News Briefs:
Take That, Texas
(July 31): Congressional redistricting again? Yes. Maybe, but not for a while.
As a reaction to Texas’ planned mid-decade reapportionment of the House to give Republicans as many as five additional seats in Congress next year, New York Governor Kathy Hochul and top Democratic lawmakers have said they may push through a constitutional amendment to permit mid-cycle redistricting here.
New York will follow its rules, Hochul promised The New York Times. But that said, she added, “All’s fair in love and war.”
New York carved new congressional districts; first for the 2022 election, and then, by court mandate, for 2024. That latest round won our area Josh Riley.
Should the constitutional amendment deputy Senate majority leader Michael Gianaris and Assemblymember Micah Lasher propose clear two consecutive legislative sessions and then win voter approval, the soonest New York districts could change again would be for the 2028 elections—likely too late to blunt the Texas onslaught.
Key to the Gianaris-Lasher change would be circumventing the independent commission process mid-cycle. Lawmakers could alter the lines and do so by only a majority vote. Mid-cycle redistricting would trigger if another state attempted it first.
“We can come up with lines that comply with constitutional criteria that still accomplish our goal,” Gianaris assured City & State. Those criteria include ensuring racial equity and maintaining communities of interest.
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Tompkins Slates Lansing Building Buy
(July 30): A modern, 13,000-square foot office building off Warren Road will likely transfer to Tompkins County’s ownership soon and be used as an interim home for the Assessment Department and the Board of Elections.
Placed onto the agenda for the Tompkins County Legislature’s meeting next Tuesday, August fifth, is a Resolution for County purchase of the land and building at 31 Dutch Mill Road, near the Airport, to quarter the two departments. They’d relocate “for an estimated four to five-year duration” while the County constructs its planned Center of Government in Downtown Ithaca.
The resolution would commit up to $1.2 Million toward the purchase. A realtor currently lists the parcel for $1.1 Million.
Assessment and Elections must vacate their current East Buffalo Street home this fall to enable its removal and clear the Center of Government site. Assessment is slated to move back to Ithaca and into the new building when it’s finished. The Elections Board is not.
Expect the rural relocation of Elections to spark controversy. At a public meeting last Monday—before the Lansing site’s purchase was announced—several advocates spoke strongly in favor of keeping the Board of Elections downtown.
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Center of Government to Have Mags.
(July 29): Unknown to local attendees at the time, but in the hour that a rifle-toting gunman was murdering four in a Manhattan office building July 28, an architect here was predicting enhanced security protocols for the proposed Tompkins County Center of Government in Downtown Ithaca.
“So there is likely to be some type of metal detector for security before you enter the building,” Quay Thompson of Holt Architects, advised attendees at a County-sponsored, second-round Community Engagement Meeting Monday to take comment on the planned four-story office structure adjacent to DeWitt Park.
“We are seeing across the country… best practice is a higher level of security, especially in municipal buildings,” Thompson explained.
Expectedly, the Manhattan shootings could only amplify the call for greater vigilance.
Yet of the 167 responses analyzed from a just-completed, pre-design survey, just ten percent supported “enhanced security” over “ease of access.” Thirty-five percent wanted easy access. The remaining 55 percent preferred a balanced approach.
State rules have long mandated magnetometers at the County Courthouse. They’re also now at the Human Services Building, as well, of course, as at Ithaca City Hall.
So expect balance to prevail. “We want the building to feel welcoming,” Thompson said, perhaps seeking the impossible; a kinder, gentler security check. “So when you come into the building, you’re not turned away by security, but you’re welcomed.”
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Water, Water (Not) Everywhere
(July 25): If ever it happens, public water for Enfield is a long ways off.
That said, the Town of Enfield has launched an online (and paper) survey to ascertain public interest in public water, and also potentially, sewer service.
From the Town of Enfield’s website, you can snap the QR Code that takes your smart phone to the survey, or click this link: https://arcg.is/09efza0.
The Enfield Water Protection Committee has identified certain portions of the Town most likely to need and request municipal water. Those residents were sent postcards. But any Enfield resident can participate in the survey, whether you rent or own. The survey takes maybe ten minutes.
Were public water ever to happen, we’d need outside funding and lots of pieces would need to fall into place. This survey is but the first step.
You can submit your survey responses through August 15. Paper copies are also available and may be submitted at the Town Clerk’s Office.
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Gavel Falls; Bid Falls Short
(July 25): The Enfield Town Board, at a special meeting July 18, authorized transfer of $70,000 to enable purchase of a John Deere mower tractor at auction.
