Taking a Stand

The sub-headings under this tab provide statements I’ve made, both during the 2019 campaign, and now, during the months beyond, to advance the interests of our Town, putting onto paper and verbalizing in public, the viewpoints of many I’ve met on the 2019 Campaign Trail.

Agree or disagree? I welcome your feedback. Because an elected official governs best, governs most fairly and responsibly, when he or she has the people at his or her back.

This tab is an ever-changing work-in-progress. Time will chronicle additional perspectives. I’d call it Enfield’s Soapbox for Old-Fashioned Representative Democracy.

Please, revisit often.

Bob

Visit “What I’ve Said.” It’s found on the drop-down list of the Main Menu. You’ll find past essays, formerly posted on this website’s Home Page.

“What I’ve Said” captures the moment of the times; items of interest, Enfield legislative actions, and points of controversy beginning with the 2019 Town Board election campaign and continuing to the controversies of today.

Here’s a recent list and past highlights:

Five Voices, Five Reasons: Enfield Town Board members share their reasons for putting fire protection services under an independent Commission; posted July 5, 2023.

Opportunity Lost; Planners, Town Board could have bridled the Breezy Meadows subdivision, but didn’t; posted June 5, 2023.

Water, Land, and a Dirt Road; Breezy Meadows’ Impacts Perplex Planners, Pols, and Public; posted April 20, 2023.

The “Death” of a Good Judge; (Hector) LaSalle, the Democratic Party, and Me; posted February 20, 2023.

Confirm Judge LaSalle; My commentary supporting LaSalle’s appointment as New York’s Chief Judge; posted February 6, 2023.

Freshman Fervor: (Legislator) Randy Brown makes his mark defending hometown interests; posted Jan. 4, 2023.

We Might Eat Leftovers: Second Wind’s Fate Could Impact Enfield’s Funding Future; posted Dec. 23, 2022.

End of an Era; Judge Poole Retires; Board ponders options posted Dec. 15, 2022.

And Earlier:

Strained Separation: County-City cut cord with police-critical Reimagining group; posted June 26, 2022

A Tool for the Toolbox: “Wracking our Brains” to Find a Firefighter; posted May 15, 2022

Tompkins Does It One Way; Enfield Another: Public Transparency and the ARPA Awards Process; posted May 13, 2022

A Working Group for Whom? Working with Whom? posted April 22, 2022

Gerry’s Lakeside Puzzle; New York Redistricting; posted Feb. 14, 2022

Some Good Will Come of This: Transparency and the Tompkins County Industrial Development Agency; posted Jan. 18, 2022

Meet in the Middle: On the Enfield Town Board’s first-of-the-year meeting; posted Jan. 12, 2022

“Our Poisonous Tree” Behind the Courthouse: the Center of Government project; posted Nov. 18, 2021

Be Kind, Be Humble: Post-Election 2021; posted Nov. 6, 2021

(and more posted in the archives…)

Check out the latest local stories from Enfield and Tompkins County under the Latest News tab.

Most Recent Postings:

July 8: Pennies or Principle? Enfield Board splits; scraps proposed Sales Tax scoop

June 27; Updated June 28: Rollins Swamps Willis for GOP Hiway Super Nod

June 23: Local lawmakers nudge Hochul’s Veto pen

June 19; Expanded June 22: A Hearing, a Vote, and the “Snag” that followed; Enfield moves to a Fire Commission

June 19: “Snag” hit in Fire Governance change

June 12: Enfield’s Most Important 2023 Decision

June 8: Enfield Planners smile (again) upon Breezy Meadows

June 1: Shawna: “Shocked” by others’ “SWAT Team” Talk

June 1: ARPA Gets “Declawed”; $350G in Enfield Funding now looks safe

May 25: Enfield spends ARPA cash to beat the Congressional clock

May 24: Ricks withdraws; Enfield Primary Remains On

May 16: Shawna to Migrants: “You will be Welcomed”

For previously-reported stories, visit the Reporting Archives tab. Stories are archived by the month(s) of their posting.

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.

Note: Former Home Page essays, earlier posted here, now may be found on the “What I’ve Said” tab on the top menu.

Highlights (not a complete list):

December 2022: The Community Recovery Fund, Enfield, and Me.

December 2022: Pleading the Pantry’s Case

August 2022: A Republican form of Government? (Addressing the Cayuga Nation dispute)

July 2022: Courage as We Face the Risk (Addressing the Second Amendment).

June 2022: Justice Scalia’s Own Words (Seeking a middle-ground on the firearms debate).

January 2022: Expanding and Reshaping the TCIDA

January 2022: Shaping the Next Tompkins County Legislature

November 2021: The Cayuga Indian Nation Issue

September 2021: My Vaccine Municipal Initiative

September 2021: The Downtown Land Purchase

March 2021: Policing Reform: My Take

(And Earlier Postings)

(Sept. 27): It’s a stunning surprise, since I never recall the date mentioned at the Monday meeting: The Enfield Board of Fire Commissioners Wednesday moved up to October 31 the referendum date for a pair of Resolutions that would authorize purchase from the Enfield Fire Company, and the subsequent bonding, of two fire trucks. The bonding total hits $1.05 Million.

A Resolution adopted by the Fire Commissioners September 25^th only authorized proceeding with bonding. It never set a date, leading any observer to believe that the resolutions would face voters December 12^th, the date when the Commissioners, themselves, will be elected.

Exactly who authorized this transparently “Snap Election”—and under what authority—remains unclear at this writing.

“It was my impression at the meeting that the two votes were to be held concurrently; for the Commissioners and for bonding,” I wrote the Commissioners and Town Clerk this date. “Their dates cannot be changed on someone’s whim. I know you commissioners had no legal guidance that night. But specificity is demanded in things like this.”

“Enfield voters will not react well to this.” I cautioned. .“I know I don’t. The time is too short. They feel something’s being pulled over on them. On Halloween, at that.” / RL

(Sept. 26): Consuming most of its three-hour meeting Monday, the newly-established Enfield Board of Fire Commissioners handed up a tentative $387,736 Budget for 2024. Compared with the 2023 Budget, the plan would only raise spending 2.7 per cent (though a slightly higher increase was mentioned at the meeting.)

But that spending total comes with a big caveat. Commissioners also Monday unanimously endorsed holding a December referendum [Yet see Sept. 27 update] on bonding nearly $1,000,000 in unpaid fire apparatus, including, most notably, that newly-bought $825,000 pumper engine. Without bonding, Commissioners said, financing costs on the new truck could add $112,000 to next year’s budget. Bonding would spread the truck’s 7-year loan payments out to as long as 20 years.

“I don’t see a way to get from here to there without bonding,” Commissioners’ Chair Jim Mathews told the Board. Otherwise, he said, the only options are “defaulting on the payments, a bridge loan, or raising taxes,” none of which he found acceptable.

The public gets no vote on the Fire Budget, but it would vote on the bonding. Commissioners must finalize their spending plan by November 4.

(Expect more to be written on this story.)

Dr. Orinthia Montague (courtesy TC3)

(Sept. 25): Two years after her departure locally, Tompkins Cortland Community College’s fourth president, and its first president of color, has passed.

Tompkins Cortland Community College announced Friday the death of Dr. Orinthia Montague, who joined TC3 in 2017 after serving a community college in Minnesota in several capacities. Well liked locally during her four-year tenure at TC3, Montague left in 2021 to become president of Volunteer State Community College in Tennessee, where she served until her death.

“Dr. Montague had a tremendous impact on our college, serving at a time of great transition and challenge including throughout much of the COVID pandemic,” current TC3 president Amy Kremenek said in a statement. “It is evident that her commitment to students and their success was paramount throughout her tenure at TC3.”

