News Briefs:
June 2026
CHES Flood Abatement Advances
(June 30): An essential and time-sensitive component of repairing Ithaca’s flood-damaged Cayuga Heights Elementary School (CHES) won approval from Ithaca’s Board of Education Tuesday.
In its final meeting of the academic year, the board gave unanimous consent to a more than $118,000 contract to abate asbestos-laden flooring from the mid-20th Century school. It’s time-sensitive work because it can only be done when students are away.
Water cascading down a rear hillside during heavy rains March 31 flooded floors and soaked walls on the Heights School’s first floor. Instruction moved to upper levels, and the building stayed open.
Board members discussed the abatement very little Tuesday. They approved a Waterville firm’s contract as part of a 21-item consent agenda.
But after the meeting, Project Manager Travis Randall stated that remediation may start during the third week of July and finish by August 15. Because of the critical timing, normal bidding was circumvented. MJ’s Contracting submitted the lower of two offers. Randall said normally more would seek the work, but many already had other contracts lined up.
In April, the board set aside $1.5 Million for repairs at CHES. Randall cautions other aspects of the work will continue for another full year, with crews having to relocate classrooms from time to time to fix what’s damaged.
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ECC: Big Plans; Big Bucks
(June 25): Before planning details for this year’s September 19 Harvest Festival, the Enfield Community Council (ECC) Board of Directors Thursday discussed capital needs, immediate and long-term.
Pending mortgage approval, the ECC will re-roof its Community Center later this year.
But beyond that—and it would require grant funding, yet to be secured—the council would replace its boiler with heat pumps.
Board member Debbie Teeter shared estimates: $67,000 for the heat pumps, $60,000 to upgrade electrical capacity and purchase a generator, and perhaps $120,000 to install solar panels atop the roof.
“We absolutely have to have solar,” Teeter stated, figuring that the sun’s rays would defray higher utility costs.
The ECC has hopes that its center can become an emergency shelter. And air conditioning, among other upgrades, would be needed to earn that designation.
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EVFC’s Driver’s License Mandate
(June 25): Enfield’s Board of Fire Commissioners stood poised at its last meeting to scrap a pair of volunteer requirements that may have outlived their time. One requires Enfield Volunteer Fire Company volunteers to hold a High School diploma or the equivalent. The other demands a valid Driver’s License.
But Commissioners stopped short of the policy change at the June 16 meeting. The driver’s license mandate might seem the more needless of the two. Not necessarily.
Enfield Fire Company President Dennis Hubbell said he’s known of a few who lack licenses, yet drive to the station anyway.
“So what happens if they drive over someone and they kill them?” Hubbell raised the hypothetical question. “You, the fire company, are responsible if something happens,” Hubbell answered himself.
The company president admitted that volunteer applicants without licenses are rare. Still, Commissioners Chair Greg Stevenson remarked that unlike in the past, “Many kids today are well into their twenties and could care less about getting a driver’s license.”
Commissioners will check with their insurance carrier before waiving the mandates.
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Great idea: Won’t happen
(June 25): The two political parties—especially the Democrats—wield tremendous power in New York State. That’s why an election reform advanced by a downstate Assemblymember is not likely to happen anytime soon.
Robert Carroll’s bill gained brief media attention in the wake of New York’s June 23 Primary. The Brooklyn progressive would open New York’s primaries to all registered voters, including Independents. It would also establish rank-choice voting in every primary election except that for President.
“The best way for New York to increase voter participation and foster competitive elections is to have primary elections where all voters can participate,” Carroll’s bill gives as justification.
“This system will fundamentally change the competitiveness and quality of New York’s November general elections and therefore create far more incentive for voters to turn out to vote,” Carroll’s reasoning continues.
Not only would the change permit the non-aligned registrant to vote. He or she could also run as a primary candidate. Under the so-called “Jungle Primary,” as practiced in California, the top two finishers would advance to the general election, regardless of affiliation.
In places like Tompkins County, where Democrats dominate, the change could place two Democrats on the November ballot.
Problem is, Carroll’s initiative has no State Senate sponsor. It died in an Assembly committee this term. And it’s been advanced unsuccessfully twice before.
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Alissa to take on Tenney in NY-24
(June 23): An Army Veteran who says her job at a Veterans Administration hospital was cut by Elon Musk will now be running to unseat one of President Trump’s most loyal cheerleaders in Congress, Claudia Tenney.
