decision of the full Legislature likely to follow later this month.

The project’s $50 Million newly-estimated cost represents a 25 percent increase over projections made in recent years of $40 Million. When first discussed publicly in 2019, administrators projected a cost of $19-22 Million.

The committee’s latest resolution follows prodding one month ago from the current County Administrator, Korsah Akumfi, for “clarity of direction of where we are going with the project.” Akumfi, on board since only January, has sensed legislative indecision short of a firm commitment.

“The construction of a new COG has been determined to best fulfill Tompkins County’s goals of addressing departmental space needs, improving operational efficiency, promoting staff equity, centralizing services for the public, eliminating reliance on leased space, and supporting long-term sustainability objectives,” the committee’s resolution states.

Sen. Jabari Brisport

(June 1): What first caught the attention was Congressman Josh Riley’s Saturday night post on Facebook: “This is some of the dumbest s**t I’ve ever heard.” (He used the word.)

What rose our congressman’s ire May 24 was a bill filed in the State Legislature by two New York City lawmakers. It would restrict new or enlarged dairy farms to 700 cows.

Senator Jabari Brisport’s and Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal’s bill, filed in mid-March, but with little initial attention, would restrict the permitting process for farms that seek to become Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO’s). Farmers currently need a CAFO permit for a dairy exceeding 300 cows, but herds over 700 require a “large-scale” permit.

Brisport and Rosenthal would ban issuance of any new large-scale permits.

Senator Brisport’s opinion: “These factory farms wreak havoc on the environment,” he told one publication. Brisport said such farms negatively impact “marginalized communities, especially with the runoff, fumes, and the way they affect local waterways.”

Republicans have a different take: “The whiff of manure from Albany Democrats is stronger than usual this week,” state GOP spokesman David Laska stated.

“This is unrealistic legislation from people with no working knowledge of a dairy farm,” Norwich Assemblyman Joe Angelino wrote on his own Facebook post. “I’m sick of NYC running roughshod over upstate.”

The respective house bills remain in committee. Neither of Tompkins County’s state legislators has become its co-sponsor.

(May 26): The cost of Tompkins County’s Rapid Medical Response (RMR) service would grow more than five-fold under an ambitious expansion plan Tompkins’ Department of Emergency Response (DOER) will present to a County legislative committee Tuesday.

The heretofore undisclosed plan—called an “EMS Strategic Vision” and attached to the Public Safety Committee’s agenda—proposes that the two-year old RMR service, created to assist volunteer rescue squads in filling daytime staffing gaps, be expanded in both size and scope.

DOER’s proposal would purchase three ambulances, each priced at $150,000, to supplement the trio of pickups and SUV’s now in use.

RMR would quadruple its staff to 24, a mix of full-and part-time paramedics and EMT’s under various staffing plans. The service would expand from just Basic Life Support (BLS) to include Advanced Life Support (ALS) as well. One ambulance would run 24/7.

But it’s the cost that could cause jaws to drop. RMR’s projected annual expense would rise from its current $546,828 to just over $3 Million.

DOER’s proposal—which it’s possible was never intended for advance release—declines to list a start-up date for the expansion, but the text implies it could be as soon as 2026.

Most importantly, the proposal doesn’t indicate who would pay for the expansion—or how.

(Note: A prior posting had erroneously indicated that the proposal had arisen from a consultant, not a County department.)

(May 24): We’re told that just about every country school once had them. This year, the Enfield Community Council (ECC) will plant one.

Martha Fischer, until recently an Enfield resident, briefed the ECC Board meeting May 22 on efforts to plant a “Three Sisters Garden” on a small, fenced-in plot behind ECC’s Community Center.

For those unfamiliar, the “sisters” are corn, pole beans, and squash. The beans grow up the corn stalks. The squash vines choke out the weeds. You get the picture.

Fischer said the garden has roots in Native-American heritage. “Ancestral seeds” will be provided for planting, she said. To keep with tradition, Fischer lays her hand on the ground and plants three corn seeds about the fingers. The bean seeds go in later. The squash is planted three feet away.

“I’m fascinated by three seeds together,” ECC’s Debbie Teeter remarked. “Corn and beans use different nutrients,” ECC President Cortney Bailey interjected.

Fischer said that at harvest, heritage holds that one third of the crop is left for deer, one-third consumed by humans, and the remaining third retained for next year’s planting.

Jenna Oplinger

(May 21): The Enfield Board of Fire Commissioners has named its new Treasurer.

The Board unanimously appointed Jenna Oplinger as Treasurer May 20^th. Oplinger succeeds Cortney Bailey, who’d announced her resignation in mid-April, Bailey citing personal obligations. Bailey has served since the Enfield Fire District’s establishment in August 2023.

A Lansing native, Oplinger now lives n Enfield and became a member of the Enfield Volunteer Fire Company last September. She presently performs financial work for Koskinen’s Towing. Her experience also includes serving as a bank teller.

“Thank you for stepping up,” Commissioner Robyn Wishna said after the board took its vote.