(Sept. 23): Enfield celebrated community Saturday.

Even though low clouds and occasional light drizzle prevented the (surprise) return of the legendary ping-pong ball drop, the Enfield Harvest Festival, an annual community celebration, brought us together for four hours of fun, food, and reconnecting this weekend.

I may have seen you in the serving line for the chicken barbecue. We served perhaps 200 dinners. There were the vendors’ tables (both inside and under the tent), music, fire truck displays, and all types of fall-type fun.

Thanks to Cortney, Vera, Colleen, Debbie, and all those of the Enfield Community Council who made this happen. (And thanks, too, to the EVFC for lending us their barbecue pit.)

See you again soon. / RL

(Sept. 22): Tuesday night, the Tompkins County Legislature, congratulating itself, split over $722,000 in Opioid Settlement money among eight community organizations. Some of them, such as Finger Lakes ReUse ($115,375) and the Ithaca United Soccer Club ($7,000) are, at best, only peripherally connected to addiction recovery.

While he voted for the distributions, Lansing legislator Mike Sigler had wished for more:

“I don’t want people to think that I’m against any of these organizations,” Sigler said. But “I look at all the folks getting money, and none of it goes toward actual treatment.”

Sigler continued: “The basic premise was that these opioid companies lured people into just take opioids, and then they got addicted. And it would just seem to me that if that’s what the settlement was about, shouldn’t the settlement money go toward getting people off of opioids? Shouldn’t it go to actual treatment?”

The Lansing Republican said he knows people who’ve faced addiction. “I’ve taken somebody to a 30-day detox, and it’s $10 Grand cash just to walk in the door.” If the settlement money had been spent on treatment, Sigler maintained, 72 people could have received treatment.

Sigler’s right, of course. And he took the moment to make another point: “We have a Detox Center (here) that’s struggling to open because, frankly, they’re not paying nurses enough money to work there.”

Sigler challenged the County Legislature “to get that detox up and running so that we have some place to take people.” / RL

Seats now; an office maybe soon.

(Sept. 21): For the second time in recent weeks, Tompkins County lawmakers have moved to do what some would say defiles their ornate, historically-conscious, legislative chambers.

Back in August, the Legislature voted to plop video monitors about the chambers to replace the overhead screens above them that descend only when needed. Dryden’s Mike Lane predicted it would make the place look like a “sports bar.”

Now, a legislative committee recommended on Thursday that a large part of the chamber’s eastern visitors’ gallery be replaced by an office for a new deputy legislative clerk.

“It will reduce the seating we have for the public considerably,” Lane observed. Yet he supported the office’s construction. Only Newfield’s Randy Brown voted against it.

“The place is packed over there often,” Brown said, pointing to the gallery. “We’re condensing space,” he said. “I’d like to see more people come, not less.” / RL

Dawson: Do we need plans and stuff?

(Sept. 21): Marching full speed ahead toward a new Downtown Center of Government, Tompkins County legislators may authorize the razing of the former Key Bank Building and the law office next to it as soon as mid-October.

“We need to demolish the Key Bank Building,” Chair Mike Lane told his Facilities and Infrastructure Committee Thursday. With the County Legislature committing earlier this month to move forward with the $40 Million office building, Lane saw no need to wait, lest the old buildings just lie vacant and deteriorate.

Lane directed the County Administrator to prepare resolutions authorizing deconstruction in time for his committee’s October 19^th meeting.

But there’s a problem. Due to the buildings’ proximity to the DeWitt Park Historic District, Ithaca City regulations may not permit the old buildings to come down before there’s a firm commitment—maybe even architectural drawings—for their replacement structure.

“The real question seems to be how definitive those plans have to be,” committee member Deborah Dawson remarked. “Is it enough for us to say, yes, we’re going to build a Center of Government, or do we have to have like a site plan and that other stuff?”

Before acting, the committee will seek legal advice. / RL

Brown; A new assignment

(Sept 20): If anyone questioned whether the Tompkins County Legislature’s Chair views a $40 Million Downtown Office Building as anything but a done deal, Shawna Black’s decision Tuesday night removed all doubt.

Déjà vu. Revived from the ashes of history, Black re-created a Downtown Facilities Special Committee and named Newfield-Enfield legislator Randy Brown as its new Chair.

An earlier Downtown Facilities Committee, with another Newfield legislator, now-retired Dave McKenna, heading it, oversaw progress toward downtown offices until that earlier committee was disbanded in January of last year. But with the Legislature voting September 5^th to proceed with planning a Center of Government downtown, Black saw fit Tuesday to name the seven-member special committee, with its membership a full half of the Legislature.

“The committee will oversee process moving forward with the necessary planning that includes the preparation and review of architectural, engineering, schematic and design documents for the construction of our Center of Government building in the 300 block of North Tioga Street,” Black announced. The committee will also review the County’s current space needs and “determine the options for departmental placement” downtown, including in the new building.

Notably excluded from the committee was Groton’s Lee Shurtleff, a known critic of the project. And Black’s action may also diminish the influence of Facilities and Infrastructure Chair Mike Lane, who likewise voted this month against moving the project forward. Lane will, however, sit as a member of the new committee.

Bill Troy (file photo)

(Sept. 18): William J. Troy III, Tompkins County Attorney since November 2021, resigned earlier this month, multiple County Government sources confirmed Monday. No reason was given for his unexpected departure.

Troy’s resignation was “pretty low key,” one legislative source acknowledged. Word of Troy’s decision only surfaced after of a posted—yet still unscripted—member-filed Resolution appeared on the County Legislature September 19^th agenda. That Resolution calls for the Legislature to appropriate money to pay for a “County Attorney Search.”

Elevated from Deputy Attorney to County Attorney nearly two years ago, Bill Troy’s most challenging assignment addressed the ethics allegations brought against several Ithaca City officials in connection with the Reimagining Public Safety initiative.

Troy was absent from the Legislature’s last meeting, September 5^th. Holly Mosher, Troy’s deputy, will serve as Acting County Attorney until the Legislature chooses a permanent replacement. / RL

The bill-signing; another day not to learn.

(Sept. 16): How did this one slip past us? There’s now yet another school holiday.

With great fanfare in some circles, but barely a mention elsewhere, Gov. Kathy Hochul Sept. 9th signed quietly-passed legislation that makes the mid-winter Lunar New Year a mandated day off from school. Quite transparently, it’s an effort to please (pander to?) the Asian-American community.

Mind you, I’m the first to recognize Asians as the underappreciated, unrecognized “silent minority” in this community. Largely due to their student presence on campus, Asians/Pacific Islanders comprise more than twice the number of African-Americans in Tompkins County (10.3%, compared to 4.6%). Yet Reimagining Public Safety barely made mention of their needs.

But mandating another school day off exemplifies the Albany political machine’s heavy-handedness. First, it’s only a matter of time before the Lunar New Year holiday trickles down to government offices, banks, and then to all of us.

And why not allow individual school districts, particularly in places with high Asian populations, the freedom to decide for themselves whether to keep kids home, or permit families to opt-out of school that day, but only if they choose?

Moreover, might not it be better for children to stay in class that day and learn about the contributions Asian-Americans’ have made to our society? Instead, they’ll be spending the day playing video games, while their parents struggle to find day care. / RL

(Sept. 16): The commitment came back in late-May. But since then, the Enfield Town Board and the Enfield Community Council (ECC) have gone back-and-forth over the Town’s $45,000 allocation of money from the federal American Rescue Plan (ARPA) to support ECC programs over the next three years.

