News Briefs:
Redmond eyes reelection
(Nov. 27): Giving her first public comment on the subject, Enfield Town Supervisor Stephanie Redmond said in a recent radio interview she will likely seek a fourth—now four-year—term in office.
“Have you decided to run again?” WHCU’s Joe Salzone asked Redmond during a morning news interview November 21st.
“I probably will, yes,” Redmond answered. “I think I will.”
Democrat Redmond was first elevated to Supervisor by the Town Board in January 2021 following the resignation of her predecessor.
Voters elected Redmond the following November, and then reelected her two years later. The first time she faced opposition from a write-in candidate. In 2023, she ran unopposed.
Redmond indicated she’d make a final decision about running when petitions circulate in the spring.
Voters earlier this month lengthened future terms for Supervisor and two other Enfield offices from two years to four. During her interview, Redmond applauded the change.
“It will really help create stability in these positions,” Redmond stated. “It also creates a level of ownership for these positions, so you can really get to know how to do the job really well and the ins and outs of it,” she said.
Some may think that the voters “own” the position, not the office-holder. But Redmond is entitled to her words… and her beliefs. / RL
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Tompkins Sites Homeless Shelter
(Nov. 26): Tompkins County has embarked on something it’s never really done before: shelter the homeless.
At a Tuesday news conference, County officials revealed the chosen site for a long-term emergency shelter facility. It’s a lot at 227 Cherry Street in Ithaca’s West End, not far from the so-called “jungle” encampments where many of the unhoused live.
The one-acre site will cost $1.1 Million. Our tax dollars will buy it.
“Of all the locations available, I believe this is the best site although I thought the price was too high,” legislator Randy Brown told municipal leaders Tuesday.
A fact sheet distributed by Brown states an additional $1 Million lies in the County’s Capital Program to actually develop the shelter. Up to $6.1 Million will also be sought next year from New York State.
“Tompkins County is in a position to significantly strengthen our shelter system, giving as many people as we can a safe place to go and a reasonable path out of negative situations,” Legislature Chair Dan Klein stated. “We agree with the vision of making homelessness rare, brief, and one time,” he added.
Ithaca City officials also crowed. “The City is glad to see the progress that the County is making and stands ready to partner and contribute where we can now and in the future,” Mayor Robert Cantelmo enounced. Tellingly, though, nowhere in the announcement does the City promise to cough up any money toward the purchase .
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Marc’s new Second Act?
(Nov. 18): The time when a job-hungry Congressional aspirant respected home district lines is long past. Remember Claudia Tenney?
Multiple sources report that Congressman Marc Molinaro, defeated in this month’s re-election bid in his home 19th District, is shopping around, eyeing a potential run for the North Country House seat likely soon to be vacated by Elise Stefanik, should she be confirmed as President-Elect Trump’s choice for U.N. Ambassador.
“A source familiar confirmed to the Washington Examiner that Molinaro is in the mix to be Stefanik’s successor,” the paper reported on Veteran’s Day.
“I am not done providing public service to the people of the state of New York, and quite frankly, considering what options might be available to me moving forward,” Republican Molinaro told a Spectrum News broadcast one night later.
Assuming Stefanik secured Senate confirmation in January, she’d resign the House and Governor Hochul would need to call a special election. There’d be no primary. Party committees would pick their nominees. The candidate need not live in the district.
Unlike the politically-blended 19th District—where Democrat Josh Riley will serve in Congress come January—Stefanik’s Adirondack-centered territory is ruby-red. In view of that, several other Republicans also consider running.
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Final: All Enfield Props Pass
(Nov. 15): They’re still unofficial, yet not expected to change.
Final tallies, released Friday by the Tompkins County Board of Elections, show that all three Enfield ballot propositions, those extending future terms of Town Supervisor, Town Clerk, and Highway Superintendent, secured voter approval, although the Supervisor’s term extension just squeaked by.
Friday’s revised tallies included for the first time the absentee ballots postmarked by Election Day, though received by elections officials up until nearly a week after the polls had closed.
The Enfield Supervisor’s term change cleared by just 32 votes (837 to 805, or a mere 51 to 49 per cent margin.)
Voters endorsed giving the Highway Superintendent a 4-year term, 903 votes to 754, a nine percentage point spread. The Town Clerk’s term fared best; 948 votes to 701, a 247 vote difference.