It was a good machine, just three years old. It had a side-arm mower. Highway Superintendent Barry ‘Buddy” Rollins had recommended its purchase. This Councilperson performed his own independent, on-site inspection, and also urged Enfield buy it.
But that may not happen. The tractor’s online auction closed Monday, July 21. Bid documents show that two bidders fought tooth-and-nail at the close. When the virtual gavel fell at 6PM that day, the high bid was $61,100. The seller declined to sell for that amount, as the offer fell far below a later-stated $90,000 minimum bid.
Had Enfield bought the machine, it would have replaced a tractor Enfield’s had since 2004 and was scheduled for replacement next year.
And had Enfield gotten the Town of Arcadia’s offloaded tractor, even at the minimum bid, Enfield would have scored a bargain.
Arcadia’s Highway Superintendent says a nearly-identical machine his town bought this year cost $161,000.
What happens next remains unclear. As of Friday, July 25, Superintendent Rollins had not reported auction results to the Town Board or stated his next course of action. / RL
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Embrace Change
(July 17): The old signs were showing their age, we were told. Now their replacements are up.
DSS Chief Tapped; Term-Limited
(July 16): “I see this moment not just as a test, but as an opportunity to strengthen our local Department of Services,” Brittanie Earle, Tompkins County’s newly-appointed DSS Commissioner, said July 15th in accepting her appointment.
In a break with custom, Earle’s name was made public days before Tuesday’s meeting. The Tompkins County Legislature confirmed the appointment without discussion or dissent.
Yet one change, never discussed Tuesday night, substituted a slightly-altered resolution for the one posted with the agenda. The change specified a five-year term for Earle’s appointment. She’ll formally assume her new duties this August first, her term running through July 2030.
As did Tompkins County’s last high-profile appointee, Jennie Sutcliffe, confirmed four weeks earlier as Commissioner of Whole Health, Earle told the Legislature that rapidly-changing Washington politics is challenging DSS. Newly-passed Congressional legislation may cut access to Medicaid and food assistance.
“I’m committed to leading with transparency, empathy, and activism,” Earl promised the Legislature.
Brittanie Earle brings to new job a varied background, but no experience, apparently, in a Social Services Office.
Most recently Earle served as Interim Director of the Community Response Team at Cornell University, a service that links law enforcement, emergency services, and university departments.
Earle succeeds retiring Social Services Commissioner Kit Kephart.
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Brown Bemoans Pickup Pickiness
(July 11): Tompkins County Legislator Randy Brown, speaking to the Enfield Town Board July 9, took issue with newly-imposed prohibitions by the Department of Recycling and Materials Management as to what you can put in your curbside recycling box.
“The list is growing, and I would like to see us take it all,” Brown said of recyclables, even materials that re-processors no longer want.
“Our position should be if it’s plastic, if it’s glass, food-related, as long as it’s clean, we’re going to take it, and we’ll manage it,” the legislator told Enfield’s Board.
In a directive issued June 24, Recycling and Materials Management set new curbside guidelines. Black plastic items, such as black food trays and takeout containers, it will no longer accept. Similarly, it will reject paper-based food and beverage containers, like milk cartons and soup boxes.
Cereal boxes, plastic milk jugs, newspaper, office paper, and old mail the curbside collectors will still accept.
The problem, the department says, is that Tompkins County’s contracted processor no longer wants the stuff.
“Recently, it was identified that food and beverage cartons do not currently have a feasible end-market,” the department said in a news release, “and black plastic is problematic in the process due to composition and sorting technology.”
Randy Brown would have the county compensate for the hardship.
“So to take all these items might cost a half-Million Dollars,” Brown admitted. Yet it’s worth that expense to end the confusion, he maintained.
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DSS Chief’s Hiring Imminent
(July 11): Despite an awkward rollout, a new Commissioner of the Tompkins County Department of Social Services is expected to win confirmation when the County Legislature reconvenes from a four-week summer recess, July 15.
A resolution posted for action on the Legislature’s agenda lists Brittanie Earle as the appointee to succeed Kit Kephart, who in January announced her planned retirement as DSS Commissioner, effective this month.
The appointment resolution provides little information about Earle, but states, “Brittanie Earle has demonstrated the experience, leadership, and qualifications necessary to serve in this critical role.”
Customarily, department head appointee’s names remain confidential until just prior to a confirmation vote, both to protect the candidate’s privacy and to give legislators the opportunity to withdraw the appointment in closed session, should they choose.