There’ll be a smooth transition. The board will hold the treasurer’s salary at $5,000 per year. But the board authorized Bailey and Oplinger to serve together during the month of June, the Enfield Fire District paying its newly-hired officer one-twelfth of her eventual annual salary during the overlap.

Dawson: Stop ‘shredding.”

(May 20): By a nine-to-three party-line vote, the Tompkins County Legislature Tuesday followed the lead of both Enfield and Lansing and messaged state and federal leaders to press the Trump Administration to obey the Constitution and follow the rule of law.

“There has definitely been a call from our local constituents to make sure that we’re not silent in this time,” legislator Shawna Black said in introducing a resolution remarkably similar, though somewhat more concise, to one first adopted by the Lansing Town Board April 16, and then affirmed by the Enfield Town Board May 14.

Like the towns’ pleadings, Tompkins County’s version faults the Trump Administration’s deportation policies, its “disregard for judicial authority,” and its targeting of individuals for exercising free speech rights.

Legislator Deborah Dawson, a Democrat, urged action to “oppose the Administration’s attempts to undermine the constitutional order and basically shred our constitutional form of government.”

The Legislature’s three Republicans each opposed the anti-Trump resolution. Mike Sigler called it “a dangerous ploy” designed to “question other legislators’ intent.”

Newfield’s Randy Brown seized the moment to credit the current President for reversing what Brown saw as Joe Biden’s harmful policies and praised Trump’s efforts to “stop these ugly wars.”

“For that reason, I do support Donald Trump and his Administration,” Brown said.

(May 20): In their only pre-election debate, the three incumbents and four challengers competing for four seats on the Ithaca Board of Education answered seven, pre-scripted questions May 15 at BJM Elementary School.

The two-hour forum produced no break-out moments or gaffes. The closest to the latter came when candidate Madeline Cardona said she was “not fully educated” on the school district’s proposed $169 Million budget and could not say whether or not she’d support it.

“I think we can do a better as a district with the budget we have,” candidate David McMurry said, while still supporting the spending package.

McMurry, Jacob Shiffrin, and Scott Jahnke are running in the May 20^th election as a reform slate.

“We need a change now; we need to see that the community gets what it needs,” Jahnke told the forum’s 30 or so attendees.

Some questions were softballs. (“Why are you running?) Others were tougher (Will New York’s cell phone ban make students less safe?) The final question blindsided some, though not others.

Should 16-year-olds vote in school elections, the moderator asked?

“Yes, 100 times yes,” incumbent Erin Croyle answered.

(May 12): With creative names like “Party Wall,” “The Communal Porch,” and “Hugs,” as many as 23 varying design concepts for a new, stand-alone Enfield Food Pantry were placed on display behind the Enfield Courthouse Saturday, May 10.

Cornell Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Engineering students collaborated in 30 or more teams this semester to envision designs for the new Pantry, one which Enfield Food Distribution would construct on land it purchased, with Town assistance, at Bostwick and Teeter Roads.

Pantry director Jean Owens said she hopes to build the new facility within two to five years. Construction depends on grant funding. The project would include not just a distribution center, but also a test kitchen, classrooms and a community garden.

Designs displayed on separate panels hung outdoors Saturday demonstrated creativity, if at times revealing a drift away from practicality. But that’s what academic instructors probably encouraged.

How will the best design—or a design combination of them—get chosen?

“I’ll sit under a tree with no distractions,” Owens said.

Expect a compilation of the designs to eventually find its way to a book in the Town Clerk’s Office.

Skoufis: Win for Democracy

Update (May 10): Media reports indicate that Republicans, as expected, have appealed the mid-level appellate court decision to the state’s Highest Court, the Court of Appeals. That Court must decide whether or not to take the case.

****

(May 9): With “Rocket-Docket” speed, a five-judge mid-level New York appellate court has reversed a lower judge’s decision and allowed a politically-driven change in election law to take hold this year. It would move elections for most local upstate offices from odd-numbered years to even years, those when the President and Governor stand for office.

In Enfield, the holding means that contrary to voters’ decision last year to extend the terms of three key Town offices from two years to four, those elected this fall for Supervisor, Town Clerk and Highway Superintendent would serve just three years during this first election cycle.

Four-year terms for those elected to Town Councilperson and Tompkins County Legislature would similarly shorten in this year’s elections.

Court appeals usually proceed at a snail’s pace. This one did not. Five judges for the Appellate Division, Fourth Department, heard arguments Tuesday, May 6^th. They rendered their unanimous decision the next day, Wednesday, the seventh.

The Democratic-controlled New York Legislature enacted the change in June 2023. Governor Hochul signed it later that year. But Republicans successfully challenged the law, obtaining a lower court ruling last October that it violated New York’s Constitution.

Wednesday’s appellate ruling overruled the lower court.

This is a “Big win for Democracy,” State Senator James Skoufis, a Democrat, said of the latest ruling, upholding the law he’d sponsored.

Republicans claim the change favors Democrats, whose voters more often turn out for even-year elections.

Slope Day at Stone Bend Farm (photo courtesy, Henry Fernandez for The Ithaca Voice)

(May 9): As has been well-reported elsewhere, Cornell students celebrated two “Slope Day” end-of-semester celebrations May 7^th, one of them in Enfield.