Alissa Ellman, who said her VA hospital firing prompted her candidacy, defeated Batavia area businesswoman Diana Kastenbaum Tuesday in the 24th Congressional District Democratic primary.
NY-24 touches Tompkins County just north of Trumansburg. It includes Seneca, Ontario, Yates Counties; 14 counties in whole or in part, stretching from the Watertown area west to Niagara County.
It’s Republican-leaning, meaning Ellman faces an uphill fight against incumbent Tenney in the fall.
With 504 of 594 polling districts having reported by late Tuesday, Ellman led Kastenbaum, 8,741 votes (61.5 percent) to 5,480 (38.5 percent).
Those partial returns showed Kastenbaum leading only in her home county of Genesee. In Seneca County, Ellman bested her opponent better than two-to-one, 596 votes to 242, with all that county’s districts having reported.
Ellman, an army combat veteran, said her firing in the first round of Musk-engineered, Trump-supported DOGE cuts “kinda lit a fire under my butt to run for Congress because I was so disappointed in the leadership … that we currently have,” she told North Country Public Radio.
Now, she’ll face Republican Tenney…and in a year when outcomes are unpredictable.
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Oberacker Beats Portelli in NY-19
(June 23): Alexander Portelli ran a maverick’s campaign for Congress. But the maverick lost.
With most returns reported from Tuesday’s Republican Primary in the Congressional District that includes Tompkins County, State Senator Peter Oberacker, endorsed by GOP party leaders, handily defeated Portelli, and will now go on to face Democratic Congressman Josh Riley in the fall.
With 646 of 654 precincts in the 19th Congressional District having reported, Oberacker beat Portelli, 13,567 votes (77.8 percent) to Portelli’s 3,864 votes (22.2 percent).
Oberacker secured majority support of Republican voters in every one of the 19th District’s eleven counties.
In Tompkins County, Oberacker won 386 votes (68.6 percent) to Portelli’s 177 (31.4 percent).
Peter Oberacker’s Senate District, before reapportionment, once included several of Tompkins County’s eastern towns.
Alex Portelli’s right-of-center populist insurgency included his pledge, if elected, to purge foreign energy companies, like New York State Electric and Gas, from the Empire State.
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OMCS Budget Revote Passes
(June 17): “We’re very thankful,” an Odessa-Montour Central School spokesperson remarked the day after district voters, on their second attempt, approved Tuesday a revised 2026-27 budget by the needed supermajority.
Because the Odessa-Montour proposed tax levy exceeded the state-calculated tax cap, passage required a 60 percent support. The revote exceeded that threshold by a wide margin, approving the retooled $23.15 Million budget, 279 votes (75.4%) in favor, just 91 votes (24.6%) opposed.
The original OMCS budget, which exceeded the 3.12 percent tax cap by a wider margin, won a simple majority when decided by voters in May, but failed to secure 60 percent approval. It was the only school budget to fail locally.
An OMCS district newsletter states that school board-authorized revisions between the first budget and the revised one cut approximately $119,000 from expenditures. Newly-approved grant moneys for the Universal Prekindergarten program also helped.
As approved in the June 16 revote, next year’s OMCS tax levy will rise by 6.2 percent, less than half the 13 percent forecast in the earlier, rejected budget.
Had the revote failed, district officials had warned of painful cuts to sports, elimination of summer programs, and the layoff of three to five teachers.
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Tompkins Overrides Tax Cap… Just
(June 17): With no votes to spare, the Tompkins County Legislature Tuesday approved potential override of the state-calculated tax cap with next year’s budget.
The vote June 16 was ten to six. It barely reached the 60 percent supermajority required.
Enfield’s representatives split. Democrat Rachel Ostlund supported the override. Randy Brown joined all other Republicans plus three Democrats in opposing it.
One of those Democrats, Greg Mezey, was the override’s leading critic.
“I think the cap is a discipline mechanism,” Mezey argued. “I think that the moment we override it we lose the discipline in the budget process.”
Ithaca’s Veronica Pillar saw it differently. “I don’t think we’re all going to go nuts just because we’re allowed to exceed it,” she said of the cap.
“I resent the state trying to tell us how to be responsible,” override supporter Irene Weiser stated.