Last Wednesday, the deal was struck; the fine points resolved. Initially targeted for youth programs only, the ARPA award to ECC was revised to also encompass families and adults. Some money will go toward summer camp, some to field trips, some to “career exploration and exposure” excursions for teens, some to adult programs.

“What our people actually need is to be brought back together as a community, because COVID definitely pushed us all into our little holes,” ECC President Cortney Bailey explained to the Town Board. “We want to pull them back in and say, no, we’re all one community,” Bailey stressed.

Grandparents, parents, and kids might charter a bus to a ball game, for example. The COVID relief money may also be spent to help build an ice rink or a “gaga pit.”

(Sept. 16): House Speaker Kevin McCarthy never called for a vote. So Marc Molinaro could have kept his mouth shut. He didn’t.

After McCarthy took it upon himself to call for an Impeachment Inquiry into President Biden, our district’s Congressman inexplicably chimed in with his support of the Speaker’s action. That’s even though evidence of Biden’s alleged wrongdoing has yet to be established.

“There clearly are questions of impropriety, and we want to be sure that we’re getting answers, and I think the American people deserve that as well,” The Hill quotes Congressman Molinaro as saying. “The responsibility of Congress is to provide the appropriate checks and balances and that next step is now moving forward in a broader inquiry,”

Molinaro claims he “didn’t come here to impeach anybody.” But observers say an impeachment vote is inevitably where this thing will lead. Molinaro’s in a swing district. Josh Riley is his next year’s likely Democratic opponent. If Riley doesn’t make it his goal to force Molinaro to eat his words, we Democrats need another candidate. / RL

From grass to blacktop, hopefully soon.

(Sept. 14): A bit of teamwork between Town staff and a contractor should revitalize an overgrown basketball court behind the Enfield Community Center and permit its renewed use.

Wednesday night, the Enfield Town Board took the final steps to move the needed repaving forward.

This past spring, Deputy Supervisor Greg Hutnik and Enfield’s Parks Committee secured a $5,000 Tompkins County Municipal Parks Grant and designated the money to pave the ECC basketball court. It was constructed on the former Living Water Church grounds, but had since gotten overgrown with dirt and sod. First estimates had pegged the total project at $7,500. The Town Board agreed to a presumed $2,500 local match.

Then the quotes came in. Asphalt prices had gone up. Lambert and Sons’ estimate, the lowest of three submitted, priced $9,000 for the whole job. $1000 of that cost, Lambert said, would arise from grass and sod removal. The project’s future dimmed. And the County grant expires at year’s end.

Wednesday, the solution arrived when Highway Superintendent Buddy Rollins agreed, with Town Board authorization, to provide the site preparation that would lower Lambert’s price to $8,000, thus requiring only $3,000 in Town funds. The Town Board consented.

“They’re OK if somebody wants to prep the site,” Hutnik said after talking with Lambert’s staff. “That would be a win-win situation,” I replied.

Now the challenge is to fit the paving in before winter. / RL

EVFC Charter Member Howard Stamp, flanked by Sen. Webb and local leaders Saturday.

(Sept. 10): The Enfield Volunteer Fire Company (EVFC) celebrated its 75^th Anniversary Saturday with a three-hour gala event and open house at their fire station in Enfield Center. Tompkins County Legislators Anne Koreman and Randy Brown attended, as did Enfield Supervisor Stephanie Redmond and most members of the Town Board, including myself.

Keynote speaker, State Senator Lea Webb, commended EVFC volunteers for their dedication and for their “spirit of public service.”

“You just don’t do it by yourself,” Webb remarked. “You do it with family.” And she commended the family members of volunteers who encourage their effort.

The EVFC accorded special recognition to 99-year old Howard Stamp, the last known surviving charter member of the Fire Company, founded in 1948. Stamp now lives in Ithaca. The fire house he helped build lives on as our Town Board’s meeting hall and houses the Enfield Food Pantry in the truck bays where fire engines used to park. / RL

Frank Kruppa

(Sept. 7): At this point, Cayuga Medical Center appears the overly-cautious outlier in its response to the local uptick of COVID-19 cases. CMC is mandating masks. Tompkins County is not.

“There’s no additional masking requirement coming from the County at this point,” Tompkins County Whole Health Commissioner Frank Kruppa assured a handful of municipal officials zooming into a Thursday morning, County-convened video conference call.

Kruppa acknowledged that “COVID numbers are going up” locally. But he added, “The severity of the disease doesn’t seem to have pushed up.”

Wednesday, Cayuga Health Systems, operator of the local hospital, reimposed masking requirements at its facilities, effective today. Cayuga Health said it acted in response to twin concerns: an increase in the latest COVID-19 variant found in area wastewater; and also a “notable” increase in infection rates among hospital staff.

County statistics Thursday reported only four persons hospitalized locally with COVID-19. During the week ending in late-August, 59 new local COVID cases had been diagnosed.

(Sept. 8): What some might call a “Snap Election” to increase the newly-created Enfield Fire District’s spending power won’t “snap” quite as fast as first planned.

Largely in response to this Town Councilperson’s plea, the Enfield Board of Fire Commissioners has doubled the length of the Tuesday, Sept. 12^th referendum on increasing the District’s “Statutory Spending Limit” on fire operations.

As announced on the Town website Thursday, polls at the Enfield Community Center will now open Tuesday at 3 PM and remain open through 9 PM. Originally, those polls would not have opened until Six that night.

Fire Commissioners at their meeting Wednesday expressed general support for the extended hours, but couldn’t officially act until getting their attorney’s approval.

“For many good reasons, extended voting hours hold merit,” I wrote the Commissioners in late-August supporting the extension. Reiterating my position Wednesday, I observed that an evening-only referendum might preclude participation by second-shift workers and by those with visual impairments, who fear driving after dark.

The Tuesday referendum’s key measure would enable the Fire District to spend up to $575,000 annually for each of the next five years. Without passage, State law would limit fire service spending to less than what the expiring Town-sponsored contract permits spent. / RL

(Sept. 6): Six days ahead of a crucial public referendum, the newly-empaneled Enfield Board of Fire Commissioners held a Public Hearing Wednesday on a measure which could prevent major cutbacks in the fire service unless voters fail to approve it.

If the September 12th vote to raise the Enfield Fire District’s so-called “Statutory Spending Limit” doesn’t pass, we’d have to “cut the existing budget essentially in half,” Board of Commissioners Chair Jim Matthews warned the approximately 20 in attendance. “It would be “pretty disastrous for a number of reasons,” he said. “We’d have to get rid of assets.”

As Fire Chief Greg Stevenson explained, the state-imposed spending limit is “one of the many quirks” brought on by Enfield’s transition to a Fire District. Voters can override the limit. And Tuesday’s referendum will ask them to effectively double allowed spending to $575,000.

But critics peppered Commissioners with questions, forcing Matthews repeatedly to steer the conversation back to the central issue and to close the hearing before some had finished arguing.

“The public was misled on this from the get-go,” Diane Aramini, a known critic of fire service spending, told the hearing.

At times, Matthews stood at a loss for answers. That’s because the attorney guiding the town’s transition was absent; tied up in court.

Neglected (doomed?); The Wiggins building

(Sept. 5): With only two lawmakers dissenting, the Tompkins County Legislature late Tuesday took its most significant step in two years toward an ambitious $40 Million plan to consolidate County offices in a mammoth Center of Government on the site of the former Key Bank and Wiggins law office buildings at North Tioga and East Buffalo Streets.

Legislators approved, with only one slight change, a measure drafted in committee that resolved that “the County proceed with plans for a Center of Government building” on the corner site and that it solicit quotes to hire an architectural and engineering design consultant for the project.