And despite some pre-event neighborhood jitters suggesting that the “Community Slope Day” event at Porter Hill Road’s Stone Bend Farm might get out of hand, media photos from the event confirm it didn’t.

In contrast with the University-sponsored party on Cornell’s Libe Slope, a concert featuring national headline acts, the Stone Bend Farm alternative invited only local bands. Attendance appeared no greater than for a large-guest wedding.

That said, neighbors may have a point. One has told of cars lining Porter Hill Road that day, and music heard as far as a mile away.

With Stone Bend Farm, the Treman Center and Pine Creek Campground all in close proximity, residents in the area have good cause to urge some sort of noise-limiting ordinance. They should bring their concerns to the Enfield Town Board, and we who govern should listen.

But worst fears were allayed Wednesday. To students who attended Community Slope Day, Enfield proved inviting. / RL

Amanda Champion (left) and Shawna Black

(May 7): Rich John, a Cornell professor, is also a Tompkins County legislator. And at his committee’s urging, the full Legislature considered Tuesday night a cautiously-worded “Resolution in Support of Responsible Public Protest” to guide citizen behavior. The Legislature rejected it.

“While we want to encourage people to express their opinions, we want people to do it responsibly and to the acknowledgement that they live in a community,” John said. “If you’re going to violate the law, you should expect consequences.”

John and four others supported the resolution. Seven opposed it.

“I’m just not sure that we need to reestablish what the laws are,” Shawna Black said before voting no. “People are really pissed right now, and I think that they need a way to express themselves.”

“We are not in normal times,” Amanda Champion said in agreement. Some who demonstrate may “uproot the status quo and challenge the law,” Champion argued, “and I don’t believe that it is my place or responsibility, even as an elected leader, to tell others how to exercise that right.”

The nine-paragraph resolution carried few specifics. It deferred to protest guidelines set by the City of Ithaca and the Sheriff’s Department. It would have discouraged “dangerous and illegal activities… including acts of violence, vandalism, and intentional obstruction of traffic.”

Both of Enfield’s legislators, Anne Koreman and Randy Brown, opposed the resolution, as did Legislature Chair Dan Klein.

“I don’t like weighing in on things that are beyond our purview,” Klein said.

Legislator Lee Shurtleff

(May 7): Yet another top-level Tompkins County department head is stepping aside, leaving administrators scrambling to find successors.

Highway Director Jeff Smith will retire later this year, Facilities and Infrastructure Committee Chair Lee Shurtleff disclosed in his report to the Tompkins County Legislature Tuesday.

“If anybody in County Government ever exemplified a public servant that ascribed to the principles of interdepartmental and intergovernmental cooperation, Jeff was one of those people, and we’re going to miss him,” Shurtleff told the Legislature.

Shurtleff did not reveal Smith’s exact retirement date.

The Highway Director is but the latest in a string of top-level departures this year. County Whole Health Director Frank Kruppa has left to join the local hospital corporation. Social Services Commissioner Kip Kephart and Finance Director Lorrie Scarrott have also announced planned retirements.

County Administrator Korsah Akumfi told the Legislature he plans to fill some of those vacancies as soon as June.

Jeff Smith’s department oversees 302 miles of County-maintained roadways and 106 bridges. It spends about $6 Million annually for their upkeep.

(May 5): It was newsworthy; covered as a possible dress rehearsal for a Public Hearing set for Enfield nine days later. But it may have proven a bad example.

The Danby Town Board May 5 convened its hearing into a Flood Damage Prevention Law, a state-written document nearly word-for-word the same as a new law Enfield’s Town Board will consider May 14.

The problem is, no one in Danby spoke at the hearing.

More than an hour later, after 17 minutes of non-controversial questioning, the Danby Town Board approved the flood law 5-0.

An ambitious presentation by seven Cornell design students to transform the late Rick Dobson’s one-time salvage yard got far more time and attention.

Monday’s Danby session could be a poor predictor because in Enfield citizen objections to the flood law have already surfaced. Critics charge the flood plain development restrictions smack of zoning.

Danby, unlike Enfield, already has a zoning law. And also unlike Enfield, Danby Planner Greg Hutnik—who doubles as Enfield’s Deputy Supervisor—says affected Danby landowners were not notified.

Danby’s flood plain, Hutnik says, runs along Buttermilk Creek and near Jennings Pond, each close to the Danby hamlet. It encompasses 17 buildings, perhaps ten of them homes. Enfield’s flood zone includes perhaps 20 dwellings. Many are mobile homes in the Sandy Creek Park.

Moira Lang: Takes a pass

(May 2): All three seated incumbents, plus four newcomers will vie for four positions on the Ithaca City School District (ICSD) Board of Education in the May 20th annual election.

Candidate petitioning ended with the month of April. And incumbents Erin Croyle, Jill Tripp and Karen Yearwood all qualified for the ballot. Joining them are newcomers Scott Jahnke, Madeline Cardona, David McMurry, and Jacob Shiffrin. None of those new to the race have competed in recent years.

A fourth seat on the board falls open because member Katie Apker resigned last August.