At a budget retreat in early-May, County Administrator Korsah Akumfi predicted the upcoming year’s cap would stand at around 2.75 percent. Without an override, no tax levy increase could exceed it.
Tompkins County has seldom, if ever gone over the tax cap regardless of the override votes it takes.
Nonetheless, Legislature Chair Shawna Black Tuesday predicted the toughest of budget years ahead and that an override with this fall’s budget stands likely.
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“Most Dangerous Intersection” Revisited
(June 12): People have died at the intersection of Route 79 and Applegate Road in Enfield. The state has made minor improvements in recent years, yet taken only half-measures.
Now the Enfield Town Board wants traffic engineers to look again. By a unanimous vote June 10, the board urged Tompkins County and New York State to re-study the “Applegate Corners” crossing, particularly in light of a new electrical pole recently placed at its southeast corner, a pole further obstructing driver visibility.
“It is the most dangerous intersection in Enfield,” Councilperson Robert Lynch, sponsor of Wednesday’s Resolution, told Board members. “It’s a dangerous, terrible intersection. Something has to be done,” Lynch continued. “It’s not really a question right now of people being able to stop. It is a question of people not being able to see.”
In late 2023, the Enfield Board adopted a similar safety request. Months later, state officials installed additional and improved signs. But they declined to reduce the Route 79 speed limit east of the intersection below 55 miles per hour. Nor did they approve more expensive improvements, such as an overhead blinker.
The latest Town Board resolution renews its request for new “traffic control devices.” It also recommends foliage removal and relocation of the problemsome pole.
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Newfield Advances Data Center Pause
(June 12): Building on the initiative taken by Dryden and others—with similar limits also under consideration in Enfield—the Newfield Town Board Thursday advanced to a July Public Hearing a local law imposing a one-year moratorium on allowing any data center or cryptocurrency mine within Newfield’s limits.
“The Town Board finds and determines that any Data Processing, if approved without amendment to the (Town’s) Comprehensive Plan and adoption of appropriate local laws, could have a harmful effect on the health, safety and welfare of any existing or future residents of the Town,” the three-page draft moratorium law states.
By a 4:0 vote June 11 (Councilperson Casey Powers was excused), the Board set July 9 for the public hearing. It could enact the moratorium thereafter.
Like Enfield, Newfield has no zoning law. So legislating an outright ban may prove trickier than in Dryden. Like Enfield, Newfield will likely assign writing duties to its Planning Board, although Newfield could also designate some “other select committee.”
Town Attorney Tom Smith advised that one year is about as long as court precedent allows a moratorium to run.
And although the New York State Legislature recently enacted its own one-year pause on data center permitting, Smith warned that Governor Hochul may not sign the bill for fear it would impede key industries like the new Micron plant near Syracuse.
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Enfield Man Hurt in TCHD Rollover
(June 4): A now-released police report indicates that an Enfield man was among four injured last month in a two-vehicle crash that involved a Tompkins County Highway Department truck.
The 40-year old Harvey Hill Road resident was driving the Department’s pickup May 19 when it was t-boned at the intersection of West Dryden Road and Wood Road by a driver who, in the investigating officer’s words “blew the stop sign.”
As he first reported to the Tompkins County Legislature the evening of the crash, County Administrator Korsah Akumfi said the Department’s vehicle “rolled over once or twice.” Akumfi had then misstated the accident’s exact location.
The Sheriff’s Department reports the accident hospitalized both the driver and his passenger in each of the two vehicles. Akumfi advised legislators that the County truck’s occupants were treated and released.
The other vehicle’s driver, Jeffrey Moll of Rochester, was deemed at fault and ticketed.
The Sheriff’s report confirmed “heavy damage to both vehicles.” Debris still littered the road shoulder near the accident scene when inspected more than two weeks later. Timbers lining a nearby ditch were also dislodged, consistent with a violent collision.
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No Show; No Act on Enfield Tower
(June 3): It pays to show up, especially when you’re asking government to bend the rules. Promoters of a new Enfield cell tower need learn that.
Wednesday, June 3, the Enfield Town Planning Board held a deep-dive review into Harmoni Towers’ application for a new, 170-foot free-standing structure at 215 Van Dorn Road North, a tower once planned for near the road, but now moved back to the lot’s rear.