But premature disclosure isn’t the only issue here. In his written and spoken report to the Enfield Town Board July 9th, Legislator Randy Brown referenced the name of yet a different candidate as the prospective appointee, a mid-level administrator at the Department of Whole Health.
Advised of the inconsistency between himself and the agenda, Brown Thursday corrected himself and admitted he was mistaken.
Still, Brown acknowledged he was on the “review board” that had considered Kephart’s successor. Obvious errors like this don’t usually happen.
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Anderson Tapped Enfield Principal
(July 8): Stephen Anderson, currently an “Educator of Inclusion” at Boynton and DeWitt middle schools, was quietly promoted Tuesday to become the new Principal at Enfield Elementary.
Anderson, whose Enfield appointment begins July 9, succeeds Keith Harrington, whom the Ithaca City School District recently transferred to become Principal at the Lehman Alternative Community School.
Neither the name of Anderson nor that of Tara Caiza, elevated to become Principal at Fall Creek Elementary, was mentioned by the Board of Education as it inserted the appointments into an “addendum” to a consent agenda, which it then approved without objection at the board’s annual organizational meeting. The insertion followed an hour-and 20-minute closed discussion.
Putting its own house in order for the year ahead, the Board of Education, without opposition, reelected Sean Eversley Bradwell as its President. Under revised procedures quietly changed since last year’s reorganization, the board chose Garrick Blalock over Emily Workman by secret ballot to become Vice-President. Blalock secured five votes; Workman four.
Reluctantly—with Karen Yearwood dissenting—the school board designated The Ithaca Journal as its official newspaper. And it postponed until August a revived discussion of whether the school district should continue to purchase cell phones for approximately 100 key personnel.
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“Morse Chain’s” Rebirth
(July 7): Seasoned “chain pounders” will recognize one fact: This is the easy part.
Tompkins County Monday announced the award of a $1 Million New York State grant to “support critical infrastructure construction for ‘The Woods,’ the first phase of the ambitious SouthWorks Ithaca master-planned community.”
SouthWorks involves the ambitious transformation of the sprawling former Morse Chain/Emerson Power Transmission factory overlooking Ithaca into residential, commercial and reborn industrial facilities. Some doubt it can ever happen. And if it does, it’ll take lots of capital and faith.
Why is this the easy part? “The Woods,” is the segment of the four-part project that doesn’t involve the factory itself. It’s out to the back near where the parking lots used to be. The million dollar award through New York State’s County Infrastructure Grant Program will build 700 feet of road, construct a roundabout, lay 2,000 feet of water lines, and put in sewers.
The improvements will enable SouthWorks developers to build 100 new units of affordable housing.
“This infrastructure investment is a major milestone for Tompkins County and a launchpad for mixed-income housing,” County Legislator Greg Mezey said in a statement. ““We are excited to see a long-vacant property transform into a thriving, inclusive community…”
That said, the SouthWorks vision has a long way to go. The toughest challenges lie ahead. / RL
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Look Up from your Phone
(July 7): “Well did he ever return, no he never returned…”
Your mind (like mine) may fly to The Kingston Trio’s song of “Charlie’s” endless ride on the Boston MTA as the verse most appropriate. But no, what you’ll find on TCAT buses these days are words quite different.
It’s not a first. TCAT admits the New York City transit system has sponsored a “Poetry in Motion” program since the 1990’s. But TCAT is now putting in place interior bus cards that display the words of Tompkins County’s Poets Laureate, former and present.
The County’s current Poet Laureate, Dan Rosenberg—he’s set to leave the community and his Cornell service in late July—reached out to the local agency about posting short poems for riders to read on their journeys. Rosenberg insisted works of past holders of his honor be included too. Seven were, plus his own poem.
TCAT artist Jenn Jennings provided accompanying illustrations. The short works or haikus are brief enough to fit on the 11 x 17 cards and still be easily read. Rosenberg’s contribution is called, “And the Something that Is.”
TCAT this week will begin installing at least two different poems out of the eight on each bus,” it states, “where they will remain indefinitely for riders to contemplate and enjoy.” / RL
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Nolan Joins Legislature
(July 4): Plainly put, Daniel Nolan is a “placeholder.” And his official elevation to the Tompkins County Legislature this week puts him in a seat he won’t hold long.
In a quiet ceremony July 3, apparently covered only by Tompkins County’s Communications Department, Democrat Nolan took the oath to succeed the likewise short-tenured Susan Currey to represent an Ithaca City district that swings counter-clockwise from South Hill to East Hill.
