Budget, Capital Plan approved 3:1; OMCS budget fails
by Robert Lynch; May 19, 2026; (Updated May 20, 2026)
Sara Garner has never served on a Board of Education. But in Tuesday’s Ithaca School Board elections, Garner got more votes than anyone else.
In another low turnout election, Garner, Director of Community Nursery School in Ithaca, claimed the top spot in balloting for a trio of three-year board positions. Four candidates competed. Former, one-term board member Jill Tripp came in second. A current incumbent, Garrick Blalock, registered third.
A second incumbent competing for re-election, Madeline Cardona, fell out of the running, registering fourth. Cardona finishes a one-year term, having been elected in 2025 to complete the term of a member who’d resigned.
In a show of union power, the Political Action Committee of the Ithaca Teachers Association, the school district’s instructional bargaining group, had endorsed all three winners; Garner, Tripp, and Blalock.
Budget voting in the May 19 Ithaca City School District gave results that weren’t even close. Certified as final Wednesday, the $177.6 Million ICSD 2026-27 budget, its spending up five percent from that of the current year, breezed to approval, 2,666 votes (75.1%) to 882 votes (24.9%). A. $43.9 Million capital project package also won, 2,640 votes (75.4%) to 860 votes (24.6%).
Bus purchase and capital reserve fund measures also won by similar margins. Final numbers changed little from those reported election night.
The big wins Tuesday by Garner and Tripp signal a recast Ithaca Board of Education that may in the forthcoming year become more critical of current leadership and give greater attention to both budget economies and student performance.
Jill Tripp’s victory could also put her in line for leadership. Tripp could stand as a potential successor to retiring Board President Dr. Sean Eversley Bradwell.
Final results, released by ICSD Wednesday, put Garner in the lead with 2,925 votes, 186 votes ahead of second-place Tripp (2,739 votes).
Garrick Blalock garnered 1,946 votes in Tuesday’s balloting. Madeline Cardona trailed with 1,244 votes.
In the briefest of meetings, lasting but seconds, the Ithaca Board of Education certified the election results early Wednesday evening. A majority, yet not all board members attended.
****
Of the four school districts that reach into Enfield, only Odessa-Montour had budget trouble. Odessa Montour’s nearly $23.4 Million budget exceeded the state tax cap. It received majority support, 254 votes to 192 votes, a 57 percent majority approval, but fell short of the 60 percent supermajority required by state law to pass.
A district spokesperson said the Odessa-Montour Board of Education will convene Thursday, May 21, to weigh future options.
Two Odessa-Montour school board incumbents won new terms in uncontested contests.
Likewise uncontested were school board members Tanya Grove and Steven Daly in Trumansburg. Each secured new terms. The Trumansburg District Budget passed overwhelmingly, 293 votes (77.3%) to 86 (22.7%). A proposition in Trumansburg to purchase a pair of propane school buses won by an even larger margin, 286 to 73, a nearly 4:1 margin of approval.
In Newfield, a $28.2 Million school budget passed. The approval margin in Newfield paralleled that of neighboring Odessa-Montour, where the budget had lost. But since Newfield budget planners kept their projected tax levy just under the state’s tax cap—and only slight under, by less than $21,000—Newfield’s spending plan required only a simple majority to pass.
The Newfield school budget was approved on a vote of 227 votes (56.6%) in support, 174 votes (43.4%) opposed.
Three Newfield candidates sought the three open school board seats. Incumbents Jeremy Tenwolde (283 votes) and Missy Rynone (256 votes) secured three-year terms. Newcomer Christopher Hyer Jr. (209 votes) won a single-year position.
Sara Garner, the political newcomer, will take her seat on the Ithaca Board of Education this July most likely unwilling to accept the status quo. In fact, at least academically, she may shake things up.
“Over the past three years, I have seen a consistent pattern that concerns me deeply,” Garner wrote in answer to an Ithaca Teachers Association (ITA) questionnaire earlier this month. Garner said she was troubled by “a lack of accountability in leadership, declining math and literacy outcomes in our elementary and middle schools, and a Board culture that too often limits open, reflective, and data-informed decision making.”
Sara Garner singled out one noteworthy instance during the past year.
“In September, despite more than a hundred community members speaking out within a 24-hour period to ask the Board to delay or reconsider the vote to extend the superintendent’s contract, their concerns were not meaningfully addressed,” the top-polling ICSD candidates said in her answer to the ITA’s query. “That is not what responsive board leadership looks like,” Garner insisted.
Asked pointedly by the union whether she would have extended Superintendent Dr. Luvelle Brown’s employment contract into 2028-29, a decision the board’s majority made last fall, Garner answered, “I would have decided to postpone the vote on the superintendent contract extension based on feedback from the ITA and the community to do so,” she said.
Garner added, “Based on the information I have available to me right now, I would not have extended Dr. Brown’s contract.”
Of the four ICSD candidates, Sara Garner wrote by far the longest responses. That alone may signal the level of detail and particularity with which she’ll approach her elective office next school year. By contrast, Jill Tripp wrote among the briefest responses.
“I would have voted with the four members of the board who voted against the 4-year extension of Dr. Brown’s contract,” Tripp stated in answer to the same question posed to Garner. “This decision would have been based on my three years of observation of the superintendent’s performance,” Tripp stated. “In my opinion, it is time for a change in district leadership.”
Jill Tripp first won election to the Ithaca Board of Education in 2022. Her three-year term ended last year. She came in a close fifth in a crowded, seven-way race for four board seats in 2025. She lost to Madeline Cardona by 113 votes (Tripp got 2.238 votes; Cardona, 2,351).
Viewed positively by many taxpayers as a financial hawk, Jill Tripp often won their praise during her first term. Tripp proved cautious about spending, yet supportive of environmental initiatives like school bus electrification. She also led the drive to increase Cornell University’s contribution to Ithaca’s schools.
During a fractious July 2024 organizational meeting, held in a year when a school budget first lost massively at the polls, only to be retooled, trimmed, and approved on its second vote, Tripp tied Eversley Bradwell as members balloted for Board president.
Eversley Bradwell got four votes on the first ballot; Tripp four votes on the second, in neither case a majority. Only on the third ballot did incumbent Eversley Bradwell prevail. Nonetheless, the voting signified a split in governing philosophies. That division lives on to this day.
Two months from now, with Eversley Bradwell having departed and with new policies in place enabling multiple-candidate secret ballots, Jill Tripp stands a good chance of becoming the next ICSD Board President—assuming, of course, that she wants the job.
In terms of the budget, unlike in 2024, this year’s Ithaca School district offering never proved controversial. The $177.6 Million spending plan approved Tuesday will raise expenses by just over five percent. But by tapping into fund balance savings, the board contained the tax levy rise to just 3.4 percent, well below the state-calculated 4.18 percent tax cap for Ithaca.
A public hearing on the budget May 12 generated little feedback. The hearing lasted only 20 minutes. Four people spoke. Only one of them took direct aim at the budget. The others just posed questions or addressed peripheral matters.
That said, the budget that reached ICSD voters Tuesday got there only just barely.
At its April 14 meeting, only five of nine board members backed the spending plan. Member Todd Fox voted against the budget, holding out for a smaller tax increase. Three other members abstained—equivalent to a dissent—with each abstainer leaning upon one member’s complaint that administrators and board leadership had never allowed “substantive public discussions” at fully-attended meetings to allow “collective input” in budget development.