“We need more space for our many, many departments,” Enfield/Ulysses legislator Anne Koreman told her colleagues. “This is a step to get us there.”

Dryden’s Mike Lane and Groton’s Lee Shurtleff dissented. Lane feared the office building might conflict financially with another project of comparable cost; namely a new Public Safety Building. And Shurtleff raised a different public safety issue: rising crime in the downtown area where the Center would be built.

Less controversial, legislators also Tuesday voted to sell the so-called “Red House,” a County-owned frame building a block away that preservationists want saved. It stands on land the Legislature formerly favored for the office structure.

The night Enfield’s Board overrode the tax cap

(Aug. 31): It makes no sense. But then, it comes from Albany.

Every year, the State Comptroller’s office sets the so-called “tax cap”—effectively a meaningless number aside from its persuasive power—that puts a percentage limit on how much municipal budget tax levies should rise. The Comptroller couples the “cap” with an “Inflation Factor.” That’s the estimate of how much prices have risen on things governments buy.

The State’s newly-released Inflation Factor for Enfield’s next year’s budget is 6.26 per cent. But the “tax cap” holds firm at an impossibly-frugal two per cent. I know, it ain’t fair. Prices are rising at 313% of what the tax levy supposedly can.

You see, the “tax cap” is always a ceiling; never a floor. It’s a political beast. Pandering Albany types designed it that way to make them look good with the taxpayer. Honest: the only time a tax cap usually changes is when it goes down, when inflation is low. It last did so in 2021.

There can be local adjustments; often propelled by a rising tax base. They can push the tax cap higher. But town bookkeeper Blixy Taetzsch reported Thursday “Enfield does not have any adjustment factor” this year. “So the cap is 2%,” she says. Taetzsch says this year’s only sort of adjustment comes from severing the new Enfield Fire District’s levy from that of the Town.

The Enfield Town Board in July voted to override the tax cap. It can do so. Quite frankly, there’s no punishment for a town’s exceeding the cap and no longer any state-funded rebate for a town’s keeping within it. / RL

Cargill’s Lansing mine (credit ithaca.com)

(Aug. 31): Enfield Supervisor Stephanie Redmond’s “other job” is as an environmental activist. And this week, she made news.

The Ithaca Times reported that Cargill is planning to divest itself of its massive Lansing underground salt mine that we’re told provides a full 50 per cent of New York’s road salt.

Divestiture does not necessarily mean closure. But Redmond wishes it did. She’s Program Manager for the advocacy group, Cayuga Lake Environmental Action Now (CLEAN). And the Times quoted Redmond as supporting the mine’s abandonment.

“We believe it is imperative to ensure that the Cayuga Salt Mine is appropriately decommissioned, and that adequate measures are taken to safeguard our environment, in particular the mined area under Cayuga Lake,” Redmond said. CLEAN would rather Cargill not just sell off its long-held mine to the highest bidder as it seeks to extricate itself from the salt extraction business.

Environmentalists fear salinization of Cayuga Lake and other environmental dangers. They fault Cargill for refusing to complete an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).

I know, the obvious question gets asked: Why didn’t Redmond similarly support my efforts to force an EIS for Enfield’s Breezy Meadows subdivision? Water—your well water—is at risk there, too. / R. Lynch

Gotten somehow (credit Dove Williams / The Ithaca Voice)

(Aug. 26): Tompkins County Democrats held their “Summer Party” fundraiser this week. Governor Kathy Hochul spoke. I, a Democratic office-holder, was not invited. I did not attend. I’m glad I did not. And for this reason:

The Ithaca Voice’s reporter was turned away at the door, he writes. The party fundraiser was “private,” county Democratic Chair Linda Hoffman reportedly told him. A Republican spy snuck in. He recorded Hochul’s words. Of what little the governor said got reported, it may have come through him.

I’m embarrassed for my party’s conduct. Democrats stand among the first to criticize when the likes of Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas reveal their private musings at closed-door conclaves of conservative fat cats. Last Wednesday provided a prime opportunity for my own party to showcase its message. It should encourage—not stymie—media coverage. Our Democratic Committee should advance openness and transparency, not felinity and entitlement.

If Kathy Hochul ordered the press be barred, shame on her. If local Democrats did, shame on them. /RL

Shiny and (now) paid for.

(Aug. 24): “Yaaay, the $30,000 came in!” Enfield Community Council President Cortney Bailey exclaimed at the ECC’s Board meeting Thursday. “The floor is officially paid for.”

Bailey cheered final receipt of grant money for the shiny hardwood floor installed in the ECC Community Center’s “Great Room,” its entertainment venue, nearly two years ago.

Assemblymember Anna Kelles successfully secured member funding for the floor replacement in June 2021, Bailey recalled. But one tangle after another kept the check tied up Albany’s bureaucracy from then until now. ECC had paid for the improvement long ago and had to carry the financial burden while awaiting the promised payment.

Onward, though: Bailey talked Thursday of other needs. ”We need a place that’s HIPAA compliant,” she said, noting that federal rules set certain health and privacy requirements before mental health and addiction counselors can serve clients permanently in ECC space. That’ll take new construction.

Also needed, Bailey said, is a generator and a commercial kitchen. Why? “So we can be an emergency shelter for Enfield,” the agency’s president explained.

Tompkins County Legislator Randy Brown, in attendance, said he’d do what he could to help.

(Aug. 23): “Where, Oh Where has my Little Meeting Gone?” I wrote.

Maybe it’s the price we pay for our newly-created Enfield Board of Fire Commissioners not yet having a Secretary.

Based on what we were advised August 9th, the Board was supposed to meet again tonight, Wednesday, August 23, for its second official session. It didn’t. And despite a mountain of business yet to transact, and in very little time, the Commissioners may not meet again until September 6^th, just six days ahead of an important spending-related referendum.

I had assumed tonight’s meeting was on. But its location remained undetermined. The Town Clerk had heard nothing. And neither had I. The Town website made no mention. Clerk Cornell asked around. So, too, did I. By mid-afternoon, we got answers.

“We decided to reschedule because of too many travel and other conflicts,” Fire Commissioners’ Chair Jim Matthews wrote me. “We made that decision in what we thought was enough time for the Town to publicize the cancellation. I’m sorry if that didn’t happen.”

Matthews has promised transparency. And when meetings get canceled and the word fails to get out, the unaware become inconvenienced… maybe angry.

Matthews apologizes. “We are still getting organized ourselves and have no facilities or abilities at the moment,” he acknowledges.

But my own concern runs deeper. We have much to do before that referendum. I hope we have time to get it all done.” / RL

Ready for the next rain. Gray Road’s culvert.

(Aug. 22): For the second time in as many years, another culvert failed last fall under Gray Road. And today, just a tenth of a mile from my home, the Enfield Town Highway Department dug it up.

Highway Superintendent Buddy Rollins’ team knows their stuff. The crew replaced the old, collapsed pipe with a new one in just one work day. By day’s end, only the road’s surface at the location required repaving. Gray Road is back open and drivable.

Of note, the road crew used Enfield’s newly-purchased mini-excavator for the job.

Good work! / RL

(Aug. 22): Politico has brought us a good analysis of the political turmoil brought about by the New York court’s chosen reconsideration our current congressional maps.

It predicts the court case challenging the state’s 2022 redistricting may not be decided until Thanksgiving, and that final districts may not be set until next spring.

It puts Democrat Josh Riley in a districting dilemma. Does he look east… or north? And for that matter, must we?

