Monthly Report
Tompkins County Council of Governments
for October 9, 2024
by Councilperson Robert Lynch
Enfield TCCOG Representative
The Tompkins County Council of Governments (TCCOG) met September 26th. A scheduling conflict prevented my attendance as I was representing Enfield at the annual meeting of the Greater Tompkins County Municipal Health Insurance Consortium. TCCOG had to meet at an earlier hour that date so as to accommodate a Tompkins County legislative committee meeting whose own meeting ironically was later canceled. Nonetheless, I have monitored the online recording of the TCCOG meeting I could not attend and will summarize its highlights here.
Emergency Medical Services: With little debate and no objection, TCCOG unanimously endorsed a Resolution calling upon the New York State Legislature, particularly the State Assembly, “to recognize Emergency Medical Services (EMS) as an essential service and to take all necessary steps to
ensure that this recognition is implemented state-wide.” Dryden Councilperson Dan Lamb sponsored the Resolution and spoke to its adoption at TCCOG, the only member to offer significant comment.
“We believe that it would be meaningful for Tompkins County to continue to lead as we do in many ways if the (County) Legislature were to send a strong message to our state delegation, particularly in the New York State Assembly, about the necessity of passing this legislation that would require EMS and ambulance services to be declared an essential service, and that counties, cities, villages and towns would act individually or together to ensure that it is provided” Lamb told TCCOG.
Lamb said Governor Hochul had proposed the “essential service” legislation earlier this year, and that the measure had cleared the State Senate but died in the Assembly. A new bill would need to be submitted next year. Therefore, what TCCOG adopted—and what the Tompkins County Legislature, in turn, may consider soon—bears no bill number.
I, as Enfield’s representative, have concerns about this proposal. And had I attended TCCOG’s meeting, I might have raised questions and opposed Lamb’s Resolution. By declaring EMS an “essential service,” New York State could be locking small towns like Enfield into another unfunded state mandate.
Dan Lamb represents Dryden, a town that contracts with its own paid ambulance service. Ulysses is another such town, having Trumansburg ambulance. Ithaca Town and City are covered by both the private Bangs Ambulance service and by a paid Ithaca Fire Department rescue squad. Smaller towns, like Enfield, must rely on volunteer fire company rescue squads, those that lack an ambulance service. “We have a couple of professional services in this county that are subsidizing the rest of the county,” Lamb said, claiming that “30 per cent of Dryden Ambulance calls go outside of our taxing jurisdiction.”
Were EMS declared an “essential service,” and were New York State to specify standards, I fear that every rural town in New York, including Enfield, could find itself mandated either to establish a paid ambulance service of its own or to contract with such a service in a neighboring municipality. It’s fanciful to think that State Government would fund such a service. And County Government may not fund it either. The burden could fall, just as with fire service, upon the local town taxpayer. And volunteer services, like Enfield’s, would likely not fulfill the state’s requirements.
Heavier Commercial Trucks: TCCOG similarly supported, unanimously, a Resolution advanced by Caroline’s Tim Murray that would oppose a reported measure before Congress that would raise the size and weight limits for commercial trucks traveling Interstate highways and roads closely adjacent to them. Tim Murray’s initiative found no resistance or serious questioning among those at TCCOG.
The TCCOG initiative followed a presentation Rob Bielunas, Regional Director of the “Coalition Against Bigger Trucks,” which Bielunas described as “a national grass roots organization.” He’d spoken earlier to the Caroline Town Board. The Caroline Board had endorsed the Coalition’s efforts to block raising the federal commercial truck weight limit from its current 80,000 pounds to 91,000 pounds.
Murray told TCCOG that Caroline’s lawmakers were concerned about the potential “bleed off” of the higher Interstate highway weight limits to local roads, particularly with garbage haulers traveling Route 79. “Although those trucks aren’t directly covered by this legislation,” Murray informed TCCOG, “we’re concerned that any upscale in one dimension could lead to bleed-off upscale in another and this would directly impact Tompkins County.”
The proposed rule change, however, would have no immediate impact locally. The federal rule would only affect Interstate routes, of which Tompkins County has none. And it would impact local roads only within one-and-one-half miles of an Interstate interchange.
“What we’ve seen historically,” Bielunas said, “is that when the feds raise the weights, the states then raise the weights to allow ease of access for these vehicles through the entire state, not just that mile and a half.”
Cybersecurity: Loren Cottrell, Tompkins County’s Director of Information Technology Services, provided TCCOG a 30-minute briefing on cybersecurity protection. Cottrell recently offered a Cybersecurity Primer for local leaders at the request of the New York State Association of Counties (NYSAC). He shared with TCCOG portions of his NYSAC presentation.
“No one can be 100 percent when it comes to cybersecurity,” Cottrell acknowledged. Yet, he said, Tompkins County does its best. Toward that end, Cottrell said, Tompkins County has enlisted the cyber protection firm CrowdStrike to monitor its electronic communications for attacks. “It’s worth its weight in gold,” Cottrell said of the service.
As for working with County staff, “We do a couple of risk assessments a year,” Cottrell said. And he said the County has instituted monthly phishing tests. “We are seeing quite a few more attacks here in the County when it comes to phishing and malware attacks through email,” the IT Director reported. Employees who perform poorly get “one-on-one training,” Cottrell told TCCOG.
As far as protective measures, Cottrell said Tompkins County has initiated multi-factor authentication “for anything that we can.” Minimum 14-character strong passwords are now required. “That is something our users weren’t really happy about,” Cottrell admitted. But he added, “With a long, strong password, they wouldn’t have to change it as often.” Current practice updates passwords once yearly.
Respectfully submitted,
Robert Lynch, Councilperson
Enfield TCCOG Representative