The grievances that generated those April abstentions may prove fertile ground to nurture the concerns that Sara Garner raised prominently within her ITA questionnaire responses.
Among the items ICSD voters approved Tuesday was funding to buy up to nine, full-sized buses, two of them wheelchair-equipped, and an additional, smaller, 30-passenger bus. Each would be a “low-emission propane” bus. None would be electric-powered.
The electric-versus-propane debate never gained traction as a controversy this election cycle. In fact, the bus proposition received little attention at all. District officials stressed beginning last year that current-generation electric buses impose limitations for use in the type of long-haul student transport that Ithaca practices. They also say the district’s Bostwick Road transportation facility lacks the grid capacity to power a fully-electric fleet.
And while New York State has a statute on the books demanding all newly-purchased school buses be electric-powered beginning in 2027, state budget negotiators may soon delay that mandate by at least five years.
The other big-ticket item for ICSD voters was the $43.9 Million capital project. Scaled back substantially from a $125 Million capital package rejected two years ago, the current multi-year capital program approved Tuesday would fund a generically-specified series of repairs and upgrades for such routine maintenance tasks as new roofs, repaved driveways, and modernized bathrooms.
One of the costlier capital projects that’ll become easy to notice in future years will be the installation of a $4.8 Million geothermal heating and cooling system to serve Ithaca High School and Boynton Middle School.
Gone from the capital package is the 2024 effort to rebuild the ICSD bus garage.
###
Previous Reporting:
Recovery Fund takes a haircut, closes quietly
Deadline-driven, legislators repurpose CMC’s biggest award
Reporting and analysis by Robert Lynch; May 7, 2026
It was a product of the pandemic. And just as the pandemic has ended, so, too, has it. Don’t expect a party.
Fueled by millions of dollars in federal COVID relief money, Tompkins County’s Community Recovery Fund drew to an unassuming close late last month. It did so as lawmakers repurposed the last of its set-aside cash on a laundry list of unglamorous bureaucratic necessities. Leaders buried the decision as best they could.
One meeting later, I marked the moment.
“On April 21, two weeks ago, the Community Recovery Fund effectively ended,” this Enfield Councilperson, Robert Lynch, reminded the Tompkins County Legislature as it met this past Tuesday, May 5. “It did when this Legislature redirected more than $1.6 Million in unspent American Rescue Plan (ARPA) funds from Community Recovery Fund grants and instead repurposed them for such mundane things as buying Microsoft 365 subscriptions.”
“Why?” I asked. “Mostly because despite all its wealth and political clout, Cayuga Medical Center could not drag its Crisis Stabilization Center project over the finish line. Its inability to do so simply baffles me.”
As it stands now, the Tompkins County Community Recovery Fund has spent barely $5 Million of its original sum toward its originally intended purpose. And that purpose was to assist nonprofit agencies, local governments, and struggling small businesses hard-hit during this decade’s early years by COVID-induced shutdowns.
This year’s late-April decision marked “the turning of a page,” I advised the Legislature. “There was no fanfare. Few may have noticed,” I said. “But we in Enfield did.”
Enfield remembers the Community Recovery Fund because our town’s government and the agencies we support got little benefit from it.
The Community Recovery Fund started with seven million dollars. County government’s own budget needs quickly pared that total to just over $6.5 Million. But of that amount, the only money that came to Enfield was $26,592 to buy some replacement two-way radios for the Highway Department.
$26,592 is just four-tenths of one percent of the $6,513,893 the Recovery Fund had set aside for its late-2022 and subsequently revised funding awards. Perhaps a little something is better than nothing at all.
Truth told, the highway radio money was a last-minute add-on, an allocation not originally recommended. Former County legislator Susan Currey gets the credit for providing Enfield at least a morsel of nourishment.
The federal government’s American Rescue Plan (ARPA) awarded Tompkins County nearly than $19.9 Million in 2021. Washington’s relief supposedly was to compensate Tompkins County for revenues lost during the pandemic, fiscal shortfalls that never really occurred.
The late-April reassignment of money became necessary because ARPA rules specify that any appropriated moneys not actually spent by the end of this year get clawed back to Washington.
Back five years ago, County leaders first floated the idea of shoveling ARPA’s money into “cash for capital.” It would have earmarked Washington’s entire windfall toward major building projects. The idea didn’t please the public. Many preferred investing in hard-pressed agencies and people.
In September of that year, the Community Recovery Fund was born. It started on wobbly feet.
Initially, an assigned trio of lawmakers proposed a more ambitious, $15 Million, three-year funding scheme. But their money pot soon shrunk to $7 Million, and lawmakers jettisoned the multi-year concept.
Although Recovery Fund awards were initially to have come from County Government’s own savings, not from ARPA, legislators later reversed course upon learning that ARPA rules accorded them far greater flexibility in gifting public money to non-governmental recipients.
A consultant was hired. Invitations went out. And requests for support came in by the bushel.
As of an October 2022 deadline, as many as 231 non-profit organizations, qualifying individuals and local governments had applied for program support. Of those, 23 filed for the highest funding category, each seeking over $250,000 apiece.
Among those 23 was Enfield Food Distribution, which sought up to $1.6 Million to build a new food pantry. Among applications less expensive was that of the Enfield Community Council (ECC). The agency asked for $206,000 to build a “Mental Health and Community Services Wing” onto its community center.
The aggregate $34 Million in requests overwhelmed the Recovery Fund’s resources. Requests stood at more than five times the amount of grant money available.
An exhaustive, consultant-aided, yet legislator-driven triage began. Some would later fault the process as being arbitrary and unfair. A select panel of six legislators scoured (and scored) each application. Within minutes during marathon meetings, members rated each separate request one by one. Individually and collectively, those six lawmakers wielded tremendous power. Unanimous support by all six almost always assured a grant’s award. A three-three tie (or something less) eliminated an applicant from contention.
The Enfield Food Pantry fell from favor early on. (It garnered only two votes out of six.) The Enfield Volunteer Fire Company’s low six-figure request to build a volunteer bunk room, died in a three-three tie. The Enfield Community Council’s appeal squeaked past first-round review (four-to-two), only to tumble out of contention later on after the money supply ran out.
Bangs got a new, $150,000 ambulance from the fund. And for a brief while, Second Wind Cottages stood in line for money to grow its Newfield encampment of tiny homes for the formerly unhoused. But Second Wind later forfeited its $510,000 after community objections became too burdensome to bear.
Yet by far, the biggest winner from the start was Cayuga Medical Center (CMC). Its award was the largest of all. CMC had requested $1.5 Million to build an Intensive Crisis Stabilization Center to treat substance abusers and the mentally ill. The hospital first planned to quarter its center in the Shops at Ithaca Mall. But it later switched to a stand-alone building on North Triphammer Road, one that the Alcohol and Drug Council had vacated after it folded operations.
Even though some would view CMC’s application as shaky, the hospital corporation’s request won every round of Recovery Fund review. It gained support from five out of six on the review committee. It then won final approval when the full Legislature made its decisions in late-December 2022. Only Enfield-Newfield legislator Randy Brown opposed the hospital’s seven-figure grant.
“I’m not against the project,” legislator Brown stressed to Enfield leaders in his monthly report prior to the December vote. It’s just that the one request would eat up 23 percent of the fund, he said. “Cayuga Medical has over $130 Million in cash and investments as of January 1, 2023 and is contributing very little to the project,” Brown asserted.