To planners’ surprise, no one from the development firm, from Verizon Wireless, or the local property owner bothered to appear. And because the board had questions no one could answer, it delayed indefinitely a public hearing that might otherwise have been set for as soon as July.
“I expected the applicant to be here,” Board Chair Dan Walker commented. “We’re not ready to have a public hearing yet,” he concluded.
Harmoni’s absence may have cost the developer in other ways. Harmoni seeks a waiver from the Enfield requirement that dictates a sufficient “fall zone” exist should the tower collapse.
Walker expressed greatest concern about the legally insufficient fall zone and the tower’s proximity to the lot line.
“If they want to put that tower there, they’re going to have agreements with adjacent property owners,” Walker predicted.
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May 2026
Grieving Together in Love
(May 27): Never mentioning her name or referencing the circumstances surrounding her death, the Ithaca Board of Education, administrators, and students, paid tribute to 19-year old Breanne Keane, a senior at Lehman Alternative Community School (LACS) at the board’s Tuesday, May 26 meeting.
Keane died Saturday following a stabbing in her apartment. Her alleged assailant has been charged with murder.
“As many of you know, our community is grieving a student, a senior,” LACS student Board of Education representative Emily Isaacs quietly began the conversation. “We started today with a short session in our family groups to process and point students to additional support available in our building,” she said.
“We’re experiencing a loss,” Board President Dr. Sean Eversley Bradwell observed. “I want to leave time for us to acknowledge that; thank you for reminding us and remembering,” Eversley Bradwell told his student board member.
“It was a tough weekend, a long weekend; it wasn’t a holiday weekend,” School Superintendent Dr. Luvelle Brown concurred. “My daddy always said you learn a lot about people when things happen like this,” Brown said. “And I didn’t learn until it was affirmed to me how special the LACS community is.”
“What I saw this morning was pretty special in the way (students and staff) came together and led and supported one another in love,” the Superintendent related. “And when you see it, it’s hard to un-see it.”
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Secret Donor Propels Park
(May 27): Even some Town Board members don’t know who’s writing the check. But an anonymous donor has pumped $5,000 of seed money into developing a “Youth Park” on the flagging site of the Enfield SkateGarden.
At a hastily-convened May 26 Town Board meeting that lasted but minutes, the Board took the needed step to accept the donation. The vote was 4-0 (Councilperson Jude Lemke was excused).
The only questions came from Councilperson Robert Lynch. He asked if state law permits accepting anonymous gifts, lest a secret party buy influence. Supervisor Stephanie Redmond said she knew of no such prohibition.
Lynch also asked if acceptance “obligates” the Town to further develop the former SkateGarden site. He noted that at a prior meeting, one critic called for bulldozing SkateGarden flat.
Redmond asserted that “except maybe for you” (meaning Lynch) the Enfield Board has already committed to the youth park.
While the Town did invite a Cornell University design class to advance conceptual ideas—plans shared at the Board’s May 13 meeting—the board’s taken no recent votes to authorize the park or spend Town funds to transform it.
The adopted May 26 resolution accepts $5,000 donation “specifically for the improvement and maintenance of the youth park.”
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Not Quite New York for All
(May 27): Immigrant rights advocates in New York have fallen short again this year in passing sweeping protections against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids.
Instead, they must settle for partial protection as negotiated between Governor Hochul and legislative leaders, adopted by both houses May 21, and now signed by the governor.
What passed embodied the core principles of Hochul’s “Local Cops, Local Crimes Act.” It bars local law enforcement agencies from entering into “formal” agreements with ICE. It also prohibits officers from wearing masks except in certain instances, and allows people to sue government officials if they suspect violation of Constitutional rights.
What the compromise doesn’t provide, but the more restrictive “New York for All Act” would have, is to limit “informal” collaboration between local police and federal authorities over immigration enforcement.
By a party line vote April 7, the Tompkins County Legislature endorsed “New York for All.” Ulysses-Enfield’s Rachel Ostlund was the endorsement’s sponsor. Ostlund claimed that Sheriff Derek Osborne supports the bill.
But Assembly minority leader Ed Ra opposed even the compromise measure. “Thanks to Albany Democrats. New York is now a sanctuary state on steroids,” Ra told Spectrum news.
Meanwhile, New York for All sponsor Julia Salazar promised to press forward toward her bill’s enactment.