Remaining members deadlocked last September on appointing an interim replacement for Apker and defaulted to leaving the seat vacant until the annual election.

Perhaps surprising, neither of two incumbents who lost in last year’s high-turnout, taxpayer-skewed election—the long-tenured Moira Lang or Eldred Harris—filed for this year’s balloting. Lang, last year’s first runner-up, had been moved to fill the Apker vacancy, but failed to secure a board majority.

The ICSD promises to post candidate bios on its website soon.

(May 1): To some, it sounds a lot like “Big Brother.” And by a long shot, it could come to your Ithaca school… but more likely not.

In what seemed all-too-much like a class project, four current or graduated Cornell students presented to an Ithaca Board of Education committee April 22 a proposal to install electronic vaping detectors at Ithaca High as well as at Boynton and DeWitt Middle Schools.

The detectors, however many of them, could cost up to $1,000 each. They’d mostly be in bathrooms.

“They’ll send an email or text message to school officials each time that vape smoke is detected,” “Ishetta,” a Cornell Senior, told the Facilities Committee.

“School administrators and teachers have to repeatedly take time out of their day to monitor and police student vaping activity,” “Lauren,” a future law student, said.

Vape detectors were tried in Lincoln, Nebraska schools, reportedly with some success. E-cigarette settlement money paid for them.

But nowhere in the ten-minute, mostly scripted student presentation were civil liberties ever referenced. Nor that the monitors can quickly poison the student-teacher bond. Nor that, according to NPR, a student’s spray deodorant once set a vape detector off.

“We’ll fold this in with all the other data that we’re gathering,” committee chair Jill Tripp told the students in perhaps the politest of brushoffs. Colleague Karen Yearwood suggested the Cornelians should have talked to administrators first.

(May 1): Those who thought the Enfield Highway Department had finished its much-maligned tree cutting along Rockwell Road with the end of last year were proven wrong this week. Rockwell’s aggressive pruning has resumed.

Highway Superintendent Barry “Buddy” Rollins has now targeted the road’s east end. And he’s left some residents angry:

“Last Fall Buddy said he was going to cut down three sugar maples, all 100+ years old, along Rockwell Rd near the campground,” one resident wrote on a neighborhood listserv.

“He cut down the three last fall and said that would be it,” the writer continued. “As of today he has cut down a total of nine trees, clearing all road side shade off the corner of Rockwell Rd and Hines.”

Complaints about Rockwell’s tree cutting prompted heated exchanges between neighbors and Town officials at several meetings during 2024.

Rollins, for his part, defends his practice on grounds it keeps motorists safe and that pavement open to the sky helps melt wintertime snow.

Rollins has said he also plans to prune trees along Van Dorn and Colegrove Roads this year in connection with road improvements there.

(Apr. 29): If Tompkins County Government were to keep current programs in place, next year’s county tax levy would rise by more than seven percent, according to preliminary figures County Administrator Korsah Akumfi presented the County Legislature at a “budget retreat” Tuesday.

And if the county were to trim the levy to rise no more than the state’s “tax cap”—now estimated at 3.06 percent—departments would need to cut more than $2.2 Million in projected spending.

The Legislature’s “retreat,” an annual April ritual to gain a casual first-look at next year’s finances, must, by law, be an open meeting. But legislators deliberately meet off-site, likely to discourage public attendance. Accordingly, no media reporters showed up.

The meeting produced more than its share of stumbles, including a $1.3 Million accounting error that had Deputy Administrator Norma Jayne jiggering numbers on the fly and ballooned the higher “Maintenance of Effort” budget’s tax hike far beyond what a printed handout had predicted.

At Akumfi’s urging, legislators declined Tuesday to “target” a tax increase right away. But they’ll convene a second retreat in July.

“When you meet with department heads, ask, ‘Why do you need this extra item,’” Akumfi suggested as an alternative to strict “target” budgeting. Of course, Akumfi will be the first to meet those subordinates. Legislators won’t see them until the fall.

(Apr. 26): Saturday, April 26, was Cemetery Clean-up Day in Enfield, an annual volunteer event that prepares Enfield’s four Town-owned cemeteries for summer maintenance and visitor viewing.

This year, crews split among the locations. Councilperson Cassandra Hinkle, Chair of Enfield’s Cemetery Committee, supervised clean-up crews in Enfield Center. I took on Gray Road’s Budd Cemetery myself. (It’s near my home.)

Dodging pesky raindrops all morning, Budd proved a stick-picker’s challenge. But with the grounds combed and debris removed, it’s clean now.

Thanks to all who helped. / RL

(Apr. 23): It originated in Lansing. And now it’s likely the Enfield Town Board will weigh in at its May meeting to criticize President Trump’s alleged violation of the Constitution, abridgement of free speech rights and summary deportation of migrants.

Lansing officials have asked Enfield’s Town Board to endorse the Lansing messaging resolution, along with a companion measure that opposes the Trump Administration’s floated idea of removing the tax exemption granted municipal bonds.

With next to no discussion, The Lansing Town Board April 16 adopted each resolution. The call “to defend the Constitution” passed 3-1, with board member Judy Drake dissenting. (Another member, Laurie Hemmings, didn’t attend.)