As it came to pass, CMC’s most ambitious of all applications never got its money.
Cayuga Medical needed two more things to move its project forward; a New York State license and clear title to the use of its building. It could gain neither. And it would have needed them by year’s end.
Along the way, some in Enfield became none too pleased that the hospital took so much time, ate up so much of the Recovery Fund’s cash, yet had so little to show for it. .
“This makes me so angry,” one prominent Enfield resident wrote on social media last month upon learning that administrators had to repurpose the award. “Some of that money could have accomplished tremendous things for the county’s towns and villages,” she wrote. “Instead, the county gave extension after extension for a plan that was dead in the water from almost the beginning.”
“Tompkins County’s entire process to allocate the six million that they disbursed was laughable,” another Enfield resident, a former legislator, said, “and in the end (it) didn’t end up disbursing the money to many that could have used it legitimately.”
Yes, CMC’s inability to see its project to the finish line troubles many, including a few of the leaders who doled the money out.
Quite rightly, intensive crisis stabilization locally would serve a purpose, a valuable one. Local legislators wholeheartedly endorse it. Yet year after year the hospital hit insurmountable roadblocks. And CMC officials often danced around the edges as to the reasons why.
“I wish I had a better update for you,” CMC Assistant Vice President Frank Kruppa prefaced his remarks to a County Legislature committee last November 19. ”We are still efforting to get the Withdrawal Stabilization and Intensive Stabilization Center operational, but are having challenges related to the ownership of the building,” he admitted.
For 20 minutes that November day, Kruppa, Tompkins County’s former Health Commissioner, hired away last year by CMC to guide the Stabilization Center down the home stretch, attempted to explain to the Health and Human Services Committee why approvals had taken so long and still hadn’t arrived. His roundabout journey never persuaded attendees convincingly.
Two state agencies, the Department of Health and the Office of Addiction Services and Supports (OASAS) must license the center. But there’s a tangle.
The Alcohol and Drug Council still owns the North Triphammer Road building, Kruppa advised the committee. The Department of Health bonded the Drug Council’s purchase and renovations. But the Drug Council now exists only on paper at best. And until someone can figure out how to move a defunct agency to grant consent, state licensure cannot proceed.
That said, what may have troubled legislators the most was what Kruppa said next:
“When the opportunity comes where we do have approvals from the state to move forward, with the ever-changing health care environment as it is, the health system has to evaluate every new program almost in every moment when there’s decisions to be made about moving forward,” Kruppa admitted.
“I think we have to have a conversation about Plan B for us,” legislator Shawna Black, now Legislature Chair, reacted to the hospital rep’s tenuous commitment. “Because if you’re saying that Cayuga Health Partners is questioning if they’re going to pursue this, that also gives me pause.”
Frank Kruppa then denied that CMC was contemplating backing out. “There’s just a lot of moving pieces, much of which are out of our control,” for former health commissioner admitted.
“So it was a lot of money, and you all have known for some time that there was some issues, and there was no sharing of that information with us,” committee chair Travis Brooks reminded the CMC administrator that day. “So that’s disappointing to say the least.”
Now, nearly six months after the committee heard Kruppa’s unpredictable forecast, there’s still no known movement on either building title or state licensure.
And no, there is also no “Plan B.” In recent weeks, County Administration staff has made clear that at this late stage in the ARPA funding cycle, forfeited dollars cannot redirect themselves to new projects. Only agencies contracted before the end of 2024 qualify for extra support, and then only with difficulty.
One would think that given the high-powered attorneys Cayuga Health retains and the hospital’s high profile, mountains could be moved in Albany. But maybe those mountains resist movement. Perhaps state regulators really don’t like crisis stabilization centers all that much.
Tellingly, during another, little-publicized committee session, back in September 2023, former Cayuga Health CEO Martin Stallone admitted that regulators had rejected CMC’s initial proposals for crisis stabilization. Stallone advanced that what they only may accept was the equivalent of “a full-blown psychiatric emergency room.”
“To be clear, it’s not Crisis Stabilization,” Stallone then said of the revised option advanced to the state. “It’s a level above that.”
Again, if mountains could be moved, one would think someone could move them. The mountains don’t budge.
Hope springs eternal. Local legislators of both parties have offered assurances in recent weeks that once CMC casts obstacles aside, the County Legislature would likely re-appropriate from its own treasury the $1.5 Million the hospital corporation needs. It’s a source not impeded by ARPA deadlines. Never stated was how this alternate path would bypass that pesky state prohibition against gifting money to those outside of one’s own government.
“This legislature… has been committed to that project and we all realize the need for that in our community,” Shawna Black insisted April 21. Of crisis stabilization, she said, “That’s really the one missing piece—we actually have many missing pieces—but that’s one of the big ones.”
“Voting on the mental health stabilization unit… was one of the prouder votes I’ve had actually in this Legislature,” Republican Mike Sigler stated two weeks later, Sigler responding to this Enfield Councilperson’s critical assessment, “because I felt that that money actually addressed something that COVID exposed, and that’s what that money (ARPA money) was for,” Sigler explained.
“So I just take pause when people say that Cayuga Medical couldn’t get its act together or things along those lines,” Sigler added. “This project’s not dead. They are still working on it.”
“Enfield had shovel-ready projects that could have spent this money on time,” this Councilperson, Lynch, advised legislators last Tuesday. The Community Council’s mental health wing stands first among them. “It would have cost a fraction of what CMC planned to spend,” I stated.
And yes, it would have been finished on time, no Albany approvals required.
At an ECC Board of Directors meeting in late-March, speaking before learning that the ARPA money couldn’t be repurposed for her agency, Community Council President Cortney Bailey was already laying plans for demolishing the dilapidated modular annex that stands on the new wing’s site, and recruiting volunteers to construct the mental health wing “like a good, old-fashioned barn raising.”
But the ARPA money’s now been spent on other things. The Community Recovery Fund’s doors are closed. That said, Bailey remains resilient.
“We will get there one way or another,” Bailey assured her board one month later, on April 23. “It might take us a while. But we will do it. We will make it happen.”
And if gifting rules can be bypassed to help Cayuga Heath, why can’t a similar work-around also provide the Community Council money it needs? There’s been no immediate answer.
“Legislature, please helped the ECC and help Enfield,” this Councilperson closed his statement that night.
All of us move on from here.
###
Eversley Bradwell to retire from ICSD Board
Former member Jill Tripp to seek return in 4-way race for 3 Board seats
by Robert Lynch; May 2, 2026
The Ithaca Board of Education’s longest-tenured member, its current president, 17-year incumbent Sean Eversley Bradwell, will not seek another term in this month’s election, Ithaca City School District (ICSD) officials revealed on the district’s website late this week.
The district’s listing, posted after the mandated April 29 ICSD candidate filing deadline, also disclosed that former Board of Education member Jill Tripp, defeated for reelection in last year’s voting, has returned as a candidate this year to seek a new, three-year term.
Incumbent Board members Garrick Blalock and Madeline Cardona will also seek reelection in the May 19 contest. One newcomer, Sara Garner, has also petitioned for the Board, making this year’s a four-way race for three Board seats.
Tripp’s return stands notable as many have seen her as a taxpayer-friendly voice seated among colleagues viewed by some as far more liberal.
To some, Board President Eversley Bradwell’s planned retirement from school board service comes as little surprise. During several meetings this school year, the Board President has hinted of his potential departure from the nine-person body. Yet he’s never stated those plans outright.