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Scaling back the Center
(May 25): County Administrator Korsah Akumfi has been a driving force behind a Tompkins County Downtown Center of Government. But according to revised plans presented a legislative committee last week, Akumfi would never get to work there.
Downsized plans, detailed for the Facilities and Infrastructure Committee May 21 would reduce the number of departments in the planned Courthouse-adjacent building from 13 to ten. County Administration and Human Resources would return to the Old Jail, where they’d been until recently. The Planning Department would remain on the first floor of the “Old Courthouse.”
Akumfi wasn’t present at the meeting to react. But Newfield-Enfield legislator Randy Brown was.
“I appreciate your moving things around and doing what you have to do,” Brown told the project manager, “But I think that decision needs to come before the full Legislature as opposed to just making it in stone here.”
In March, architects were tasked with shrinking the proposed building after the Legislature deadlocked and prevented the Center of Government from expanding from its earlier-approved footprint of 45-48,000 square feet and its price of $50 Million.
Building a larger, 57,000 square foot building would cost $64 Million or more.
Revised drawings shared with the committee keep the hybrid brick and stone façade looking about the same as it did when architects first unveiled plans last December. But revisions would eliminate most of an earlier-planned fourth floor.
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Suspect Identified in Local student’s Death
(May 25): Updated: Cayuga Heights Police Monday identified the suspect arrested and charged with murder in the Saturday, May 23 stabbing death of a 19- year old Breanne Stacy Keane, a student at Ithaca’s Lehman Alternative Community School.
Damien Stewart was charged with second-degree murder and is being held in Tompkins County Jail, according to The Ithaca Voice.
Cayuga Heights Police Chief Jerry Wright identified Stewart as the sole suspect in a news release Monday. Wright said the investigation is ongoing.
Wright’s report confirms the basic details of a story first published late Sunday by the Syracuse Post-Standard.
Breanne Keane was set to graduate from the Lehman school next month, according to the victim’s father, Matt Keane.
Mr. Keane told the Post-Standard that police had informed him that the suspect had stabbed his daughter multiple times in the chest, abdomen and face.
According to The Voice, Chief Wright said police responded to a stabbing incident at approximately 2 p.m. on May 23 at 709 Triphammer Road in Cayuga Heights. Ms. Keane succumbed to her injuries while she was being transported to a local trauma center, police reported.
In a Facebook posting Sunday, Matt Keane said his daughter loved animals, had been accepted at Tompkins Cortland Community College to study canine training, and had planned to advance to SUNY Cobleskill.
Details about the suspect, Damien Stewart, were not immediately reported.
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Kotlikoff: Cornell “not perfect”
(May 24): More than 8,000 Cornell University graduates received their degrees in a cold rain Saturday.
And despite recently-publicized confrontations between students and administrators, no observed incidents disrupting either of the two Schoellkopf Field events occurred.
That said, the careful observer could read between the lines of University President Michael Kotlikoff’s delivered remarks.
“Our democracy is not perfect and Cornell is not perfect,” Kotlikoff said at one point in his afternoon address.
On April 30, following a university-sponsored debate on Israel and Palestine, Kotlikoff was accused of backing his car into one person and running over the foot of another after a group of students followed him to his vehicle. The story gained national coverage.
Authorities have declined to press charges against either Kotlikoff or the students. Nonetheless, the university president has labeled the confrontation “intimidation and harassment.”
Kotlikoff’s commencement speech made no direct reference to either the late-April incident or to Palestinian-Israeli tensions on campus. Instead, it advanced tolerance and open dialogue.
“In our democracy, everyone must be able to air their views, to protest and debate, to say things others might find offensive” the president stated. “But playing fields and democracies have rules that are meant to protect everyone,” he added. “Enforcing those rules is rarely popular. But without those rules, one person’s passion becomes another’s tyranny.”
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Electric School Bus Mandate Delayed
(May 24): Passed by both houses of the State Legislature and likely soon to be signed by Governor Hochul is a 5-year reprieve on New York’s mandate that all school districts buy only zero-emission (electric-powered) school buses beginning next year.
The mandate’s delay was included in a massive “Education, Labor and Family Assistance” budget bill adopted May 20. It passed 58-3 in the Senate and 119-25 in the Assembly. Both Senator Lea Webb and Assemblymember Anna Kelles supported it.