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/08/21/new-york-redistricting-2024-elections-00111914

Bygone building; attitude. The Old City Hall

(Aug. 18): I greeted with a mix of disdain and amusement an Ithaca Voice story this week that reported members of Ithaca Common Council recently voted to give themselves 30 per cent ($4,000) annual raises next year. https://ithacavoice.org/2023/08/common-council-members-approve-4k-raises-for-2024/

If they follow through on their plans, each Alderperson will earn $17,191. The mayor’s salary would drop by more than half. But that’s because the transition to a City Manager government relegates the mayor, some would say, to holding gavels and kissing babies.

We Enfield Councilpersons earn the sinful salary of $3,672. Our Supervisor—considered to hold a more than half-time job—earns $25,500. We each got 2 per cent raises this year. Two of us plan to give the raises back. A third Councilperson works for free.

Oh, and the Ithaca lawmakers also can opt into paid health insurance. We Enfield Councilpersons have none of that—and won’t.

Ithaca Council members say they want to induce the common man and woman to step up and serve, to treat City Hall like a part-time job. But to me, they’ve got it all wrong. You run for, and serve in, local government not for the money, not for the glory, but for the honor to contribute to your community.

Those downtown claim—don’t believe it—that Alderpersons work 20 hours per week. We on Enfield’s Town Board, I would submit, work just as hard. We just know better why we do. And we don’t whine. / RL

Charlene Holmes (courtesy Imana Borena)

(Aug. 15): Coincidental as it may be, two “Holmes,” unrelated, will soon hold jobs in Tompkins County Administration.

After an exhaustive search that’s taken over a year, County Administrator Lisa Holmes announced to the County Legislature Tuesday that Charlene Holmes has been offered, and has accepted the long-vacant post of Chief Equity and Diversity Officer (CEDO). Charlene fills the post last held by Deanna Carrithers, Tompkins County’s first CEDO, who left in late-June 2022 to pursue opportunities out of state.

Lisa Holmes told the Legislature the appointee comes from the Albany area, has been CEO and President of Imana Borena, a diversity consulting firm, has served as an Associate Director of Development for the YWCA of Northeastern New York, and has held a diversity post at a college in Massachusetts.

“She has expertise in the diversity, equity, inclusion framework development and execution realm,” Lisa Holmes said of Charlene. “She has great people skills, and definitely a passion for the work.”

The County thought it had a hire for Carrithers’ job once before, but the candidate dropped out.

Charlene Holmes is set to start work locally September 5^th.

(Aug. 15): Nearly 18 months ago, when the war in Ukraine broke out, Tompkins County legislators rushed to embrace the Ukrainian people’s fight to remain free. They found a flag and flew it in chambers. Now, at least a few who represent us are asking how long it should remain there.

“It’s a nasty war, and Russia’s awful,” Enfield-Newfield legislator Randy Brown acknowledged Tuesday. Yet Brown joined two of his colleagues in opposing a Resolution that would keep the flag displayed in chambers for another year, and revisit the “issue statement” annually “so long as the conflict continues.”

The “Resolution in Support of Ukraine” passed 10-3. Legislators Greg Mezey and Travis Brooks joined Brown in opposition.

The war “has decimated Ukraine,” Brown acknowledged. “Millions of people have fled that country. Some have come here, which is fine,” he said. But “there are so many places on this Earth where wars are happening… and we don’t talk about them because it’s not Russia.”

Mike Lane, long the County Legislature’s point-person on Ukraine, said he’s “very proud” that the Ukrainian flag flies beside the stars and stripes in chambers. “We are spending a whole lot of our treasure in supporting a democracy,” Lane said, “which is something that we’re supposed to do as a country because we are the most important democracy and probably the one that the world looks at when things happen.”

The (now) not-so-sacrosanct “oval”

(Aug. 15): The historic Gov. Daniel D. Tompkins Building was built in 1854. Tompkins County remodeled it as its legislative chambers a couple decades ago. Now the County Legislature is about to muddle it up.

With only Dryden’s Mike Lane dissenting, the County Legislature voted Tuesday to replace two large projector screens that descend from the chambers’ ceiling only when needed with four, if not five, video monitors scattered about the room, including a monster that will invade the off-limits oval around which legislators sit in their $110,000 conference desk.

Why the change? The ceiling projectors wore out. And buying monitors is a whole lot cheaper than replacing what’s there now.

“I mentioned (in committee) I thought it would make it look like a sports bar,” Lane said before he cast his dissent. “I’m sorry if people find that offensive, but I do. I don’t think an historic chambers like this should be overpowered, the architecture should be overpowered by glitz.”

Ulysses-Enfield’s Anne Koreman welcomes the change. “Because these screens are going to be removed, we’re going to see the architecture better of the room, which is a plus,” Koreman remarked.

Of course, the projector screens can be rolled up; monitors cannot. / RL

Please veto: Lee Zeldin

(Aug. 13): Last year’s Republican gubernatorial nominee, Lee Zeldin, who came surprisingly close to beating Kathy Hochul—and won majorities in many rural upstate counties—weighed-in this week to urge Hochul’s veto of a bill adopted by legislative Democrats that would switch local town and many county-wide elections from odd-years to even-years, when races for President or Governor are at stake.

“There will be people who will become county executives, town supervisors, town councilman, county legislators, town clerks, county sheriffs, district attorneys based on who they’re voting for president of the United States,” Zeldin said at an Albany event August 8^th. “I want those voters who are going out there to vote in these local races to know more about their candidates for that local office.”

Both local legislators Lea Webb and Anna Kelles voted for the election year change last June. But the Democrat-dominant Tompkins County Legislature voted 10- 4 June 20^th to urge Hochul veto the bill. The Enfield Town Board, despite this Councilperson’s advocacy, declined to urge a veto. /RL

New COVID cases, early-June until now

(Aug. 12): So maybe you thought it was over. Wrong!

Tompkins County Health officials sounded the alarm Thursday about a recent uptick in local COVID-19 cases. But the numbers now reported pale to those reported just a few months ago or at the height of the pandemic.

What concerns authorities is an early-August spike. It began in mid-late July, subsided a bit, and then bounced back. Yet keep in mind, the (provided graph’s) high point is only three new cases per day, based on a 7-day rolling average.

Don’t worry. There have been no official calls for renewed mask mandates or social restrictions. Just the usual: The Department “encourages community members to consider being proactive by wearing high-quality masks when indoors and consider personal risk when gathering with others,” authorities say.

As of August 10, only four people were hospitalized locally with COVID, and only four more residents have died from the disease since March.

There’s no longer a mall sampling site. So PCR tests must be done at CMC’s Immediate Care, Guthrie, Well-Now, some pharmacies, and doctors’ offices.

(Aug. 12): At a Riders Advisory Committee meeting July 10, the Manager of Communications and Marketing for Tompkins Consolidated Area Transit (TCAT) had suggested there’d probably be a “grace period” of fare-free service while the system converts to new, modernized fare boxes.

Not so. That manager, Patty Poist, confirmed Friday that management had scuttled a fare-free transition. “That was just one option staff floated, but it was deemed fiscally imprudent considering our budget needs,” Poist responded in an email.

TCAT did announce Friday that the new fare boxes will go live Tuesday, August 15. But there’ll be growing pains. That’s the reason a fare-free hiatus was first considered.

“Pardon some of our dust,” Poist advised riders. The bus hardware may be in place, but some of what users need to pay their fares is not. Smart cards and mobile pay options can’t be used yet. Cornell students must swipe, rather than tap their university-subsidized ID cards. TC3 ID’s won’t work at all. Neither will fobs. TC3 students will need to buy Tcards, but can do so at discounted rates.