Eversley Bradwell’s exit at the end of his current term June 30 sets the stage for a leadership contest this summer. Based on the outcome of this month’s voting, several persons, including Blalock and Tripp, stand as the incumbent’s potential successors.
Adam Krantweiss and Emily Workman,, two moderate-leaning Ithaca school board members, could also compete for the president’s position. Krantweiss’ and Workman’s seats on the Board of Education do not expire until 2027.
The latest ICSD candidate announcement provided only brief resumes of the four declared candidates. It allowed no opportunity for departing members—in this instance, Eversley Bradwell—to state reasons for declining a new term. To the best of knowledge, Eversley Bradwell has not issued any such statement to date.
“We are fortunate on this board to have the leadership of Dr. Bradwell, who has an encyclopedia knowledge of school policy,” Garrick Blalock praised the incumbent president last July 8 as he, Blalock, successfully sought elevation to become Board Vice President.
Of Eversley Bradwell, Blalock said, “I’m told he will not serve as president forever. There will be an end,” Blalock predicted. “I don’t know when that will be. But before that date comes, I would like to avail myself of his expertise and work with him and absorb the knowledge that he has accumulated over the years and basically learn from him.”
Garrick Blalock’s words that day provided perhaps the most telling prediction that Eversley Bradwell was on his way out. At several meetings hence, the board president has only vaguely alluded to an intended departure.
Dr. Sean Eversley Bradwell, an assistant professor of Education at Ithaca College, was first elected to the Ithaca Board of Education in 2009. He was elected Board President in July 2022, and then reelected by board colleagues to continue as president in each of the three succeeding years. Only once did he face opposition to preside.
In the traumatic year of 2024, when voters rejected a first-proposed school budget by a seven-to-three margin and also ousted two long-time board incumbents, Eversley Bradwell faced a leadership challenge from Jill Tripp, perceived as a more frugal centrist. After divided votes on the first two ballots during the Board’s July reorganization meeting, Eversley Bradwell eventually prevailed and went on to serve a third term as board president.
Most recently, Eversley Bradwell earned his fourth, and now final, term as president last July. He won that year without opposition.
Jill Tripp, if elected May 19, would return to the school board after only a one-year absence.
“I’ve been watching and listening closely for two years,” Tripp stated when she competed unsuccessfully for school board president against Eversley Bradwell in 2024, “and I feel like all too often, lately every week the Board finds out about important decisions that have been made that we weren’t informed of. This is a real concern to me,” she said.
“This is the Board of Education. This isn’t some satellite advisory board of a special interest. It is the Board of Education,” Tripp stated at the time.
During her three years of service, Tripp may most famously be remembered for her attempting to squeeze a major increase in financial contributions from Cornell University toward school operations.
First elected in 2022, Jill Tripp earned the support of many taxpayers and fiscal conservatives. Yet in last year’s reelection campaign, she failed to win the influential endorsement of the Ithaca Teachers’ Association (ITA), support crucial especially in lower-turnout elections like that in 2025.
In a seven-way race for four open positions, Tripp fell to fifth place, losing to Madeline Cardona by 113 votes (2,238 votes to Cardona’s 2,351). Cardona, like other winners in last year’s contest, had secured the Teachers’ Association’s endorsement.
Madeline Cardona’s victory allowed her only to fill out the final year of a vacant position, requiring her to run again this year to remain on the school board.
The Ithaca Teachers Association has yet to announce its endorsements in this year’s ICSD elections.
Of any incumbent, Garrick Blalock has perhaps worked the hardest this past year to groom himself for presidential succession. Blalock, an Associate Professor of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell, has served on the Ithaca Board of Education since 2023. He’s chaired the Finance Committee since 2024 and the combined Facilities and Finance Committee this past year.
Those two committee assignments have accorded Blalock prominence in shepherding both annual district budgets and this year’s proposed $43.9 Million Capital Project Referendum. That capital referendum is also on the May 19 ICSD ballot.
In 2024, Blalock vied with Adam Krantweiss for Board Vice President. As was the case of the election for president that July, Blalock tied with Krantweiss in successive board votes as he sought to become second-in-line. Impasse ended when on the third attempt Blalock conceded and switched his vote to Krantweiss.
This past July, under revised procedures that allowed secret ballots, Blalock secured the Vice Presidency, five votes to four, beating Emily Workman.
Madeline Cardona, now seeking her first, full board term, is a native of Puerto Rico and serves as the board’s only Latina representative. A Tompkins County resident since 2019, Cardona is the mother of two teenagers who attend Ithaca High School. Her candidate profile lists her employment as that of an Uber driver, a job she says which allows her flexibility to raise her family.
Cardona’s candidate profile states, “Madeline is committed to teaching her children the importance of self-advocacy and empathy, believing that strong communities are built through shared responsibility, accountability, and support.” Cardona also credits her Puerto Rican roots for instilling within her “values like collective responsibility, integrity, and mutual support.”
Cardona has attended most Board of Education meetings during her past year in office. But she’s remained noticeably silent during most discussions. During a 2025 pre-election candidates forum, Cardona said she was “not fully educated” on that year’s district budget to say how she’d vote on it.
“I’m running for the Board to give a chance to families like mine; somebody who cares and works hard as a single mom.” Cardona proudly told that candidates forum. Blessed with the ITA’s endorsement back then, Cardona edged out Tripp and was given a year to prove the value of her contribution.
If Madeline Cardona was last year’s fresh face to ICSD Politics, Sara Garner is this year’s.
A former Cayuga Heights and Boynton Middle School attendee and Ithaca High School graduate, Garner holds a degree in Human Development, Social Policy and Inequality earned at Cornell, and currently serves as the Director of Community Nursery School in Ithaca.
Garner’s resume, stated in her district-posted candidate profile, references her past teaching experience in New York City and San Francisco. Among those assignments, the profile states, “Sara worked in New York City for an alternative-to-incarceration program, where she taught GED classes and served as a court advocate, facilitating non-prison sentences for individuals facing felony charges.”
This year’s four-way election for ICSD board service stands less crowded than that in the two most recent election cycles. Seven candidates (for three seats) ran in 2024, and another seven (for four seats) ran in 2025. The decline in candidate interest could reflect the waning of taxpayer anger over the first-offered 2024 budget..
Sean Eversley Bradwell’s departure will not only spur a succession rivalry for ICSD board leadership. It may also mark a change in leadership tone. On matters as recent as this year’s proposed budget and its tax levy, Eversley Bradwell has stood at times in the middle, mediating competing sides that would tax more or tax less. He refused to interject his own opinions at times while also attempting compromise.
“I hope that I have demonstrated compassion, empathy, understanding, an ability to reach out to further having conversations, taking walks, having coffee, being yelled at, all those things,” Eversley Bradwell said two summers ago, when during his contested fight for leadership another board member asked him to describe his management style. “I hope that I maintain that level of… humanity and compassion for the community,” the board president said.
Come this July, Sean Eversley Bradwell’s leadership will be gone. Someone else’s must take its place.
###
Our State of Dysfunction
We wait on a budget. What else is new?
Analysis and commentary by Robert Lynch; April 25, 2026
You’d never build a government like the one New York State has built for itself. No sane person ever would.
New York State was supposed to have put its budget in place this past April first. It didn’t. And as of this writing more than three weeks later, it still hasn’t done so. No one can predict when we will have a budget. New York’s dominant political class doesn’t seem to care.