The legislation pushes back the required purchase of the more expensive electric buses until 2032 and postpones the requirement for an all-electric fleet from 2035 until 2040.
The Ithaca City School District has for two consecutive years avoided electric bus purchases, saying it lacks the grid capacity to power the vehicles.
Some Republican legislators have said the delay doesn’t go far enough. They seek the mandate’s outright repeal. Public health and environmental groups, including the American Lung Association and the New York League of Conservation Voters urged retaining the original deadlines.
Republican Tom O’Mara, who represents neighboring Seneca and Schuyler Counties, was among the three senators who opposed the education bill. But O’Mara’s floor statements addressed only the overall legislation, not the bus mandate. O’Mara called the bill’s contents “piecemeal” and its adoption “premature.”
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OMCS Retools, Resubmits Budget
(May 23): Responding to the May 19 defeat of its budget, the Odessa-Montour Board of Education Thursday revised its nearly $23.4 Million 2026-27 spending plan downward and set June 16 for a public revote.
The rejected budget would have raised the property tax levy by 13 per cent. But according to a Schuyler County online publication, The Odessa File, school board members amended the budget to bring the levy increase down to 6.2 percent.
The revised levy remains above the state-calculated 3.12 percent tax cap and will still require a 60 percent supermajority to pass.
In Tuesday’s vote, Odessa-Montour voters provided the original budget a simple majority. But the 254 to 192 vote provided only 57 percent approval, not the larger margin required.
The media report lists the revised budget’s total at $23,250,708—some $239,000 less than before—and cites increased state Foundation Aid and pre-Kindergarten aid as factors reducing the property tax request.
Odessa-Montour was the only of four school districts serving Enfield whose budget lost this week.
Voting June 16 will be from Noon until 8 PM. Should this second budget fail, a contingency budget remains the board’s only alternative.
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EVFC Ride Rule Tightened
(May 21): It’s long been Enfield Volunteer Fire Company (EVFC) policy that a family member, friend, or trainee could hitch a ride on a fire truck or other emergency vehicle so long as the Fire Chief approved. No longer.
Following a 45-minute closed session May 19, the Enfield Board of Fire Commissioners unanimously voted to amend the fire service’s “Standard Operating Guide” (SOG) to require that only they, the commissioners, could give such consent.
“It’s an issue,” was all that Commissioners Chair Greg Stevenson would say after the meeting as to what’s prompted the altered policy. He declined to give particulars.
Stevenson offered the hypothetical example of a firefighter wanting his grandchildren to ride with him in a parade. It may still be allowed, the chairman said, so long as the board approves beforehand.
Word was that commissioners wanted Fire Chief Jamie Stevens to join them for the closed discussion. But Stevens left early.
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Highway Workers Injured, Administrator Reports
(May 21): Warning: Details of the incident, as the Administrator first reported it, may contain inaccurate information. Attempts are being made to correct the record. / RL
(May 20): Two Tompkins County Highway Department employees were injured and their vehicle destroyed in a Hanshaw Road accident Tuesday, County Administrator Korsah Akumfi reported to the Tompkins County Legislature that evening.
“Unfortunately, one of our vehicles of the Highway (Department) was involved in an accident today,” Akumfi told the Legislature. “Two of our staff members are involved. They are fine. They went into the hospital and they (medical personnel) released them,” Akumfi told lawmakers.
Neither police, County public relations staff, nor the media had reported on the accident as of Wednesday morning. But as Akumfi described it in a brief report, another vehicle ran a red light at a controlled intersection. The Highway Department vehicle was then T-Boned, and one of the vehicles “rolled over once or twice.”
Both vehicles were totaled. Akumfi did not detail the type of his department’s vehicle.
“What concerned us are our staff,” Akumfi told legislators. “We are glad they are home and will check on them tomorrow morning,” the administrator assured.
Asked by a legislator about the occupants of the other vehicle, Akumfi could not supply details, but stated that he believed there were “no significant issues” with those persons and that he presumes “they are doing well.”
This story will be updated as details emerge.
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Enfield Board Delegates Data Law
(May 14): If the Town of Enfield adopts a ban on data centers, or something less than that, the legislation will likely first pass through its Planning Board.
At the Town Board’s meeting May 13, Councilperson Jude Lemke acknowledged she still needed to refine the language of a three-page local law she’d drafted to impose a ban.