The long-winded critique of Trump’s deportation and free speech policies runs 20 paragraphs and arguably touches all bases.

“Be it Resolved, that as elected officials, we cannot stand silent as members of our constituencies are threatened by the actions of federal officials,” Lansing’s Resolution states.

“Being that these are tumultuous times, it is our charge and responsibility as elected officials to represent our constituents, to uphold the core tenets of democracy and the U.S. Constitution, in order to prevent our nation from slipping into dangerous and authoritarian chaos,” the Resolution affirms.

Tellingly, unless altered by Enfield’s leaders, the constitutional messaging would only go to friendly state and federal Democrats, not to President Trump, himself.

Tripp: “Impressive job.”

(Apr. 22): In a sharp contrast with the tax-based budget squabbles of last year, the Ithaca City School District (ICSD) Board of Education Tuesday night approved and sent to a May public referendum a $169 Million 2025-26 Budget. It would contain the tax levy increase to 3.76 percent, just within the state-calculated tax cap.

“I’m pleased to say an impressive job has been done,” Board member Jill Tripp, recognized by many as the taxpayer’s friend, said in commending administrators for keeping spending in check.

“I’m definitely in favor of adopting this budget,” Karen Yearwood, a board member considered more liberal, remarked.

Erin Croyle, the member most likely to complain about a budget that’s too lean, did not. Absent, but sending a written message, Croyle gave the budget her support, as did another who didn’t attend, Garrick Blalock.

The spending plan endorsed Tuesday stands little changed from an administration proposal offered up in late-March.

Last spring, a budget carrying a much-heftier tax increase lost miserably at the polls when it was first offered. Its defeat forced later changes.

Tuesday’s meeting set aside no time for public comment. But only a smattering of district employees and reporters attended anyway. The ICSD’s budget hearing is set for May 13; the public referendum for May 20.

Cortney Bailey

(Apr. 17): Cortney Bailey, appointed Treasurer of the Enfield Fire District since its establishment in mid-2023, has tendered her resignation, effective June 30^th.

Bailey chose to leave voluntarily, according to Board of Fire Commissioners’ Chair Greg Stevenson, who Thursday launched a search for the treasurer’s replacement.

The Fire District posted on social media a 30-point list of requirements for treasurer. The position’s current annual salary is $5,000, though Thursday’s announcement stated that future years’ compensation “will be based on workload, ability to perform duties, and BOC decision.”

Bailey, a Gray Road resident, remains involved as president of the Enfield Community Council. She waged a write-in campaign for Enfield Supervisor in 2021.

At the advice of Fire District legal counsel, Stevenson said applicants for Fire District Treasurer must reside in Fire District, whose boundaries are the same as the Town of Enfield.

The Board of Fire Commissioners will accept expressions of interest from treasurer applicants through May ninth.

Rising star Stefanik at CPAC (credit Getty Images)

(Apr. 17): Some say Elise Stefanik really wanted that luxury apartment that comes as a perk with being UN Ambassador. As we all know, she didn’t get the apartment… nor the promotion.

Now, ABC News reports New York’s North Country Congresswoman is eyeing the Republican nomination to oppose Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul in the 2026, election, “a source familiar with her thinking told ABC News.”

President Trump had first nominated Stefanik, a rabid MAGA loyalist, to become the United States ambassador to the United Nations during his Transition period. But he then pulled the nomination March 27, just a week before her Senate confirmation vote.

Word had it that Trump and House leaders saw their slim GOP majority as too vulnerable, and that if Stefanik stepped aside to become ambassador, a Democrat might win the election to replace her.

But now, House leaders could lose Stefanik anyway, only just not before the ’26 Midterms.

ABC reports that Stefanik’s office had declined immediate comment on whether the congresswoman was really interested in taking on Hochul. But if Stefanik does run, it will be a high-profile race to watch.

Administrator Akumfi: SHPO “Conditional approval.”

(Apr. 15): A pesky roadblock may have been cast aside as Tompkins County seeks to raze a trio of buildings bordering DeWitt Park to build its $40 Million Center of Government.

In an easy-to-miss-moment during an otherwise mundane three-hour meeting, County Administrator Korsah Akumfi advised the Tompkins County Legislature Tuesday that representatives of the New York State Historic Preservation Office—better known as “SHPO”—have budged in their opposition to leveling the buildings .

“We’ve got the SHPO process underway. It’s looking great,” Akumfi informed lawmakers. “We have a conditional approval to proceed at demolishing the buildings on site with some guidelines,” he said. “So we are very happy about the outcome and we’re moving forward with the process.”

Akumfi’s update—which notably understated its newsworthiness—took less than a minute. Legislators asked no questions. And Akumfi never said what the “guidelines” were. He implied one could involve a traffic study, beginning after students return from spring break.

SHPO obstinacy has delayed “deconstruction” of the former Key Bank and the adjacent Wiggins Law Office for more than a year. “Building C,” currently the Board of Elections headquarters, would also come down to make way for the mammoth new structure.