The old 2009-era fare boxes got worn out, and became outdated and unreliable. They were designed locally. The new ones come from Illinois. They cost TCAT $1.5 Million. Federal pandemic relief funds and state money helped pay for their purchase.

Me to Board: “Let’s be consistent.”

(Aug. 10): The Enfield Town Board inched forward Wednesday toward extending health insurance benefits to several key part-time employees, including the Town Clerk and Supervisor.

For some 45 minutes, the Board waded through the Town’s 66-page Employee Handbook, now undergoing revision by Bookkeeper Blixy Taetzsch and the Board’s Personnel Committee. A key change would qualify for paid health insurance part-time staff and elected officials who work at least 20 hours per week. Those who work fewer hours—including Town Councilpersons—would not qualify.

The committee shied away from an alternative that Highway Superintendent Barry “Buddy” Rollins had advanced in July that would have given part-timers less-generous benefits than those received by full-time employees like himself.

Yet the committee’s draft plan would still require part-time staff to pay the full cost of dental coverage. Councilperson Robert Lynch (this writer) persuaded Board colleagues to “be consistent.”

“Remember how this all started,” Lynch recalled, referencing his last year’s initiative to extend health care to the Clerk. “I thought that there should be parity between what the Town Clerk gets in terms of benefits and what the Highway Superintendent gets.”

“And I believe that if we’re going to provide full health insurance coverage for part-timers that work more than half-time… we should extend that to dental,” Lynch said.

The Town Board may finalize Enfield’s extended employee benefits as soon as September. / RL

In Newfield (Casey Powers voted remotely)

(Aug. 10): Enfield can’t lay claim to it. But apparently Newfield can.

“We have never been over the tax cap,” Newfield Supervisor Mike Allinger told his Town Board Thursday night. Nonetheless, just to be safe, the Board followed an annual ritual and passed the required Resolution that permits Newfield to override the commonly-called “two percent tax cap.” The Board’s action permits a greater percentage rise in the local tax levy, should the budget adopted this fall require it. No one spoke to the cap at the Public Hearing that preceded the unanimous vote.

“We know this will be a challenging tax year,” Allinger warned the Board. He noted this year’s need for both labor contract negotiations and the writing of a new contract with Newfield’s fire company.

The state’s misnamed tax cap is not always two per cent. It fluctuates based on a complicated Comptroller’s formula. Last fall, Enfield’s more than eight per cent tax levy hike overshot the cap by multiples.

In other business, the Newfield Board appointed Matt Watros as its new Code Enforcement Officer. Watros succeeds Alan Teeter, who will remain Code Officer in Enfield, but announced in late-April an intention to relinquish his Newfield duties. Newfield leaders see the change as an opportunity to step up code enforcement in the town.

(Aug 10): For a while, it seemed as though our newly-formed Enfield Fire District, by which governmental oversight of the fire service transfers to an independent commission, would lack someone it needs: namely a Treasurer. Not now.

Last night, August 9^th, I was proud to introduce and nominate for appointment as Treasurer, Cortney Bailey, current President of the Enfield Community Council, a 2021 candidate for Town Supervisor, and a well-experienced professional bookkeeper.

Cortney will serve the Fire District at least through year’s end. State law requires our Town Board to appoint a treasurer for this transitional period.

Though I’d have preferred the treasurer be elected thereafter, our Town Board decided last night to keep the office appointive. So Cortney’s service beyond this December rests with the Commissioners themselves.

Cortney Bailey will serve our Fire District well. And though she’s also running this fall for Town Justice, legal opinions have held there’s no conflict of interest.

Congratulations, Cortney. / RL

Our latest power prospect

(Aug. 10): We in Enfield Government, remember the one that got away.

Last December, happening in real time while we were meeting, our Town Board authorized purchase at auction of a hardly-used standby generator for the Highway Department. We thought we’d bought it that night, but later learned our $30,000 bid fell short. A heartbreaker.

But we asked Highway Superintendent Buddy Rollins to keep looking. Prior to our meeting August 9^th, Rollins shared with us four quotes. They ranged as high as $90,000. And that’s a problem, because we’ve only set aside $50,000 in American Rescue Plan funds for the purchase.

But wait: There’s one good prospect. Maybe not as lucky a find as last December’s, but worth a look. Witmer’s Electric, Seneca Falls, has for sale a 2006, 100-128 kW, trailer-mounted generator for $40,900. “This is a very nice unit with 1296 hours on it,” the salesman says.

State law likely demands we invite competing bids. Wednesday, our Board directed the Supervisor to proceed.

As the saying goes, “Why buy new, when used will do.” / RL

Shawna Black (file photo)

(Aug. 2): The wisest among us could see this coming.

Two weeks earlier, at its last meeting, the Tompkins County Legislature voted 7-6—a plurality, but not a legal majority—on a motion opposing the extension of life and the expansion of Waterloo’s Seneca Meadows Landfill, purportedly New York State’s largest.

But returning from her absence of last meeting, Legislature Chair Shawna Black Tuesday night requested the resolution’s reconsideration. She got a revote. And with her added support, the messaging measure squeaked out a bare majority.

The resolution, now adopted, would oppose efforts to extend Seneca Meadows’ life by 15 years, through 2040, and raise its height by 70 feet.

Black, herself, spoke little on the topic. But Democrat Deborah Dawson said she’d resisted intense lobbying and remained in opposition.

“While I agree that the landfill is a blight and a health hazard for the Finger Lakes Region,” Dawson said, “it is also simply a symptom of our underlying solid waste problems and the State’s failure to address them.”

Both Enfield’s legislators, Anne Koreman and Randy Brown, supported the resolution, as questionably effective as it may be in convincing state regulators.

[Read a longer story on this vote, now posted.]

(July 31): With little more than 24 hours’ notice, and with Enfield’s five new Fire Commissioners yet to be officially confirmed by the Town Board, Town Clerk Mary Cornell announced on the Town website late Monday that the Enfield Fire District will hold its first meeting, a “Planning” meeting, Tuesday night, August 1^st. It’ll begin at 6 PM at the Enfield Community Center’s Community Room, 162 Enfield Main Road.

Our Town Board on July 12^th, following an executive session, announced its five expected appointees to the District’s Board of Fire Commissioners. Yet since the Fire District lacked legal status until August first, the Town Board could not confirm its choices until August. The Board won’t vote until August 9^th.

I, your Councilperson, first got wind of the District’s impending meeting from a volunteer firefighter’s inquiry earlier Monday at the Enfield Food Pantry. At early-afternoon, the Town Clerk’s deputy had no knowledge of the meeting. Fire District meetings are supposed to be timely noticed, just like the Town Board’s.

“First question,” I wrote late Monday in an email to all involved, “Can the Commissioners meet at all? Our Town Board has not officially appointed them. I would submit that without appointment, they hold no authority to take any action, even to organize. Any action they might take would be subject to legal challenge.”

What’s more, I added, “We are… getting a contentious matter off totally on the wrong foot.”

If the meeting’s actually held, please attend. /Robert Lynch

(July 25): Monday afternoon’s sudden, intense thunderstorm left nothing to save from two long, parallel cattle barns that formerly housed the “young sires” at the now-vacated Genex Breeding Cooperative complex at the southwest corner of Hayts and Sheffield Roads on Enfield’s eastern edge.

Though the damage looks like that of a tornado, 14850.com reports National Weather Service staff wave off that idea. They say the damage more likely resulted from a “microburst,” straight-line winds that lifted the buildings from their foundations and “displaced (them) northwestward.”

Forecasters estimate peak winds of 100 mph.

The barns housed no cattle at the time. Genex closed its local operation in 2021. The long sheds were open-faced, making them prone to wind damage. A single long barn now remains standing.

