Breaking: Jill Tripp ousted at ICSD

Budget passes; reformers struggle

**All seven ICSD school board candidates debating at a Beverly J. Martin Elementary School forum, May 15**

by Robert Lynch; May 20, 2025

This year was not last year. And results from Tuesday’s Ithaca City School District (ICSD) school board elections show a return to what might be called the predictable: Budgets pass by wide margins; and candidates endorsed by the teachers union gain the advantage over those who weren’t.

Preliminary results posted late Tuesday on the ICSD’s website show newcomer Jacob Shiffrin, incumbents Karen Yearwood and Erin Croyle, plus another newcomer, Madeline Cardona, finishing in sequential order for the four school board seats open in this year’s election.

Shiffrin, Yearwood, Croyle, and Cardona were endorsed by the Ithaca Teachers Association, the district’s influential instructional union.

The only incumbent who lost stands notable by her defeat. Jill Tripp, regarded by many as a budget hawk and the taxpayer’s friend, lost the election, coming in fifth and falling 119 votes behind Cardona.

**Coming in fifth and falling out of the running; school board budget hawk (and incumbent), Jill Tripp.**

The proposed $169 Million 2025-26 district budget, meanwhile, breezed to approval, as did a proposition to appropriate money for school buses and building improvements.

The proposed budget won voters’ support, 3,721 votes (77.5%) to 1,080 votes (22.5%) opposed.

The bus and building expenditures secured almost identical support; 3,718 votes (77.4%) in favor; 1,087 votes (22.6%) opposed.

Tuesday’s results may signal that taxpayer frustration, which propelled a massive budget defeat in first round voting last year, may have now subsided. This year’s results more closely mirror the comfortable ICSD budget approval margins of earlier years.

The top three vote-getters in the May 20 ICSD election—Shiffrin, Yearwood, and Croyle—will each assume new, three-year terms beginning in July. Fourth-Place finisher Cardona will serve the remaining one-year of a board vacancy, and would need to run again next year to keep her seat.

In the latter days of this year’s Ithaca School Board campaign, three of the newcomers, Shiffrin, Scott Jahnke, and David McMurray, formed a coalition slate and marketed themselves as reformers. Of the three, only union-endorsed Shiffrin won.

Preliminary tallies placed Jacob Shiffrin in the lead with 3,491 votes; Karen Yearwood securing second place with 2,931 votes, followed by Erin Croyle with 2,708 votes, and Madeline Cardona with 2,356 votes.

Jill Tripp fell out of the running with 2,237 votes, followed by Scott Jahnke with 2,018 votes, and David McMurry with 1,959 votes.

The Ithaca Board of Education is scheduled to certify the election results Wednesday night, May 21.

School budgets also passed in Newfield and Trumansburg school districts.

In Newfield, the budget passed, 342 votes (68%) to 159 (32%). George Taylor, Christina Ward, and Antwane Lynch were elected to the school board.

In Trumansburg, the budget passed by a lopsided 528 to 101 margin. Suzanne Organ, Jim Mielty and James Kemmerer were elected to the school board there.

(Expect more to be posted on this story.)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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): Tompkins County acquainted us in recent days with a Scotty terrier wearing a monocle, its design logo for “Tompkins Transportation Scout.” Explaining what “Scout” actually does is a bit harder than showing us a cute cartoon canine.

Maybe it takes a Millennial (or younger) to plow through the press release’s techno-centric buzz-speak. But it appears “Scout” is a multi-faceted App you put on your smartphone that’ll help you get from Point A to Point B. (It assumes you didn’t already know.)

The PR writer describes Tompkins Transportation Scout as “a groundbreaking mobility initiative designed to simplify, enhance, and sustain transportation options for all residents.”

“Whether you prefer biking, public transit, carshare, or walking, Scout brings it all together in one convenient and user-friendly platform,” the release states, tugging at every handy cliché.

Scout’s formal rollout is set for April 17 at the History Center on the Commons. An “interactive app demonstration” will be given then. Many of us will certainly need it.

TCAT, Gadabout, and a number of other groups have partnered to implement the federally-funded service. (We assume Musk doesn’t yank the money.) Supposedly, participation could earn you—“easy peasy!”—merchant discounts. (Tellingly, one of the merchants, JoAnn, doesn’t exist here anymore.) Oh, well.

(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.

(Mar. 22): Tompkins Consolidated Area Transit (TCAT) has averted a strike by its unionized drivers and mechanics, with both sides late Saturday announcing tentative agreement on a new labor contract.