“I am incredibly grateful for this opportunity to once again serve the people of Tompkins County and to represent my friends and neighbors in Belle Sherman and South Hill,” Nolan said in a prepared statement.
“Though my time on the Legislature will be limited, I look forward to making the most of it and working with my colleagues to take on the pressing issues that continue to face our County,” Nolan concluded.
Indeed, brief his term will be. Nolan won a special election in late-June. Currey’s unexpired term runs only through December. New terms under redrawn district lines begin in January. Nolan did not compete for those positions, and none of the people who plan to succeed him ran in Nolan’s own uncontested race.
Why they didn’t remains confusing in its own right.
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Enfield Slowly Recovers
(July 3): A powerful storm—the National Weather Service warned it could have packed a tornado—roared through Enfield and other places in west-central Tompkins County Thursday, toppling trees, downing power lines, and shutting down key roadways.
“It was pretty intense,” Enfield Volunteer Fire Company First Assistant Chief Kevin Morse Jr., the Chief-in-Charge at the time, said of the suddenly-erupting storm that came almost out of nowhere and pummeled Enfield for the better part of an hour.
Morse and Fire Chief Jamie Stevens reported the fire company answered 14 calls itself. Twenty-six 911 calls came in for storm-related damage in other areas.
Enfield firefighters responded to two instances of trees having fallen on homes, one of which briefly trapped an elderly Applegate Road woman. (At least one other Enfield home was tree-damaged, but went unreported.)
Stevens said there were no injuries or fires. Nor were there immediate reports of buildings destroyed.
The National Weather Service’s 1:45 PM warning said “radar indicated rotation,” suggesting a tornado. Originating in Mecklenburg, the storm headed east into Ithaca, where it forced at least one big-box store to run on generators.
All of Enfield Center and Millers Corners remained without electricity into the evening. A nasty tree and power line tangle forced the closing of Route 13 between Route 327 and Five Mile Drive. It re-routed pre-holiday traffic onto Enfield country roads like Gray and Colegrove.
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Their Houses; Our Houses
(July 2): The gulf between Ithaca’s home prices and Enfield’s couldn’t be wider, if one accepts numbers shared by the Enfield Town Planning Board Wednesday.
The median home price in Tompkins County was $377,000, last December, Planning Board alternate Greg Hutnik quoted a Board of Realtors’ statistic.
Meanwhile, data drawn by Planning Board Chair Dan Walker pointed to about 50 percent of Enfield homes valued at $200,000 or less. Thirty-one percent came in between $200,000 and $300,000.
Pricing and availability questions arose as the Planning Board reviewed the “Housing” section of the Enfield Comprehensive Plan July 2nd, announcing no major revisions beyond the numbers.
It’s “almost a traffic jam” seeing cars coming to Ithaca in the morning, Planner Mike Carpenter remarked, “because there’s nowhere to live here.”
Enfield’s population remains stagnant at best. It actually fell by 150 over the decade to stand at 3,362 in 2020, about the same as in 2000.
“Younger persons in the family have moved out,” Walker surmised.
Hutnik and Carpenter talked of initiatives at the county level to have government itself step up to increase the housing stock. But for Enfield, that could prove a task beyond the town’s ability.
“Having private developers to solve the housing crisis is not working,” Hutnik asserted.
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Changing of the Guard
(July 1): For the third time in two years, the Enfield Fire District has new legal counsel.
Dictated by the planned retirement of its current attorney, Mark Butler, this December, the Enfield Board of Fire Commissioners Tuesday retained Niagara Falls-area lawyer Kevin Mahoney to represent it, effective immediately.
“We’re going to have two lawyers?” Fire Commissioner Barry “Buddy” Rollins asked.
“Technically, yeah,” Board Chair Greg Stevenson answered.
“It doesn’t make sense to involve an attorney who can’t be around in 2026,” Stevenson explained, noting that fire station lease negotiations with the building’s owner, the Enfield Volunteer Fire Company, will start soon, with lease terms to spill into next year.
As to billable hours, Stevenson said the board will attempt to avoid overlap. The newly-approved retainer specifies Mahoney’s hourly rate at $350, with lesser amounts for associate lawyers and clerks. Stevenson recalls Butler’s rate is comparable, if not higher.
Tuesday’s Commissioners’ action allows Mahoney and Butler to share files now and thereby ease the transition.
Two years ago, the Fire District’s first Board of Commissioners used yet a third attorney, Brad Pinsky. But Pinsky was jettisoned as soon as a newly-elected board reorganized the following January.
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