How it once looked (winter 2021)

(July 22): At its mid-July meeting, the Enfield Town Board authorized—and each attending Town Board member also signed—an amended Highway Department spending agreement, called the “284.” It authorizes Highway Superintendent Barry “Buddy” Rollins to spend an additional $108,880, principally to resurface portions of two roads, Rothermich Road and West Enfield Center Road.

But before I voted and signed, I quizzed Rollins about where the extra money is coming from. I got, at least, a partial answer.

Rollins said his original “284 Agreement,” signed by the Board in January, budgeted conservatively, projecting state aid within Albany’s major program, “CHIPS” at only last year’s levels. But in April, the State Legislature added more money, he said.

“We went from 153 to 244 (thousand dollars) in CHIPS,” Rollins told our Board.

Yet bookkeeper-prepared budget adjustments, also authorized by the Board that night, raised CHIPS only from a budgeted $135,158 to $153,641, and also added-in $23,719 from state aid increases under two other programs. That’s $42,202 new money. Even if all the non-CHIPS money is added, the increase is only $77,871. Where’s the rest coming from? I had a hard time finding out.

“The budget is $244,000,” Rollins answered me matter-of-factly. “I don’t know what this all means. It doesn’t matter. That’s the projects. That’s the approximate cost.” / RL

Could Red Turn Blue? Our current districts (map courtesy Spectrum News)

(July 13): Everything old just got new again.

A state appellate court Thursday ordered that New York’s Independent Redistricting Commission revisit—and likely redraw—the Congressional District lines that it attempted to map last year, only to face deadlock and then have state lawmakers, and eventually the courts, take over.

The 3-2 split decision by the Third Department of New York State Supreme Court (our Department) is seen as a victory for legislative Democrats who attempted to redraw—some say, gerrymander—House District lines last year, but were blocked by the Court of Appeals.

But the state’s Highest Court is now different, with a more liberal tilt with new Chief Judge Rowan Wilson in charge. Wilson’s own presence could tip the scales Democrats’ way.

What does the latest ruling mean here? Last year, Tompkins County found itself suddenly pulled away from a Syracuse-based, blue-leaning district and plunked into an eastern Southern Tier district that brought us Republican Congressman Marc Molinaro.

Republicans say they’ll appeal the Third Department ruling. But the Rowan Court they’d go to now is a judicial wild-card.

(July 13): An eight-month campaign by this Councilperson, Robert Lynch, to secure health insurance benefits for the Enfield Town Clerk may finally bear fruit next January. And Enfield’s Town Supervisor and Code Enforcement Officer may reap the benefits as well.

Town bookkeeper Blixy Taetzsch briefed the Town Board and the public Wednesday night on the Town Personnel Committee’s recommended benefit changes for 2024. The committee, of which Supervisor Stephanie Redmond, Councilperson Jude Lemke, and key Town administrators are members, calls for awarding health and disability eligibility coverage to all full-time employees and, for the first time, part-time employees and elected officials working 20 or more hours per week.

The change would bring the Town Clerk, Supervisor, and Codes Officer into the benefit pool. The Town would pay 100% of individual health premiums, 80% of family share health plan premiums.

Highway Superintendent Barry “Buddy” Rollins has offered an alternative that would treat part-timers slightly less generously. An opt-out health insurance stipend of $500 would apply under some circumstances.

Taetzsch projects that the new coverage would cost taxpayers $5,000-$7,500 annually. The Town Board plans to act on the proposal August 9^th.

But what’s the number?

(July 13): Following a quiet, though legally-mandated, Public Hearing, one at which only a single resident spoke, the Enfield Town Board Wednesday authorized a local law—an annual ritual—to increase its tax levy in next year’s budget beyond the so-called “Tax Cap” Albany accountants set.

Problem is: We don’t yet know what the Tax Cap will be. And until Albany tells us—maybe by late-summer—we haven’t a clue.

Our vote was three-to-one (James Ricks was excused.) I voted against exceeding the cap. In part, I first wanted to learn the cap’s number. The Board’s majority chose not to wait.

But more importantly, I opposed the override on principle. I said I’d given the Board a “roadmap” just two weeks earlier that would contain the local levy. I’d urged it to reclaim the $949,000 in Sales Tax revenue that Enfield lets Tompkins County apply to cut its own tax rate. The Board had rejected the change, 2-2.

One final quirk: State law requires a “supermajority” of 60 per cent to override the tax cap. But with a 5-person Town Board, any majority vote has to reach 60 per cent. Go figure. I guess we were legal. / RL

(July 10): Some campus-based activists have called for Tompkins Consolidated Area Transit (TCAT) to go fare-free, permanently.

This isn’t it. But at TCAT’s bimonthly Riders Advisory and Accessibility Committee meeting Monday, Patty Poist, the agency’s Manager of Communications and Marketing, said a summertime transition to new, upgraded fare boxes could warrant a fare-collection hiatus.

“There’ll probably have to be a grace period when we’ll have to go fare-free,” Poist told the Ridership Committee.

The reason is a software mismatch. TCAT expects Cornell’s Cards, which charge fares to the University when students ride, will still work with the new boxes. But the T-Cards that the rest of us use likely will not. You’ll need a fresh card. And during the transition, you may not know whether your bus takes the old card or the new one. And of course, there’ll be refund and reimbursement issues.

Poist and the TCAT’s General Manager promised a major public relations rollout soon to let us know what’s planned and when any fare-free holiday might begin.

(July 9): Kudos to Lansing Tompkins County legislator Mike Sigler for coming to the defense of home rule in upstate New York.

In his latest column in Tompkins Weekly, Sigler specifically cites the last-minute effort this session by the Democrat-controlled New York State Legislature to change the years for local elections, placing races like Enfield’s at the bottom of a cluttered ballot in gubernatorial or presidential election years.

https://www.tompkinsweekly.com/articles/erosion-of-the-home-rule/

Here’s hoping Governor Hochul vetoes this one bad bill. And here’s also hoping Albany lawmakers pay greater concern to local preferences, like ours. / RL

(July 8): In an amended funding request dated June 12^th and emailed to the Town Board July 5th, Enfield Town Highway Superintendent Barry “Buddy” Rollins has revised his Department’s highway improvement project list, Rollins listing portions of West Enfield Center and Rothermich Roads for requested upgrades.

Rollins still expects to spend $240,000 to resurface the uphill stretch of Bostwick Road between Route 327 and Applegate Road, an ongoing project funded by the Town Board in January.

But now, Rollins also plans to add “Cold Mix Paving” to Rothermich Road between West Enfield Center and Mecklenburg Roads, and the same treatment for West Enfield Center Road between Rothermich and Black Oak Road. Rollins prices each additional project at $80,000.

Considering other proposed adjustments, the Superintendent proposes Enfield road repairs this year rise by more than $100,000, to a total $434,000. Rollins so-called “284 Agreement” did not say where the additional funds would come from.

Rollins may explain when the Town Board weighs his request Wednesday, July 12^th. Town Board members must sign-off on the changes.

(July 8): I note with interest that The Ithaca Voice reports that an Administrative Law Judge for the National Labor Relations Board issued a decision July 5^th ordering Starbucks to reopen its Collegetown barista, stating the coffee giant violated federal labor law, in part, by closing its earlier-unionized College Avenue store and firing its workforce.

https://ithacavoice.org/2023/07/nlrb-judge-orders-starbucks-to-reopen-ithaca-collegetown-location/

It remains very much in doubt whether the NLRB can enforce its words in court.