“We appreciate the hard work and dedication of the UAW Local 2300 bargaining team and our employees who remain committed to providing safe and reliable transit for the community,” TCAT General Manager Matthew Rosenbloom-Jones said in a statement.

The UAW’s TCAT Chairperson, Brandon Chamblee was equally upbeat. “We are encouraged by the progress we’ve made at the bargaining table and remain dedicated to ensuring a fair and equitable future for TCAT workers,” Chamblee stated.

On March 12, the UAW reported that 84 percent of TCAT’s union members had approved a strike authorization, which would only be implemented, it said, if negotiations failed to produce a contract that workers deemed fair.

Details of the tentative pact were not immediately released. During negotiations, according to media reports, the union had sought cost-of-living adjustments, assurance of a living wage for all TCAT employees, and modifications to mandatory work schedules.

“Both sides remain committed to maintaining uninterrupted service for the community while the agreement undergoes the membership ratification process,” Saturday’s joint announcement stated.

When the Old Library fell; 2018

(March 20): Media reports this week informed us that developer Frost Travis will lose millions on the Library Place fiasco, the tax-abated downtown Ithaca housing project that took flight after Tompkins County sold its mothballed “Old Library” to Travis eight years ago only so he could tear it down. He did. And we all suffered.

The Travis-Hyde development firm will now offload the four-story, $30 Million monster that overpowers DeWitt Park to a Rochester-based company, Park Grove Realty. Frost Travis acknowledges he’ll lose millions. Too few people want to live at Library Place for the rents he’s charging.

The Industrial Development Agency will transfer the $5.32 Million tax break to the new owners.

In my opinion, there’s never been anything good about Library Place. And it started when in 2017 the County Legislature foolishly sold an amazingly structurally-sound 1967 building for just $925,000. Legislators now plan to invest $40 Million for new office space that the Old Library could have provided.

Here’s what I told the County Legislature the night it authorized the sale:

“The Old Library Building is too good to lose. It has many good years of useful life left. It deserves to be kept in the public’s ownership and used for a public purpose… In this community, we throw away all too much only to harbor regrets later.”

Well?

Saying “I told you so,” only strokes one’s ego. It never helps a community reverse a reckless mistake. / RL

(Mar. 19): Forget for now the Enfield Fire District having to double its medical budget to meet the higher costs of mandated physicals for volunteer firefighters. It won’t happen right away. It could happen next year instead.

“The best thing to do is to continue with Trumansburg Family Medicine for 2025,” Chairman Greg Stevenson told Enfield’s Board of Fire Commissioners Tuesday.

Stevenson’s advice came two weeks after he’d warned Commissioners that switching from the T-Burg practice to an occupational medicine provider could raise the Fire District annual costs for physicals from $6,000 to twice that.

Commissioners had eyed the change amid fears that T-Burg Family Medicine may soon merge with the local hospital corporation, which would then redirect physicals elsewhere.

“The big companies are swallowing up the little companies,” the Chairman warned. “We should work on a policy and plan for 2026.”

Delaying a change until next fiscal year eliminates the immediate need to find the extra cash.

“Not anybody is going to fall through the cracks,” Stevenson said. Fire volunteers can still get physicals through their family doctors.

Resigned: Leslie Tabor

(Mar. 19): The leader blamed for “weeding” countless under-used books from the Tompkins County Public Library and directing them to the dumpster is now out of the library herself.

“The Board of Trustees of the Tompkins County Public Library has accepted the resignation of Leslie Tabor as Library Director, effective March 17, 2025,” the Library Board of Trustees announced in a brief statement issued the Tuesday morning after Tabor turned in her notice.

“The Board appreciates Ms. Tabor’s dedication to the Library and wishes her well in her next endeavor,” Trustees said in their perfunctory farewell.

Obvious to everyone, in view of the public and media criticism of Tabor’s leadership in recent weeks, the resignation was pressured. It beats an outright firing.

Since joining the library as its director in November 2022, Tabor had allegedly removed nearly half of the local library’s physical books and ordered the improper disposal of more than $350,000 in materials, many of which were owned by other libraries, not hers.

Personnel problems also plagued Tabor’s tenure. Earlier this month, the Tompkins County Legislature, which only indirectly oversees the library, yet provides $4 Million in annual support, ordered a “forensic audit” to get to the bottom of the library’s woes.

The library board said it will detail plans for filling the director’s vacancy in coming weeks. / RL

(Photo courtesy, The Cortland Standard)

(Mar. 14): For quite a while, The Cortland Standard has been the closest daily newspaper to Ithaca that actually still published local news. Now it will publish no longer.