Much later, when Downtown Facilities Committee Chair Randy Brown took his turn to speak, Brown only said that Akumfi had “filled us in.” One senses most legislators stood aware of what the rest of us had yet to learn. SHPO reps had planned to tour the site this month.

(Apr. 10): Are NYSEG “Smart Meters” too smart by half? The Enfield Town Board wants to find out.

Joining earlier action by the Tompkins County Legislature April 1, the Enfield Town Board voted unanimously Wednesday to request the state Public Service Commission and the New York Attorney General’s Office to “conduct an independent audit of NYSEG’s billing practices to determine the extent of errors, inconsistencies, and potential overcharges.”

Several in the Town Board’s gallery, attending for other reasons, voiced their support of the board’s action.

Board members and attendees placed primary blame on the “Smart Meters” that NYSEG recently installed at most local homes to record power consumption.

Relying on what some might brand conspiracy theories, those present blamed the meters for overstating consumption, perhaps deliberately, always faulting in the utility’s favor.

“Numerous complaints have been raised by residents and businesses regarding inaccurate billing, sudden rate spikes, delayed or estimated meter readings, and lack of transparency in NYSEG’s billing practices,” the adopted Enfield resolution stated.

“A comprehensive, independent audit of NYSEG’s billing practices would provide much-needed clarity regarding the accuracy of billing procedures, the effectiveness of customer service responses, and compliance with state regulations,” the resolution added.

NYSEG last week accused several Tompkins County legislators of being “seditious” after an Elmira TV station broadcast their similar concerns about NYSEG.

Ouch! ICSD spending in red; revenues in blue.

(Apr. 9): The Ithaca City School District (ICSD) Board of Education didn’t move very far toward adopting its next year’s budget Tuesday night. Instead, it spent more than three-quarters of an hour swallowing some bitter medicine from its money administrators.

Yet nothing board members said as they absorbed their grim financial lecture April 8th indicated they’d stray from adopting the administration’s proposed $169 Million budget following spring break.

The problem ICSD faces is akin to tapping your 401(k) retirement account to buy groceries.

Charts presented the board predicted that if the district continues to draw on fund balances—its savings—to close budget gaps, both the “assigned” and “unassigned” fund balances would be depleted by 2029.

“The sky’s not falling, but the lines are crossing, y’all,” School Superintendent Dr. Luvelle Brown warned board members.

Administrators project negotiated salaries to rise by four to five per cent annually, but state aid growing by just three percent. (Teachers want 7.5 percent raises.)

The budget set for board adoption April 22 would confine tax levy increases to the state-set 3.76 per cent tax cap.

“Why are we not considering going over the tax cap?” Board President Sean Eversley Bradwell asked, albeit cautiously.

“We are not proposing a budget that’s going over the cap,” Brown insisted. He recalled last year’s first-round landslide budget defeat. “The community didn’t think it was a good idea,” Brown said.

Finance Director Scarrott

(Apr.8): Tompkins County Government has another big job to fill. But few among us know that it does.

It’s never been mentioned at the County Legislature. There’s been no press release or news story. But Lorrie Scarrott is departing as Tompkins County’s Director of Finance after only two years in her top-tier post. Her exit date has not been disclosed.

We only know of the impending vacancy because the Finance Director’s opening is now posted on the HR Department’s job openings website, and because County Administrator Korsah Akumfi mentioned it in passing at the Tompkins County Council of Governments meeting March 27.

The County personnel office posted the opening March 13. It’ll accept applications until mid-April.

“I have always wanted to come here and work, so this is kind of like a dream come true for me,” Scarrott said as she accepted the director’s appointment in April 2023. “I’m very excited,” the former Deputy Director of Finance for Ontario County remarked at the time. Now, according to a source, Scarrott will retire.

Last time around, it took five months to fill the Finance Director’s position. Its pay starts at $133,328.

Scarrott’s is among three top-level positions Tompkins County needs to fill. Commissioner of Social Services and Commissioner of Whole Health also await appointees.

(Apr. 2): Striking compromise could become elusive. But the Tompkins County Legislature may seek to craft a “statement” setting guidelines for responsible public protest.

At the Legislature’s April 1^st session and also at a committee meeting the week before, one-time Ithaca mayoral candidate Zach Winn, a Republican, complained of over-the-top anti-Trump demonstrations, including street blockades and damage to Tesla automobiles as well as to their public charging stations.

The response: “In my view, there’s a lot of reasons to be very upset with the CEO of that company (Tesla’s Elon Musk),” Public Safety Committee Chair Rich John, a Democrat, told the Legislature Tuesday. “At the same time, people who own Tesla vehicles should not pay a price for doing that. It’s their car, and you can’t easily just stop using your car,” he said.

Colleague Anne Koreman pressed the point. What’s “appropriate” protest, she asked? John said guidelines might tell demonstrators to stop short of “creating public hazards” or “damaging property.”

Legislator Shawna Black owns a Tesla. The Democrat said she bought it “to give back” to the environment. She informed John’s committee that first those on the Right were “flicking me off.” Yet now she finds liberals doing so.

I’d ask for “a little bit of grace at this point,” Black told the committee. “Not all of us are the enemy.”