As an alternative, the Town Board adopted, with modifications, an alternative resolution Councilperson Robert Lynch had advanced. The resolution stopped short of a ban. But it instructed the Planning Board to write “potential legislation” that the Town Board could later enact.
The Planning Board was given six months to finish its task.
“The well-publicized, divided public sentiment expressed among Town of Lansing residents concerning the proposed Tera Wulf AI Data Center affirms that the evaluation of relative benefits versus drawbacks of such centers defies kneejerk reactions, bandwagon bans, or otherwise hasty municipal responses, but rather calls for reasoned deliberation followed by responsible regulation,” the Lynch resolution states.
It’s possible Lemke’s stronger measure could return to the Town Board for action, even before planners finish their task.
Lemke first suggested Enfield’s data center ban in March following the Town of Dryden’s placing a similar prohibition within its zoning law.
Enfield lacks the supportive infrastructure for data centers that Lansing or Dryden has. Nonetheless, some Enfield Board members prefer excess caution.
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Enfield Billboard Moratorium Passes
(May 14): Enfield has only one billboard; two sides of plywood along Mecklenburg Road. And it will have no more than that from now through November.
Following a public hearing, held open for 15 minutes, but where nobody directly addressed the issue, the Enfield Town Board Wednesday adopted a six-month moratorium on placement of any new billboards within the town.
“This moratorium will allow time for the Town’s Planning Board to complete its current review of a various local billboard ordinances with the intent of making recommendations to the Town Board for a proposed Town ordinance regulating the construction, installation, or placement of billboards within the boundaries of the Town,” the May 13 adopted law states, “and for the Town Board to review, approve and adopt any such proposed ordinance.”
Supervisor Stephanie Redmond and other Board members got the jitters in February when the Codes Officer received an informal inquiry asking whether Enfield allowed billboards. Officials feared the worst.
The Planning Board discussed a proposed sign/billboard law in early-April, but reached no conclusions. At least one Planning Board member, Rich Teeter, suggested the solution lies in regulation, not prohibition.
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Anna’s Washing Machine Law
(May 11): The well-intentioned regulators who have your washing machines rip up your clothes so as not to drain Cayuga Lake dry may soon impose a new mandate. And Tompkins County’s Assemblymember is its prime sponsor.
In her weekly constituent message May 11, Anna Kelles announced passage of “The Washing Machine Microfiber Filtration Act.” It would mandate that by 2030 “no new washing machines shall be offered for sale in (New York State) without a microfiber filtration system.”
“Research has shown that microscopic plastic fibers shed from synthetic clothing during washing are a major source of microplastic pollution,” Kelles writes.
“Scientists are increasingly studying potential links between long-term microplastic exposure and inflammation, oxidative stress, endocrine disruption, respiratory impacts, reproductive and developmental effects, and other chronic health concerns,” our Assemblymember continues. She admits that “research on specific human health outcomes is still evolving.”
Legislative records indicate Kelles’ bill cleared the Assembly, 115-28, on March 18. It may still be before a Senate committee.
Never stated, of course, is how much the filtration system would add to a washing machine’s cost or the consumer burdens in cleaning the filters and lawfully disposing the residue.
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ITA Backs Tripp, Garner; Bypasses Cardona
(May 9): In a reversal of its preferences of one year ago, the Ithaca Teachers Association (ITA) PAC has endorsed candidate Jill Tripp to return to the Ithaca Board of Education.
The ITA also endorsed newcomer Sara Garner in her first-ever candidacy, but declined to re-endorse Madeline Cardona, who filled a one-year vacancy in the 2025 election and sought a full, three-year term this cycle.
The ITA’s endorsements, posted on its website, but without elaboration, also supported incumbent Garrick Blalock for the third of three positions open in the May 19 election.
Backing of the ITA, Ithaca’s instructional union, often propels board candidates to victory, especially in low-turnout elections.
After serving a single term, Jill Tripp lost last year’s election after failing to secure the ITA’s endorsement. “This year’s candidacy was prompted by my loss last year,” Tripp, a 30-year district employee, now retired, stated in answer to an ITA candidate questionnaire.
Meanwhile, Sara Garner, Director of Community Nursery School in Ithaca, said she’s concerned over “a lack of accountability in leadership” and poor student performance.