In an announcement that caught many by surprise, the Crown City-based, family-owned daily announced March 13 that that day’s paper would be its last. Its owners will file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy—liquidation. The paper has folded. Its 17 employees are out of work.

Like many papers that struggle, The Cortland Standard blamed “declining readership and increasing costs” for its demise.

“I hoped this day would never come,” Publisher and Editor Evan C. Geibel wrote in a departing essay that headlined the paper’s final edition. “I’m so very grateful to my colleagues and the community for what they’ve done for me, my family and each other,” Geibel wrote.

The Cortland Standard began its 157-year run in 1867, just after the Civil War. “William H. Clark acquired the Cortland Standard in 1876 and his family has owned it ever since,” Geibel’s essay stated. The publisher claimed the Standard is (now, was) the second-oldest family-owned newspaper in New York and one of the five-oldest of its kind in America.

Times change. Few of us read newspapers anymore. Blame Bill Gates and his fellow travelers. That’s how it goes. We must look forward, not back. But we can also cry. / RL

(Mar. 13): Old things last only so long. And after an estimated 77 years of life, the dry hole that disperses septic tank effluent from the Enfield Courthouse, the Town Board’s meeting hall, has failed.

“Nobody knows how deep it is,” Highway Superintendent Barry “Buddy” Rollins informed the Town Board March 12. Most likely the 6 x 8-foot cinder block hole was dug when the Courthouse, formerly the Enfield Fire Station, was built in 1948.

The dry hole’s located beneath the Courthouse’s gravel driveway. And what failed was its lid. Operators of the co-located Enfield Food Pantry reportedly discovered the imminent rupture only days earlier. As a precaution, the driveway is closed until the work gets completed.

Spending money it would rather not have spent, the Town Board Wednesday allocated up to $12,000 from its Contingency Account to fund replacement costs.

Rollins predicted construction would be a “one-day job.” Due to the project’s complexity, contractor Paul Carpenter will perform the work, either Friday, the 14^th, or during the middle of the following week.

Pantry officials assure that the driveway’s closure will not impact weekend food distributions.

Director of Assessment Jay Franklin

(Mar. 7): What a difference a year makes. And this year’s planned pause in local property revaluations reflects it.

“We’re seeing some appreciation, but not as much as we have,” Tompkins County Director of Assessment Jay Franklin told a County Legislature committee March 6. “I think interest rates are finally catching up to people… Consumers are less inclined to buy large-ticket items; their homes, your cars, things like that.”

Franklin also cited public uncertainty about the presidential election.

The Director reported local real estate values have risen on average only five percent during the past year. Compare that with the 19.8 percent annual hike that caused so much pain one year ago.

The cooling of house inflation supports the Assessment Director’s call for a multi-year pause in what had been annual reassessments. As a practical matter, there’ll be no wholesale adjustment this year, except for the 955 parcels with additions, demolitions, or boundary line changes.

“The market went up five percent. So what’s really the difference between a $200,000 and a $210,000 house?” Franklin asked.

County Assessment would need the local Legislature’s consent to postpone reassessments for as long as the four years Franklin would like. And to that question, the Government Operations Committee Thursday gave no firm guidance.

A unanimous vote for the “forensic audit”

(Mar. 6): Amid media reports alleging employee dissatisfaction and Library Director Leslie Tabor’s questionable disposal of surplus books, the Tompkins County Public Library will get a deep-dive “forensic audit” by orders of the Tompkins County Legislature.

“We’re not alleging anything bad has happened,” County legislator Mike Lane remarked as the Legislature prepared to authorize the outside audit March 4. “But we have a whole lot of questions about the budget itself, and we want to understand it better,” Lane said.

Legislature Chair Dan Klein moved the audit authorization at Tuesday’s meeting without disclosing it beforehand.

Klein acknowledged the Library Board had been notified of his proposal. And in contrast to much longer discussions during the Legislature’s four-hour meeting, lawmakers took only five minutes to consider Klein’s resolution. The authorization passed unanimously. Up to $9,999 can be spent to fund the audit.

“[A] forensic audit will provide an independent examination of TCPL’s financial condition, records, processes, controls, and past and current financial and operational practices to address the questions that have been raised,” the adopted resolution states.

Will the audit include Tabor’s controversial “weeding” of books? Neither the resolution nor the Legislature directly addressed that specific question.

Mezey: Please, no “sledgehammer.”