Nevertheless, in each referendum, 150 or more voters simply left the ballot issues blank.
Incumbents current terms aren’t affected. Extended terms for each of the Enfield offices will kick in with the 2025 elections. There’s the possibility that the initial terms filled in ’25 will be shortened by a year to conform to a state election year change. But the Albany initiative remains under review by state courts.
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Enfield goes to the dogs
(Nov. 13): At a meeting devoid of controversy, the Enfield Town Board Wednesday approved a two-year extension of its ongoing animal control contract with the Tompkins County SPCA.
Board members made no mention of concerns, voiced at their mid-October session, about a management culture at the Hanshaw Road animal shelter that one former volunteer described as existing “contrary to Tompkins County’s list of values and principles.”
Instead, Town Clerk Mary Cornell—labeled by this Councilperson as Enfield’s “Dog Czar”—said she was satisfied with the agreement now that an intermunicipal SPCA Advisory Board on which she sits had met for its first time in years and supported the agreement’s terms.
Enfield’s annual charge for SPCA dog control services will remain at $16,737.
The Town Board also completed review and forwarded to its attorney a long-discussed revised Dog Control and Licensing Law.
Members skirted prior controversy involving pet-owner liability. And while the SPCA demands that euthanasia remain an option for unclaimed impounded canines, the Board inserted words expressing the law’s intent that “any unredeemed dog shall be offered for adoption whenever practicable.”
Expect the Enfield Dog Law to go to Public Hearing in early-2025. / RL
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School Board seeks IDA seat
(Nov. 12): Three County legislators dominate its membership. An Ithaca City Alderperson holds a seat as well, as does a representative of organized labor. Now the Ithaca Board of Education seeks to resume its membership on the Tompkins County Industrial Development Agency (IDA), the powerful governmental board that grants big-bucks tax abatements.
“Some sort of school district or school board representation on the IDA is very much warranted,” ICSD Board member Jill Tripp said Tuesday. She moved a Resolution asking the County Legislature to add a permanent school board voting position on the IDA Board. All seven Ithaca School Board members attending Tuesday’s meeting endorsed the idea. The IDA’s expansion may require state legislation.
The Ithaca School Board once held a position on the IDA. Why it relinquished membership in 2005, some were not sure. Board President Sean Eversley Bradwell recalled it was ICSD’s own decision.
Eversley Bradwell referenced the IDA’s recent massive abatements given Ithaca’s Chainworks redevelopment. ICSD is the “largest taxing entity, so it’s affected,” the Board President said.
“The ICSD, along with other school districts in Tompkins County, has a vested interest in the decisions made by the TCIDA, as these decisions impact the funding available for essential educational programs, services, and infrastructure,” the adopted Resolution states.
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Recckio tapped at City Hall
(Nov. 8): Not so long ago, a modestly-paid mayor used to administer the City of Ithaca single-handedly. Not so, anymore.
Wednesday, Nov. 6, Common Council appointed Dominick Recckio, Tompkins County’s Communications Director since 2020, to fill a newly-created post of Deputy City Manager. In his new job, Recckio will earn $143,750 annually, assisting a City Manager who earns even much more.
The Ithaca Times reports Wednesday’s vote was not unanimous. Three alderpersons dissented, essentially arguing the job wasn’t needed.
Recckio’s experience lies in public relations, not law enforcement. Nonetheless, it’s reported Recckio’s first responsibility will be police oversight, most notably implementing racially-sensitive reimagining initiatives. He’ll also address Ithaca’s homelessness crisis.
The Times quotes Ithaca Mayor Robert Cantelmo as saying Recckio’s hiring is one of the final steps towards “settling into our new form of government.”
That may be true. But that “new form” is one in which elected politicians talk platitudes and highly-paid staff shoulders the load.
Welcome aboard, Dom. City Hall is a changin.’ / RL
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Free money; just call us
(Nov. 8): It’s gotta’ frustrate a couple of Enfield agencies that fought so hard for cash from the Tompkins County Community Recovery Fund, yet came up dry.
The Recovery Fund’s Advisory Committee this week resolved to recommend that up to $175,000 of the fund’s original $6.5 Million total, about 2.7 per cent, be repurposed for the County’s “Fleet Procurement Program” because agencies originally funded have yet to use the cash.