Tompkins County’s first line of defenders in Albany, State Senator Lea Webb and Assemblymember Anna Kelles, repeatedly and blithely brush off the ongoing fiscal impasse. They assure us that the day-by-day, week-by-week budget “extenders” they vote to enact will do what they must to keep the paychecks and benefits flowing.
But that’s all that they say. Their assurances lack the slightest degree of outrage. Webb and Kelles are majority Democrats. They’re of the party that controls both legislative houses and the governorship. Each must obediently answer to her leadership. Neither dares to rock the boat.
But I will rock it. And I’ll be blunt. New York State’s structure of governance lacks reason, common sense, or any fair respect for democratic principles. It’s always operated this way for as long as I can remember. And unless the people of the Empire State rise up and demand change, it will probably always remain that way.
As the lead of her weekly online message written to constituents Friday, April 24, Senator Webb stated:
“Dear Neighbor: The budget is moving forward, and this week in Albany we passed another budget extender to keep the government open while negotiations continue.”
Nothing to worry about, friends; nothing to see here. It’s what’s become Lea Webb’s underlying narrative. To readers like me, her words do not comfort.
And for the record, last Wednesday’s extender was the sixth—yes, the sixth—Band-Aid legislators have slapped onto the Empire State’s open wound since late-March. No doubt, they’ll have to bandage the wound still more.
And this year’s delay is not a one-off. In New York State, tardy annual budgets have become the rule and not the exception. Commend Kate Lisa of the downstate-focused “City and State” for keeping recent score:
“The budget was one week late in 2022, 32 days late in 2023, 20 days past the deadline in 2024 and a whopping 38 days late last year—pushing negotiations into May,” Lisa wrote April 7. And that was back when this latest impasse was only on its second, week-long extension. Since then, extensions have grown shorter, and more numerous. Back-bench lawmakers often go home in-between extension votes. Only leadership remains.
Reach back farther. At times it’s even gotten worse.
“Crossing the finish line in May isn’t all that bad, comparatively,” Gannett’s Emily Barnes wrote April, 22. “The state’s 1997 and 1999 budgets under then-Gov. George Pataki went into August. A couple years later, in 2001, Pataki’s budget was late again by 125 days and budget conversations between then-Gov. David Paterson and the Legislature in 2010 also exceeded the April 1 deadline by 125 days.”
So, quite clearly, the problem is systemic. It’s a product of how the New York State legislative process is structured and functions… make that, how it’s meant to function, even if it truly does not.
And because budget impasses have become so politically engrained within New York’s legislative attitude and expectations, the systemic problem transcends who happens temporarily to occupy the Governor’s Mansion or command a legislative super-majority. Democrats and Republicans may share the blame. But because Democrats hold all the levers of power at present, they deserve to shoulder all the resulting blame right now.
Long has it been said that the New York State budget is crafted by “three men in a room.” Ignore the fact that two of those people are now women. Gender holds no claim to power.
Governor Kathy Hochul, Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie are those three most favored people right now. The State Senate may have 63 members; the Assembly 150. Yet Stewart-Cousins and Heastie often negotiate with Governor Hochul in secret. Sure, chosen insiders like Senate Deputy Majority Leader Michael Gianaris squeeze inside the door. But most rank-and file remain in the dark. At least that’s what they tell us. Certainly, minority Republicans haven’t a clue.
“It’s a hallmark of Hochul’s strategy to wear down lawmakers until they concede to her spending priorities,” City and State’s Kate Lisa writes.
Yet why does it have to be this way? Why must budgets be negotiated in private by the chosen few? Why can’t spending be resolved out-in-the-open on the legislative floor or during committee debates?
Why can’t it be as simple as the Senate and Assembly coming to agreement on a budget—or maybe, a series of budgets for things like education, health care, police and highways? Then the governor gets to sign or veto those budget bills? And should she cast her veto, then the Legislature gets the opportunity to override that veto by a two-thirds vote?
Oh, that would be too simple for a state like New York. Because in New York, as a product of the system that’s been set up, a “state budget” gets stuffed into it more things than does a Christmas turkey. It shouldn’t be that way, but it is.
You may like or dislike Anna Kelles’ politics. But our local Assemblymember has done a good job of concisely identifying the political obstacles we now confront:
“Why the Governor has so much power over the New York State budget,” Kelles asks. Her answer:
“In most states, the Governor proposes a budget and the Legislature has broad authority to revise it through back-and-forth negotiations. In New York, the Governor has notably more power than the Legislature throughout the negotiating process.
“The Governor starts by sending a full budget plan to the Legislature in January. This plan can include entirely new programs that have fiscal impacts on the budget, and it can also include policy proposals that do not have any fiscal impacts.
“But unlike in many other states, the Legislature cannot freely rewrite that plan or replace it with its own version. Instead, the Legislature has to work from the Governor’s proposal and respond to it within a more limited framework:
- The Legislature can remove proposals from the Governor’s budget plan or reduce funding for proposals, but we generally cannot change the detailed language within each individual proposal.
- The Governor can revise her budget plan for 30 days after submitting it to the Legislature, which allows changes while negotiations are already underway.
- After the Legislature passes a budget and sends it to the Governor, she can cross out individual items before signing it into law. This means the Legislature must either send a budget the Governor is prepared to accept or risk having parts of it removed without any further opportunity to negotiate.
“This means the Governor is not just proposing a starting point, she is shaping the structure of the entire negotiation, and the Legislature is working within that framework,” Kelles concludes her first explanation.
Next question Kelles asks, “What happens if the budget is late?” Her answer:
“If the budget is not passed on time, the state cannot legally spend money unless the Governor sends the Legislature short-term budget bills, often called “extenders.” These extenders keep government running for a limited period of time. Once an extender is received by the Legislature, we can either vote it up or down, but we cannot amend it before voting. This means we either pass the extender as written or risk a government shutdown.
“The Governor also decides what goes into each extender and how long each extender lasts, whether a few days, a week, or longer. In practice, this gives the Governor significant control over the timeline and pace of negotiations once the budget deadline passes. She can require frequent votes or stretch things out in ways that shape the direction of negotiations.”
That’s how our Assemblymember, Anna Kelles, sees things.
Is it right for this much power to rest with just one person, the Governor? Many Democrats castigate President Trump for taking so much into his own hands. Yet one seldom hears comparable criticism leveled at Hochul for the power she grabs.
Based on what insiders have learned or what’s leaked out from those locked rooms, the impediments to agreement this budget cycle include issues like Hochul’s drive to contain auto insurance rates through tort reform, to dial back New York’s 2019 climate law, to sweeten state pensions for newly-hired employees, and to confront the seemingly-unrelated issue of whether to allow New York City’s new mayor to impose a wealth tax on rich people who own second homes.
Yes, even immigrant protection and buffer zones around abortion clinics and houses of worship have found advocacy stuffed into the turkey that may become the 2027 New York State Budget.
“Here we are twenty-two days late on the budget, for the fifth year in a row,” Republican Senator Tom O’Mara, who not too long ago represented western Tompkins County, said this past Friday. O’Mara complained of both procrastination and secrecy.
“We really do need to get this budget done,” O’Mara stated. Our school districts need to come out with their budgets to put before the voters in the middle of May,” he said. “The time for putting those together is rapidly approaching and that’s a big problem for our districts. It will only result in, perhaps, unnecessary property tax increases, not knowing what state aid is going to be.”