Last September, “despite more than a hundred community members speaking out… to ask the Board to delay or reconsider the vote to extend the superintendent’s contract, their concerns were not meaningfully addressed,” Garner stated on her questionnaire, “That is not what responsive board leadership looks like,” she said.
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NY Dems’ Sleeper Primary
(May 9): Contrary to earlier speculation, Democrats will have a June Primary this year. But don’t be surprised if participation hits record lows; that is, unless either of two upstart candidacies catches fire.
For Democrats, the only primary nomination to be decided across Tompkins County is that for State Comptroller. Incumbent Tom DiNapoli has held the post since 2007. But on May 5, the New York State Board of Elections certified Drew Warshaw and Raj Goyle as challengers.
Both men submitted sufficient petitions to qualify for the ballot. A party endorsement at a February convention assured DiNapoli a line in the primary.
Electing a Comptroller sounds as bland as picking an accountant. But this year’s primary could prove different.
Both Warshaw and Goyle are running to the left of DiNapoli. In many respects, their platforms mirror each other. They’d divest from fossil fuels and from foreign bonds. Warshaw specifically names Israel. They’d each pump more into affordable housing.
Goyle would target utility rate hikes and profits. He faults DiNapoli’s management of the enormous state pension fund.
Warshaw graduated from Cornell and was Chief of Staff of the Port Authority during World Trade Center reconstruction. Raj Goyle, once a Kansas legislator, most recently headed a legal analytics company.
It will take progressive push to make June 23 anything other than a DiNapoli coronation. It didn’t help either insurgent when the liberal Working Families Party May 6 declined to endorse anyone in the race.
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Budget Deal… Maybe Not
(May 9): Underscoring the dysfunctional nature of New York budget politics, Governor Kathy Hochul on Thursday of this week announced that “agreement has been reached” with State Senate and Assembly legislative leaders on what she termed “key priorities” of a 2026-27 State Budget.
But before the day was over, one of those leaders, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, denied that a deal had been struck. Hochul spoke prematurely, Heastie told The Gothamist. We may be “close,” he said. But nearly 50 items remain unresolved.
As New York does things, an annual budget is as much about policy as spending. Governor Hochul’s more than 2,400-word budget proclaiming press release—long on generalities, short on details—would spend $268 Billion.
There’d be no new general taxes. But Hochul’s “agreement” would approve that much-touted Pied-a-terre tax on $5 Million second homes, yet only in New York City. There’s be a $1 Billion statewide energy rebate, but only given out once. Pre-K would be free and available for all four-year old’s, but not until 2028.
Some climate laws would be rolled back. But the announcement makes no mention of ending the electric school bus mandate.
And what’s captured national headlines, the purported deal would unmask Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and constrain local police from cooperating with ICE.
Speaker Heastie has sent the Assembly home, for now. And it may take weeks to write Hochul’s handshakes into law. New York could have the most delayed budget since 2010.
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Portelli, GOP Primary Back On
(May 2; updated May 9): Because of a single candidate’s uphill battle for Congress, Republicans across Tompkins County and the NY-19 District will have a primary this year.
Democrats, on the other hand, have only a State Comptroller primary locally this cycle. A Town of Ulysses Councilperson’s race is the only exception.
The off-then-on Republican primary comes after Alex Portelli, a 36-year old resident of Cherry Valley, succeeded April 24 in beating back petition challenges that initially had jeopardized his candidacy to unseat Democratic Congressman Josh Riley.
Barring any further legal maneuvers, Portelli holds the right to challenge State Senator Peter Oberacker, endorsed by the GOP establishment, in the June 23 Republican Primary district-wide.
The Oberacker-Portelli contest will be the only nomination Tompkins County Republicans will decide that day.
For the Democrats, State Senator Lea Webb, Assemblymember Anna Kelles, Tompkins County Sheriff Derek Osborne and County Clerk aspirant Rachel Graham, seek party nominations unopposed.
Alex Portelli’s volunteers collected over 1600 Republican signatures to qualify him for the primary. Portelli claims he gathered nearly 1,100 of those names himself. Elections officials required 1,250.
In response to a Columbia County woman’s objection, those officials had initially invalidated 387 of the names, but then restored enough of them to reach the threshold.
“The State Board of Elections has determined… that the objector was Lying about her accusations that I committed fraud for my petitions,” Portelli asserted April 24 on social media.
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