The committee identified five recipients as potential losers. A TC3 tuition reimbursement program is one of them. Another, the New Roots Charter School, could forfeit $93,000.
Advisory Committee and Legislature Chair Dan Klein said it’s often because agency leaders refuse to return funding officials’ phone calls.
“I don’t quite understand it either,” Klein told the committee. “But I guarantee it’s not for lack of trying; we want to give this money to people, but if they don’t do their part, we can’t.”
Enfield’s Community Council and Fire Company had vied for support from the Recovery Fund, yet never secured final approval. It’s too late now.
Washington’s rules require federally-subsidized contracts be finalized before year’s end. The unspent money would likely buy a couple of trucks, one for the County Highway Department.
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Shelter Helter-Skelter
(Nov. 7): Tompkins County chose not to declare a Homelessness “State of Emergency.” But that doesn’t mean it’s providing mandated emergency shelter facilities exactly like clockwork.
In a conference call to local elected leaders Thursday, County Administrator Lisa Holmes revealed that the St. John’s Community Services shelter on West State Street will cease operations November 8th, one week earlier than first planned. Media reports say St. John’s will close its doors to residents the afternoon of Thursday, the 7th.
But Holmes also told the call’s attendees that the makeshift Tompkins County Code Blue Shelter, the one at the former bank building near the Courthouse, won’t be ready until November 25th. That’s later than first planned. It’s a staffing issue.
Holmes described the bank-based downtown shelter as a “stopgap measure.” A permanent, pricier shelter is the long-range plan.
As for those displaced by the accelerated St. John’s closing, Holmes said “hotel rooms have been secured for most of those residents.”
But as for a “warming center,” also at St. John’s, the administrator said the Department of Social Services lobby will be employed during DSS office hours. The former bank, once finished, will warm the unhoused from 4 PM until 8 AM weekdays and all day, Saturdays, Sundays and holidays.
There’s yet another issue: dogs. “We do not have the capacity to handle animals at the Code Blue Shelter,” Holmes stated. “We’re working with the SPCA,” she added.
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Planners green-light tiny homes
(Nov. 6): It’s been an off-and-on plan since August. Wednesday night, the Enfield Town Planning Board gave it the go-ahead.
Planners unanimously granted Enfield contractor Patrick Head site plan approval for a cluster of four “tiny houses” near the corner of Enfield Center and East Van Dorn Roads.
“The Project involves the construction of four, 2 bedroom approximately 720 Square Foot homes on a 1-acre site,” the Planning Board’s authorization states. “The buildings will be supplied water from a common well and will utilize a shared onsite wastewater treatment system located on an adjacent 1-acre lot that has been approved by the Tompkins County Health Department.”
Head had originally advanced his tiny-house idea three months ago, He then quietly withdrew his plans thinking he’d sell the one-acre parcel as a single lot. That, too, got sidelined, and Head returned to his original plans.
The Planning Board in the past has lauded the tiny-house concept as an efficient way to expand Enfield’s affordable housing stock.
Wednesday’s approval came at one of the shortest Planning Board sessions in recent memory, barely a half-hour. One member admitted he’d been up too late watching election returns the night before.
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Open to public; not politics
(Nov. 3): Is a high school athletic field truly open to the public, or just to the people school officials say should be there?
Democratic Congressional Candidate Josh Riley got his hands slapped this past week after he recorded a campaign ad on the stands of the Union-Endicott High School Stadium. School officials complained, forcing Riley to take down the commercial, one in which he’d talked with his former football coach.
“As a public institution dedicated to education, we maintain a neutral position and do not endorse or support any political candidates or parties,” The New York Post’s Vaughn Golden reports a school district spokesperson as stating.
“Our focus is on providing a quality education and supporting the well-being of our students, regardless of external political influences,” the statement continued.
Broome County, where Union-Endicott is located, has a much more politically-blended constituency than does Tompkins County. Golden reports some residents there questioned the school’s involvement in the ad. It had none, and told Riley he hadn’t gotten permission to shoot on school property.
Riley’s campaign took down the ad the same day as the district raised the issue.
Golden reports that Riley’s campaign had also attempted to hold a press conference on school grounds, but was asked to move to the sidewalk.
What’s not stated is whether the “no politics” policy at U-E was written, or just impromptu.
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