Yes, late state budgets hurt. They hurt school districts planning their own budgets. They hurt counties. And they hurt towns like Enfield. How much will our “CHIPS” highway aid be raised this year? We don’t know. And it’s spring. Road work will start soon, if it hasn’t already.
“We really need to get moving here,” Senator O’Mara told constituents. “We’re getting no information from the majority on where any of these major issues that are sticking points stand.”
Problem identified. Grievances registered. Now what’s the solution? Here are my thoughts:
- The first step is to generate public outrage. Same old; same old cannot continue. And unless average New Yorkers stand up and voice their anger, what we’ve so long endured and come to accept year after year will continue to exist until the day we die. And it will likely persist thereafter. Please, get mad.
- Next, we need to ask tough philosophical questions of ourselves. Do we benefit from the “Strong Governor” breed of politics that we have in New York? The status quo’s advantage lies in that a single election for a single office (that is, the Office of Governor), can instantly alter a full one-third, if not, in practicality, one-half of the political equation. The status quo’s disadvantage lies in its concentration of power in that singular executive position. Is power better diffused through the voices and votes of our more than 200 elected legislators, Senate and Assembly?
- Next, we should demand transparency. Why should budget negotiations occur in secret? Budget business should involve all members of the Senate and Assembly, not just leadership. If the law must be changed to enforce such broader participation, we should change the law. If enforcement begs for constitutional protection, we should amend the state constitution to ensure compliance.
- Next, we should clear away the legislative litter. A new law affecting who gets sued for how much after a car accident holds no place in discussions toward a state budget. Neither does whether New York extends sanctuary protection for undocumented immigrants statewide. Let those bills stand on their own two feet. Give them fair, independent consideration, not a stealthy, hurried vote in the dead of night. Laws enacted when nobody’s looking have become the laws we New Yorkers have come to hate the most.
And finally, need I save this most monumental change for last: We need seriously to consider uncoupling ourselves from New York City. Upstate and Downstate have co-exited as incompatible partners for too long. It’s time to thoughtfully contemplate an amicable divorce. The five boroughs may need to go one way; the rest of us the other. (I’d tag Nassau and Suffolk Counties onto upstate for now; but we can wrestle with that option later.) Let New York City go in Mayor Mamdani’s democratic socialist direction, should it prefer. From Westchester to Williamsville, we, the rest of New York, may find ourselves getting along better resembling places like Pennsylvania, Michigan or Ohio.
****
“What’s been a dysfunctional, secretive and unproductive effort appears to only be getting worse,” Assembly Minority Leader Edward Ra was quoted by Spectrum News on April 15. And that was back when New York was only on its fourth budget extender. Assemblymember Ra didn’t like Hochul interjecting talk of that New York City second-home tax. Ra claimed she’d just introduced the new tax spontaneously, even though it had never been part of executive or legislative proposals before that point.
“It’s a concerning process,” O’Mara complained of the budget process more than a week later. “I really see or feel no sense of urgency on getting this budget wrapped up. We continue to just extend spending,” O’Mara said.
“A late budget is not ideal, but as long as you’re moving the extenders and it’s not too long-lasting, it’s very manageable,” Senate deputy leader Gianaris told City and State back on April 7, nearly three weeks ago. Easy for him. He’s among those on the inside.
Of course, no reasonable person would design a budget process this way—or a state political circus that’s incrementally made it what we expect… and dread. Something needs to change. And only we, those of us on the outside looking in, can change it.
###
A Board, a Budget and a Soggy School
ICSD sets 3.4% levy hike; speeds Heights flood repairs
Reporting and Analysis by Robert Lynch; April 17, 2026
If there was any air conditioning, it wasn’t working well. Had it been that night, members of Ithaca’s Board of Education April 14 might have grown more focused; attended to their driving, taken fewer side trips, and reached agreement sooner on the 2026-27 District Budget. Members finally landed at their destination. But it took work.
Finding just enough votes to make a majority, the board Tuesday adopted the $177.6 Million proposed budget, its spending left essentially untouched from that earlier presented by district administrators. Ithaca City School District (ICSD) voters will either ratify or reject that budget in a May 19 referendum.
Far less contentious, yet equally significant, the ICSD Board set aside up to $1.5 Million from the school district’s savings account, its “fund balance” accumulated through prior budgets, to underwrite expected flood remediation at Cayuga Heights Elementary School (sometimes assigned the acronym, “Ches”).
Flood waters rushing down a hillside behind Heights Elementary during the March 31 deluge caused major damage to the building’s first floor. Remediation work has already begun. Only the first $500,000 of repairs will be covered by insurance. Administrators have yet to tally a full damage estimate.
We’ll deal with the budget first:
As finally adopted, yet only after 90 minutes of sometimes-tense deliberation, the proposed ICSD budget would raise spending by just over five percent from the current year and hike the tax levy by 3.4 percent. That’s less of a levy rise than administrators had originally sought, yet still higher than were a couple of lower-tax options earlier presented to the board. One year ago, the levy rose by 3.76 percent.
Reflecting on that hour and a half of often-meandering discussion, one found absent any grand, visionary fiscal optimism—not from Superintendent Dr. Luvelle Brown, not from program-conscious progressives like Erin Croyle or Karen Yearwood, nor from taxpayer guardians like Todd Fox.
The budget, itself, earned few if any accolades that night. Praised far more was the administration’s new computer tool that helps the homeowner calculate the budget’s impact on his or her own property.
The budget program is “not only transformative, but also very innovative,” Superintendent Brown proclaimed at the discussion’s start.
It leads to “a different way of looking at the budget,” Dominick Lisi, Assistant Superintendent for Business and Finance, advised attendees.
That may be true. But praising the budget tool rather than the budget is somewhat like going to the Taughannock Falls overlook and walking away talking about the tower viewers instead of the waterfall.
No, there was little satisfaction and more equivocation that night. Perhaps the empaneled, elected educators fell victim to the curse of too many choices. A tool that enables an infinite range of fiscal alternatives also invites an unbounded field of divergent opinions. Spectators seated in chairs against the wall of the all-too-small, all-too-stuffy ICSD board room sensed indecision.
“If we suddenly have another disaster like what happened to Ches, or gas prices go up even more, or whatever, are we suddenly going to say, ‘Oh, my gosh, you should have made the rate even lower, you should have made it higher…’” Emily Workman pondered aloud.
Workman’s quandary stood as a good testament to the curse of too many choices.
The ICSD Board adopted the budget in a split vote; five votes in favor, one opposed, and (surprisingly) three abstentions. Because of those abstentions, the budget barely passed.
At the last regular Board of Education meeting, March 24, little attention was given to spending. Talk focused on the tax levy. And on how much to tax, members could not then agree. At a subsequent committee session on April 9, fresh word about the Cayuga Heights school flood and the uncertainty that flowed from it over the remediation’s cost forestalled any recommendation on taxes then as well.
Fiscal reality dictates that should spending remain untouched, any lowering of the tax levy would pull money out of the fund balance. And the fund balance reserves will be needed to fix the Cayuga Heights School.
At the Tuesday meeting, the board’s majority saw the 3.4 percent levy increase as a middle-ground compromise. Superintendent Brown had wanted a higher, 4.18 percent increase, a percentage just below the New York State tax cap assigned the ICSD this year. At the April 9 committee session, Superintendent Brown had first floated a 3.9 percent increase, only to later throttle it back to 3.4 percent.