(Apr. 2): Of the eight-section Town of Enfield Comprehensive Plan, adopted in 2020, it’s the chapter most controversial: It’s called, “Land Use.” And for an hour Wednesday night, the Town Planning Board waded through its pages.

Requested by Supervisor Stephanie Redmond and the Town Board to revisit the document, planners have embarked on a month-by-month, section-by-section inspection of the Comprehensive Plan for possible revision. They’re about half-way through.

Recommended “Land Use Actions” cited in the 2020 plan include limiting “high-density development,” scrutinizing “industrial land uses before approval,” and developing, defining and preserving the “Town Center.”

Planners recommended no specific additions to or deletions from the “Actions” list during the April 2^nd session. Yet they raised questions.

In the broadest sense, they asked, How can you attain the stated, lofty goals in a place like Enfield without zoning?

“If we’re limiting high-density housing, we’re talking about zoning,” Board Chair Dan Walker conceded.

“Put a ‘Z’ by that one,” Board Alternate Greg Hutnik would remark from time to time, meaning the goal could be reached only through a land use law that many view as the third rail of Enfield politics.

And if a “Town Center” deserves preservation, one needs first to delineate its boundaries. In some places, a water district accomplishes that. Enfield, of course, has no public water.

“Seditious?” Mike Sigler

(Apr. 1): Lansing’s Mike Sigler claims New York State Electric and Gas labeled as “seditious” a media report in which he and four other lawmakers—two of whom sit with him on the Tompkins County Legislature—urged a state investigation into NYSEG’s billing practices.

Now the full Tompkins Legislature has joined that “seditious conspiracy,” if one would call it that.

By unanimous vote among those who attended, the County Legislature Tuesday endorsed a bipartisan demand for an independent audit of the utility’s billing. Democrat Shawna Black, without advance notice, brought the resolution to the floor. Republican Sigler seconded it.

“I think it is frustrating for families that are just trying to survive,” Black said of the surprise bill increases many are seeing. “It really is like a runaway train,” she said.

“I don’t really think NYSEG has kind of grasped where people are and the anger that’s out there on this particular issue,” Sigler told the Legislature.

Republicans Randy Brown of Newfield, Lee Shurtleff of Groton, plus lawmakers from Chemung and Broome Counties had joined Sigler’s initial call, which drew the utility’s ire after an Elmira TV station picked up on it.

For those confronting inflation, “This is just a double whammy,” Brown remarked. “All of a sudden you get this $500 electrical bill that was $250 just a year ago.”

New York State regulators would presumably conduct the “forensic audit” legislators requested.

Dumpy module be gone!

(Mar. 29): The Enfield Community Council’s long hoped-for mental health wing, which fell short of funding under Tompkins County’s Community Recovery Fund, may have found a new money source, buried within Governor Hochul’s January State of the State Address.

It’s called “NY BRICKS,” Hochul’s clever acronym for “Building Recreational Infrastructure for Communities, Kids and Seniors.”

“We only learned of it ten days before the deadline,” President Cortney Bailey informed the ECC Board of Directors March 27. Unfortunately the grant-filing deadline was one day earlier, the 26^th.

On its face, NY BRICKS would seem a perfect funding fit. The Governor’s press release says the grants would “support municipalities and nonprofit organizations in building or renovating community centers that promote physical health, mental well-being, and community connections for youth and older adults.”

Given that ECC would replace a dilapidated modular unit with an addition to provide mental counseling and related services, board member Vera Howe-Strait saw the program as made for the need.

“The grants will fund design, construction, renovation, and land acquisition for these centers,” the Hochul release states.

Regardless of whether NY BRICKS still requires legislation, ECC intends to file for the program next year.

(Mar. 27): Susan Currie, a career librarian, served as Director of the Tompkins County Public Library from 2009 until her retirement in 2017. Four years later she returned to the Tompkins County Library as its interim director. Then, two years thereafter, she joined the Tompkins County Legislature.

Now, she’ll be returning to the library again. Currie Thursday resigned her legislative seat to temporarily fill the vacancy left by the sudden departure of County Library Director Leslie Tabor, whose tenure had brought dissention within and open criticism of library operations.

“Susan has been a positive force on the Tompkins County Legislature,” Dan Klein, Chair of the Legislature, said in praise of Currie. “The library is lucky to have gotten her.”

Ithacan Susan Currie won a special election in January 2023 to fill the unexpired term of the late legislator Henry Granison. Now with Currie’s resignation, effective March 31, yet another special election will be called. Currie had already planned not to seek a new term this fall.

“I am profoundly grateful for having had the honor and privilege of serving with all of you on the County Legislature,” Currie said to her fellow legislators. “Your tireless work for all in our county will be an inspiration for me.”

(Mar 26): Five years ago this spring, Governor Andrew Cuomo ordered mandatory mask-wearing in public so as, he’d hoped, to stem the spread of COVID-19. Now, Cuomo’s successor, Kathy Hochul, wants us to pull those masks off.