(Mar. 5): Make it clear: When it comes to changing state law, the Tompkins County Legislature holds only the power to persuade and a propensity to pontificate.

Legislators took ten minutes short of an hour March 4th doing the latter; debating two competing resolutions passing judgment on Governor Hochul’s call for broader state powers to involuntarily treat the mentally ill and drug addicts.

In the end, legislators rejected, five votes to nine, the resolution that would have supported Hochul’s initiative. They then endorsed, eight to six, a competing measure that opposed expanded involuntary institutionalization.

“We have an obligation to try to help these people,” legislator Rich John pleaded in defense of the Hochul-supported bill.

“And the idea that we must do a one-size-fits-all approach that must be voluntary treatment, that we must respect autonomy above all else, to the extent that we let people live outside, unable to care for themselves, and they die or they get preyed upon,” John said, makes involuntary treatment, “not seem radical to me at all.”

But Greg Mezey’s competing viewpoint prevailed. “I don’t necessarily want a sledgehammer when that may not be the right tool,” Mezey said. And to him, forced institutionalization is a “crummy tool.”

Both Enfield’s legislators, Anne Koreman and Randy Brown, supported Mezey’s majority stance.

(Mar. 5): Providing firefighters their mandated annual physical exams may soon cost the Enfield Fire District twice as much. And those who oversee the district must find a way to pay the bill.

The district’s Board of Fire Commissioners digested the bad news Tuesday, March 4^th, but then delayed further action for two weeks.

The current go-to medical provider, Trumansburg Family Medicine, seeks to withdraw from the service. And the low-bid alternative, Occustar, an occupational medicine firm, quotes a rate that would cost the fire district $12,000 annually. The district has only $6,000 budgeted.

Commissioners’ Chair Greg Stevenson noted that up until now firefighters could get their personal doctor to sign off on the physical. The volunteer’s own insurance would effectively pay the expense. But under the new, more formalized protocol, third-party certifications would likely end.

“The Fire Company has been giving the Town and now the Fire District a big break,” said Stevenson reasoning that past practice had unfairly cost-shifted to insurers.

Liability concerns, in part, drive the transition to on-site physical exams. Slipshod enforcement of the physicals mandate, Commissioners were told, has brought other fire companies big fines and lawsuits, especially should a firefighter die.

Worker Advocate Myers

(Feb. 28): Could you afford to pay an entry-level employee $1,000 per week? If you’re that employee, could you live on it?

The Tompkins County Workers’ Center released its latest Living Wage calculations February 26. The finding computes the 2025 Tompkins County Living Wage at $24.82 an hour, up 34.5 per cent from the last calculation made two years ago. That translates to $198.56 for an eight-hour day, $992.80 for a 40-hour week, or $51,626 for the year.

“Tompkins County, New York, is the most expensive place to live in Upstate New York, and by some measures one of the most expensive places to live in the United States,” the Workers’ Center states on its website.

In a broadcast interview Thursday, the Workers’ Center Director, Pete Myers blamed a 17 per cent rise in rents over the two years as a major contributor to the increase.

“There are some employers that are going to have a really difficult time with this,” Myers told his WHCU interviewer.

Tompkins County Government is one such Living Wage employer. And Tompkins’ lawmakers have already worried about how the increase they’d predicted would drive up the budget.

Moreover, some activists have urged that the Living Wage be made the legal Minimum Wage locally. [See more detailed story, now posted.]

Newly-hung lights in the ECC’s “Great Room”

(Feb. 27): “The Rhubarb Festival is not working,” Enfield Community Council (ECC) President Cortney Bailey bluntly put it at the ECC’s Annual Meeting Thursday. And with nobody else disagreeing, the Council’s Board called off holding any springtime community celebration for this, the second straight year.

ECC thought it had found a catchy niche theme when it retooled its long-held “Country Faire” to become a Rhubarb Festival in 2022 and 2023. But it canceled last year. Problems arose then and now, not the least of which is timing.

Rhubarb isn’t ready to harvest until late-May. But vendors who sell things and provide the ECC rental income do best with an earlier date, before Mother’s Day.

“People bought gifts for their moms left, right, and sideways,” Bailey recalled when the event was held sooner.

“It was simple and quiet,” ECC’s Vera Howe Strait remembered of the more youth-focused Country Faire.

Odds are the Council will revert to the “Faire” in 2026. But it lacks the person-power for an event this spring.

“This will make the Harvest Festival be a much more important event,” Bailey predicted. ECC plans its 50^th Annual Harvest Festival September 20.

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.