“I think 3-4 is the right number,” Garrick Blalock, chair of the Facilities and Finance Committee, said of the compromise number Tuesday night. “I think 3-4’s the number that gives us a healthy fund balance, healthy reserves, and t also recognizes the pressure, the inflationary pressure that taxpayers are under.”
“I’m thinking about, as a taxpayer, you want me to approve a school district budget and I’m in a world where I’m paying $5.00 for a gallon of gas,” Board President Sean Eversley Bradwell commented. Compared with the alternative increase of above four percent, “I feel better going to taxpayers asking for 3.4, understanding all these other financial constraints.”
The lone dissent in the budget vote came from Todd Fox. Fox was elected two years ago during the ICSD’s taxpayer revolt, the one that rejected the budget that year. Fox stood his ground Tuesday for a tax increase even lower than the one adopted that night, a levy increase no higher than three percent. And Fox had a plan to achieve it. He’d tap into fund balances this year and replenish them later. Fox would sell off the long-mothballed Danby Elementary School and reap the proceeds. Danby hasn’t held a class there for almost a half-century.
Danby’s “probably worth $1 Million if you put it on the market,” Fox predicted. If you drew down the fund balance by $1.4 Million to contain this year’s levy increase to three percent, Fox reasoned, “we could recoup that 1.4 (Million) from that one sale.”.
“Hey, we have that lever, that number, and we should dispose of that asset,” Fox said of the Danby building. “And I’m happy to do that this year, next year, whenever it is, as soon as possible.”
“It’s a little weird to me that this late in the game we’re talking about selling Danby,” colleague Erin Croyle countered, “because that’s something like that to me is not a factor in what we’re talking about now.”
“Maybe next year,” Croyle suggested the district consider offloading Danby. “But for the budget, you’ve got to have a vote, set timelines; you’ve got to move forward.”
The three unexpected abstentions on the budget vote came from Adam Krantweiss, Jacob Shiffrin and Emily Workman. Collectively, each in his or her own way, they redirected attention this budget cycle to the little-spoken issue of spending.
Theirs became the side trip the night’s budget journey took. And some at the table, including Board President Eversley Bradwell, did not enjoy the ride. It began late in deliberations, commencing after member Karen Yearwood had moved the budget for adoption—complete with its 3.4 percent levy hike.
Krantweiss said he couldn’t support the budget given how it came to be. He read from a prepared statement.
“I’m going to abstain from the budget vote because I disagree with the process in which the budget was developed,” Krantweiss had written and then spoke.
Administration had prepared the budget and handed it to us, he said. Yet “I feel like we as a collective board have not had substantive public discussions at the full board meetings to provide collective input about how to fund categories included in the budget…”
Krantweiss continued, “We’ve talked a lot about using the reserves to save taxpayers some money this year, but we haven’t even discussed making budget cuts to save money. Not that we would necessarily do that or want to do that, but we haven’t even talked about it together.”
Adam Krantweiss rattled off issues he believes the full board should have discussed, but hasn’t: class sizes, course offerings, the number of teachers in the classroom, even the restoration of the controversial 2024 elimination of Mandarin language classes at Ithaca High School.
Krantweiss’ grievance runs deeper than that of one rogue board member’s complaint about process. It asks the question, “Who’s in charge here?” Is it all nine members of the Board of Education, or is it a well-funded administration that begs annually for deference, joined by allied board members holding a similar vision?
“Against my better judgment, I am opposed to a number of things that were also said about the process,” President Eversley Bradwell remarked at one point. He didn’t elaborate.
“I’m somewhat flabbergasted,” board member Karen Yearwood interjected. Yearwood maintained that the program-related issues Krantweiss had raised have been fully aired at meetings of the Curriculum Committee, meetings few from the public ever attend. Krantweiss sits on that committee.
Krantweiss countered that committee consideration is far different from full board involvement.
Erin Croyle offered the most passionate rebuttal.
“The budget process is a year-long process,” Croyle reminded Krantweiss. “You had all year to have these conversations, all year to bring up all these items, but you’re doing it tonight in this format with a canned speech.”
“Salaries are people,” Finance Chair Blalock reminded everyone. “The reason I think perhaps we haven’t had a lot of focus on the expense side of the books is because… changing expenses means changing the people and how they teach, how this district educates.”
“Should we just take a sponge and wipe the blackboard of our education model all down and start all over again?” Blalock asked, waving the air like he held that sponge.
Yes, the room was hot; the night was long.
Jacob Shiffrin and Emily Workman joined Adam Krantweiss with their abstentions. Neither talked as long as Krantweiss did, nor evoked as much drama. Yet each conveyed general agreement with the process-rooted argument. Workman urged that the “collective input” issue earn discussion at a future meeting. Shiffrin said he didn’t “have sufficient information on the content of the budget to make an informed vote as a board member.”
Yet both Krantweiss and Shiffrin promised to support the budget in the May referendum.
The side trip had ended; the destination reached. The roll was called. The budget passed; just barely.
****
As of meeting night, officials had not fully assessed the dollar loss from the March 31 flooding at Cayuga Heights Elementary. But to be on the safe side and to cover what might be worst-case outcomes, the board passed an emergency authorization allowing the district to draw up to $1.5 Million from its unappropriated fund balance to cover remediation work at the school. Officials say insurance will cover the first $500,000 in claims.
Preliminary damage estimates that night varied wildly. The district’s contractor, SERVPRO, had put in an initial estimate of $388,000 for remediation alone. But Assistant Superintendent Lisi quoted state benchmarks predicting that mitigation and reconstruction work could cost $150 to $250 per square foot. And for 13,000 square feet of damaged area, those guidelines could push costs to $1.95 to $3.25 Million.
Lisi’s best compromise guess was $800,000 to $900,000.
“I think 1.5 (Million) is way too high,” Todd Fox, a commercial developer, reacted. “We don’t have hard numbers back,” Fox stated. “I don’t think the damage is as much as you think it is. It’s mostly cosmetic. There’s nothing structural; no electrical, no plumbing. It’s like flooring and drywall.”
Fox would have set aside only $500,000 now and sought more money later should the need arise. Board President Eversley Bradwell floated a $1 Million mid-ground compromise. Board members stuck to the original $1.5 Million commitment, approving the resolution with only Fox casting an abstention. Fox later explained he’d need more information before he’d support the higher figure.
Most on the board agreed with Erin Croyle’s assessment supporting worst-case contingency. “I don’t understand why we wouldn’t say 1.5 as a C.Y.A. and call it a day,” Croyle remarked.
There’s another consideration, too; government red tape. If you submit the state an emergency authorization now only to come back later with a second appeal, the state might claim it’s no longer an emergency and demand such formalities as competitive bidding, Lisi cautioned.
We should also acknowledge that “it could potentially cost us more,” Eversley Bradwell warned. “Any time you open the wall, there’s the potential you’ll find something.”
Cayuga Heights Elementary remains open. Students are using mostly the upper floor. Remediation work’s begun. Crews have packed up books and ripped up floors. Eversley Bradwell doesn’t like using the term ‘disaster.’ “It’s not a disaster, but a natural occurrence,” the Board President said, though he quickly added, “It looks like a disaster when you walk through the school.”