In recent days, Hochul has lent her support to a bill authored by State Senator James Skoufis that would reinstate the “anti-masked harassment law,” one that criminalized masking when the intent is to conceal oneself while committing a crime. The law was repealed during the pandemic.

“Think about a bank robber; walks in, their face is covered; someone assaults someone on the subway. They can get away with it despite the fact we have cameras, because they are masked,” Hochul said unabashedly.

Of course, a few of us would respond, “About time!” Especially around Ithaca, a conspicuous slice of our population never stopped masking, whether in the store or on the street. Some say it’s a liberal thing.

The Skoufis bill—still in committee—provides lots of carve-outs; for costumes, religious observances, and yes, staying well.

The bill cites as an explicit exception “wearing a medical mask… with the intention of ensuring one’s physical health and safety or the health and safety of others, including but not limited to limiting the spread of airborne illnesses.”

Principal Caren Arnold

(Mar. 25): Caren Arnold began teaching in the Ithaca City School District in 1993. Now Arnold, currently principal at Caroline Elementary School, will become the new Principal at Ithaca High School.

As part of a personnel report granted routine, unanimous approval by the Ithaca Board of Education Tuesday night, Arnold was promoted to administer Ithaca High. She succeeds the retiring Jason Trumble, who’d served as IHS Principal for the past decade.

Trumble has been on leave lately, and Vice Principal Martha Hardesty has assumed his duties in the interim.

“We have the opportunity to really bring our community together,” Arnold said as she accepted her promotion at the school board’s meeting.

“Ithaca High School is one of the best high schools in the nation,” School Superintendent Dr. Luvelle Brown remarked, giving credit to the departing Trumble for his leadership.

Caren Arnold will earn $172,000 annually as High School Principal, according the personnel report. She’ll take over her new job June 15.

The Board of Education also Tuesday accepted the retirement of Deborah Ptak as principal of the Lehman Alternative Community School.

(Mar. 25): In a sudden change of position, the Ithaca Board of Education Tuesday imposed upon itself a moratorium on the purchase of all-electric school buses.

The problem is power—or better put, the lack of it. “The power grid would not support at this point in time,” additional electric bus acquisitions, School Board President Dr. Sean Eversley Bradwell said at Tuesday’s meeting.

Last June, Ithaca City School District voters approved a trimmed-down transportation package that authorized purchase of two new electric buses, plus an additional two that run on propane.

As part of a $2.27 Million proposition the Board agreed Tuesday to be placed alongside its yet-to-be-finalized Budget in the annual May referendum, the ICSD will request tapping reserve funds to buy eleven new buses, big and small. But all 11 will be “ultra-low emission propane buses.” From a green-energy standpoint, propane’s the next best thing to electric.

Should New York State adhere to a legislative mandate, it would dictate that school districts convert their entire fleet to electric by 2035. But many doubt the deadline can be met, either because of the buses’ high cost or the lack of charging capacity.

Ithaca school officials acknowledge environmental activists may criticize Tuesday’s decision.

(Mar. 25): Continuing to tread cautiously, an Ithaca Board of Education committee this month declined to nail down a final figure it may ask voters to approve later this year for new capital spending.

But as it weighed three possible options—the costliest totaling nearly $50 Million—one idea tossed around by the Facilities Committee March 18 was to give voters the choice of which capital improvements to approve, and which ones to reject.

“The Board… discussed different strategies for presenting the capital project to voters, such as offering a base package with optional additional expenditures or presenting a single predefined package,” an after-meeting written summary stated. (A video replay of the meeting defies retrieval.)

An a la carte capital spending option would prove novel for the Ithaca City School District (ICSD). Typically, capital budgets come as one package. Take it or leave it.

Last May, ICSD voters said, “Leave it.” They rejected a $125 Million capital proposal by a 57 to 43 percent margin.

No board member talks of that much capital investment this time around. According to the summary, current capital options total $31.3 Million, $44.5 Million, and $49.1 Million. Each costlier option would add projects to the bundle beneath it.

A tentative referendum date, states the report, is early this December.

From the Enfield Civility Resolution, adopted by the Town Board, Sept. 13, 2017:

RESOLVED to exhibit and encourage the kinds of personal qualities that are typical in a civil society—gratitude, humility, openness, passion for service to others, propriety, kindness, caring, sense of duty, and a commitment to doing what is right in the Enfield community. All Enfield board members, committee members and staff shall strive to:

Treat everyone courteously
Listen to others respectfully
Give open minded consideration to all viewpoints
Focus on the issues and avoid personalizing debate
Embrace respectful disagreement and dissent as democratic rights that are inherent components of an inclusive public process and tools for forging sound decisions and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that Enfield board members, committees and staff shall strive to promote the use of and adherence to these guidelines in all Enfield community activities.

Since January 2020, I’m proud to have been the Enfield Town Board’s representative on the Tompkins County Council of Governments (TCCOG). At our regular Town Board meetings, I report on TCCOG discussions of intermunicipal interest that TCCOG has addressed in its meetings.

Now added to this website, filed under the the “TCCOG” tab, are the written versions of my monthly reports, presuming TCCOG has met since our Town Board’s last session. Please browse these reports and provide me whatever input you’d like.