###
Apology given as Flock flies away
Legislature fast-tracks camera system’s departure vote
by Robert Lynch; April 15, 2026
Sometimes the truth comes out when a politician lets down her guard and forgets first to calculate politically. And that’s what happened Tuesday, April 14 during a suddenly-called, 15-minute meeting of the Tompkins County Legislature.
Convening a session otherwise purposed for a private discussion of a personnel matter never revealed, the Legislature slipped onto its public agenda the termination of a multi-year contract with Flock Safety, the company that’s provided license-plate reading security cameras along local roadways. The resolution passed. Flock’s contract would terminate at the end of May.
“Resolved, that the County Administrator and County Attorney are directed to provide timely written notice to Flock terminating the Flock Contract prior to the auto-renewal date,” the adopted resolution states.
The flash of unguarded candor came through the words of Legislature Chair Shawna Black, a recent driving force behind the removal of Flock surveillance. And while Black and the Legislature’s other dozen Democrats have supported the controversial cameras’ removal, leaders in local law enforcement, most notably Tompkins County Sheriff Derek Osborne, have staunchly defended Flock’s presence. Osborne has maintained the Flock cameras deter crime and save lives.
“We made Sheriff Osborne’s job very, very hard whenever we decided against the Flock cameras,” Black stated from the podium Tuesday, truth admitted in that most unguarded of moments.
“And I want to apologize for taking away one of your tools,” Black continued her candid apology to the Sheriff. “I know that it was effective at times,” Black said of Flock. “And Derek was about to kill me a few weeks ago,” the chairwoman acknowledged in jest, “but I think we’re friends again.”
Maybe Shawna Black believed the public wasn’t watching or listening Tuesday night. The gallery appeared empty. Yet by the next afternoon, YouTube reported as many as 92 people had viewed the meeting’s video stream.
Critics, both on and off the Legislature, have criticized the Flock cameras as an invasion of civil liberties and privacy. They’ve also accused the parent company, Flock Group, Inc. of colluding with the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the surveillance of undocumented immigrants.
Any critic of what the Legislature’s been doing lately may have sensed a touch of remorse in Chairwoman Black’s unscripted words; sudden second-thoughts, maybe fleeting deference to conscience, Shawna Black’s honest recognition of right versus wrong, of responsible governance versus slavish obedience to the small, yet vocal cadre of activists who’ve pummeled the Legislature at meeting after meeting to urge Flock’s banishment as a bad actor.
But too late. Tuesday’s decision was, effectively, a foregone conclusion. Its outcome became certain one week earlier when Black’s ally, Lansing Democrat Deborah Dawson, had sprung onto the agenda—and won quick passage—of the motion directing the County Attorney and County Administrator to write the resolution that unwound our county’s involvement with Flock.
“I’m super appreciative and supportive of this,” Caroline/Danby legislator Irene Weiser said of the unwinding resolution. Other than Black, Weiser was the only legislator to speak to the Flock resolution prior to its adoption at the special meeting. “So thank you all, and especially Sheriff Osborne, for being flexible here in the community and still looking for ways to protect the areas that are wanting and needing protection.”
The April 14 resolution passed on a vote of 12 to one. No votes had changed since Dawson’s motion had passed one week earlier.
Sentiment again split along party lines. Each of the dozen Democrats present supported canceling the contract. Newfield/Enfield’s Randy Brown, the only Republican in the room, opposed it. A second Republican, Lansing’s Mike Sigler, attended remotely, but was advised the circumstances of his virtual attendance prevented him from voting. The third Republican, Lee Shurtleff of Groton, didn’t attend.
When Dawson’s test vote cleared the Legislature one week earlier, Dawson and others had signaled the final vote on Flock would occur at the Legislature’s next regular meeting, April 21. But the timetable would have proved tight in meeting the April 28 deadline for notifying Flock of the contract’s termination. Otherwise, the agreement would have auto-renewed for two more years.
County Attorney Maury Josephson told Tuesday’s meeting that the move-up of legislative action provided the county some “breathing room.”
But sadly, the accelerated adoption schedule did something else. It precluded additional public comment.
Supporters of Flock could not have anticipated Dawson’s motion of April 7. They wouldn’t have been in the Legislature’s chambers to speak that night or to have pre-filed written comments. And the rules of the Legislature do not allow for public comment at special meetings. So by accelerating this latest vote, the procedure silenced Flock supporters again.
On Wednesday, April 8, the Enfield Town Board had considered a Resolution titled, “Providing Tompkins County Guidance in the Continuation of Flock Safety Services.” The resolution gained support from two out of five Enfield Town Board members (including this Councilperson/writer, the resolution’s author.) The resolution, as drafted, opposed Tompkins County’s impending contract termination with Flock and had argued that the termination would be “premature and unwise” and “would endanger public safety.”
Given the absence of any public comment opportunity, neither an Enfield representative nor sympathetic legislators could easily air Enfield’s (minority) municipal viewpoint before the contract termination vote had occurred.
Neither of the two attending Republican legislators, Randy Brown nor Mike Sigler, offered opinion before the resolution’s adoption Tuesday. Asked by Shawna Black to speak to the resolution before it passed, Sheriff Osborne declined comment. Osborne did address next-steps after the vote was taken.
Money for the Flock program had come through a state-sponsored $220,650 “Gun Involved Violence Elimination” (GIVE) grant. Local law enforcement officials, principally Ithaca Police Chief Tom Kelly, wrote for renewal of the GIVE grant last week. Pressed for ideas on deadline and given the Legislature’s newfound opposition to Flock, Osborne said grant writers plugged in a request to buy dash-mounted license plate readers for police cars as a substitute. It would serve short-term as a placeholder.
“We’re getting quotes now on camera trailers,” Osborne reported. “They look nice, but they’re extremely expensive,” the Sheriff cautioned. Each trailer costs about $73,000. The GIVE grant money might buy at most two, Osborne said. He also questioned the trailers’ feasibility.
But then, again, if the public objections lie in surveillance, might camera trailers themselves resurrect the central issue that terminated Flock?
“Are we prepared for the backlash when one of these things shows up, and people say, ‘Well, now you’re not watching the whole county, you’re watching a specific area or a specific group of people?’” legislator Sigler asked.
The Sheriff acknowledged Sigler’s scenario could be true.
“Yeah, for sure,” Osborne said. “These are cameras that do similar work,” he said. “”But I’m hoping that if we just deploy them to areas where need arises, that maybe that’ll be the difference, at least I hope.”
That could be more easily said than done. Public opinion is seldom unanimous. One neighbor’s crime fighting tool is another neighbor’s peeping intruder.
The Sheriff has another worry. It involves timing.
“There’s certainly probably going to be a time frame when Flock goes away before we purchase and have these devices, if we even move in that direction,” Osborne advised legislators, referring to the trailers. “So I’m more worried about that, about what happens in-between with gun crime and violent crime. So time will tell,” Osborne concluded.
Clearly by his words, Derek Osborne is not pleased with the hardline position against Flock that the Tompkins County Legislature has chosen. A repopulated and more progressive table of lawmakers this year has struck a new path that pleases some, but not others. Last fall, legislators had approved Flock’s continued presence; but not now.
In early-March, the Ithaca Common Council, also tilting liberal, canceled its contract with Flock.
“I’m afraid we are letting a few strong voices really take away the common sense,” Randy Brown told the Enfield Town Board earlier his month as he gauged the new legislative environment.
No doubt, Tuesday’s action underscored Brown’ impression, Shawna Black’s spontaneous second thoughts accepted or not.
###