The Enfield connection? Recently I attempted to insert into our revised Solar Law a provision that would require solar operators who take farmland out of production to remain farming—or at least, mowing—the 40 per cent of the lot the law says they must keep free from solar panels.

Legal minds told me we could not do that. To require continued farming is a prohibited “Taking” under the Constitution. In effect, you cannot dictate how someone treats his land, aside from banning prohibited activities.

How is Starbucks any different? Aren’t you also compelling a specific use of land? I’m eager to see how this turns out. / R. Lynch

Brock: In through November

(July 5): There will be a General Election battle between centrist and progressive in a high-profile contest for First Ward Alderperson in the City of Ithaca, as well as for the lesser-known race for Enfield Highway Superintendent.

A Tompkins County Board of Elections spokesperson Wednesday reported that neither Ithaca Alderperson Cynthia Brock nor Enfield Highway challenger Chris Willis had withdrawn independent line candidacies by the Board’s June 30 deadline, meaning each candidate after losing his or her respective party primaries, will soldier on to the November election.

Brock, a 12-year Common Council incumbent, lost to a political newcomer, Solidarity Slate-endorsed progressive Kayla Matos, in the June 27^th Democratic Primary. She lost by double-digits (57% – 43%, according to unofficial tallies). Brock had said last week she would “take a few days” to decide whether to pursue her back-up independent candidacy into the fall. By her refusal to withdraw, she will.

Likewise, in Enfield, even though Highway Superintendent candidate Chris Willis lost to incumbent Barry “Buddy” Rollins badly in the Republican Primary (48 votes to 17, amidst a light turnout), Willis has not pulled out, thereby giving his own independent candidacy continued life. (Maybe Rollins pulled up his many yard signs too soon.)

Winner: Mark Witmer

(July 1): Zoning was the hot topic in Caroline’s Town Democratic Primary last week. And at least for the moment, the pro-zoning forces prevailed, media reports say.

Incumbent Democratic Supervisor Mark Witmer secured the Democrat’s nomination for re-election, 67% to 33% over intra-party challenger Tonya Van Camp. Similarly, incumbent Councilpersons Kate Kelley-Mackenzie and Tim Murray won party re-nomination. We’re told the incumbents are viewed as pro-zoning; the challengers, anti-zoning.

But wait, it’s not over. Van Camp and losing Councilperson candidates Megan Slatoff-Burke and Kathryn Mix have teamed up and formed a third-party, “Connecting Caroline,” which keeps them all on the ballot until November.

Remember, Republicans and Independents can’t vote in Democratic Primaries. And Republicans are generally more conservative—and anti-zoning—than those from the party of FDR. So the tables could turn in the General Election.

One refreshing statistic: Caroline’s Democratic Primary turned out as many as 735 voters, more than six times the number we in Enfield could muster for our Democratic Primary. Good for them. Shame on us. / RL

Cynthia Brock

(June 29): Cynthia Brock, beaten by double-digits Tuesday in Ithaca’s highest-profile Primary race, says now that Solidarity Slate opponent Kayla Matos has denied her the Democratic nomination, she’ll have to think long and hard about continuing onto the General Election using an Independent ballot line as her crutch.

“I’m giving myself permission to take a few days before I decide what I’m going to do next,” Brock told The Ithaca Voice in a story reported Thursday.

Kayla Matos has money and influence behind her, including help from the state’s Working Families Party, which has targeted Cynthia Brock’s First Ward seat and named African-American Matos as a priority candidate.

“I do all of the door to door myself,” Brock told The Voice. “Old school style [campaign] structure cannot compete against large scale volunteer outreach efforts where multiple teams are engaging with each and every voter.”

Remember my own (badly-losing) one-man campaign in 2021 for the County Legislature? I can relate.

Yet my personal advice for Brock is to hang-tough and march to November. Why? Because on Common Council, Cynthia Brock is one of the few “grownups” in the room. And next year—especially without her—Council will have fewer still. / RL

A roof that needs work… and now will get it.

(June 28): At a quick, special meeting Wednesday (6/28), the Enfield Town Board opened—and then, promptly awarded—construction bids for two, long-sought building renovations. The Board will use American Rescue Plan (ARPA) funds to cover the cost of each.

Cooley Construction Corp. of Trumansburg was the lower of two bidders for the replacement of the metal roof on the former Enfield Highway Garage, now housing, in part, the Town Clerk’s Office. Cooley was the sole bidder on patching and repainting the Enfield Courthouse, the building where the Town Board meets.

Cooley’s bid $55,000 for the roof replacement was $800 less than the second bidder, Zook’s Construction, of Interlaken. Cooley bid $26,162 for the building exterior work. When the Town Board issued the bids, it had budgeted $70,000 and $30,000, respectively.

The four attending Board members approved Cooley’s low bids unanimously. Bid documents call for each project to be finished by December.

Brad Pinsky

(June 28): As expected, and without significant discussion, the Enfield Town Board Wednesday night accelerated the schedule for the Town’s placement of fire protection services under an independent Board of Fire Commissioners.

Under the adopted Resolution, an earlier-set October 2^nd implementation date will be moved up to August first.

Brad Pinsky, the attorney the Town retained to engineer the change, recommended the revised date a few days after the Town Board’s June 14^th vote to transition fire protection to a Commission. Pinsky urged the speed-up after learning Enfield will likely need to hold a September referendum on whether to allow the Fire Commission to spend above a state-set limit.

The hurried date’s principal drawback: The five Commissioners the Town Board will soon appoint would need to run for election this December, rather than in 2024. The Town Board encouraged Commission applicants to step forth, but did not mention prospective candidates in public session.

Jay Franklin

(June 28): At bottom, it became a standoff between green eyeshade number crunching and holding firm to principle.

Wednesday night, following a brief, spirited discussion and an invited explanation from County Director of Assessment Jay Franklin, the Enfield Town Board split 2-2—and thus, defeated—a proposal that would have reversed a 12-year Town policy on how Tompkins County credits Enfield’s share of Sales Tax revenue on residents’ bills.

Beginning in 2011—based on a mistaken assumption that Enfield could tax state parkland—the Town began allowing County Government to apply the Town’s share of Sales Tax to reduce the County’s own tax levy as it appears on Enfield’s January bills. But for this, the second consecutive year, Councilperson Robert Lynch (this writer) proposed, that Enfield take the $949,000 Sales Tax share as a check and use it to offset the Town’s own tax levy.

Lynch argued his change would “balance the scales” and make Enfield look less like a high-tax town.

But Councilperson Jude Lemke and Supervisor Stephanie Redmond objected. They clung to Franklin’s prediction that Enfield’s co-opting the cash would raise most residents’ total taxes slightly; perhaps up by a few dollars a year. The change would also lead solar farms to pay more to the County and less to the Town.

[Read the expanded coverage of this story, now posted.]

(June 27): With “Breezy Meadows” put to bed last month, you can’t blame Dan Walker and the Enfield Town Planning Board for taking a break.

Chairman Walker announced Tuesday the cancellation of his Planning Board’s normally-scheduled July 5th session. Planners would likely have continued their task—it’s gone on for months now—of rewriting Enfield’s subdivision regulations and Site Plan Review Law.

The Board gave final approval to the Breezy Meadows subdivision June 7^th. New York Land and Lakes Development has said it plans to begin marketing the 33 building lots in September. (See earlier story, posted on this website.)

Klein: “Explore the municipal option.”

(June 24): It didn’t go half as far as some would like. But the Tompkins County Legislature this week took a first step toward bringing broadband Internet to the 1200 addresses that its retained consultant says still don’t don’t have it. The Legislature initiated a “Request for Proposals” seeking private firms that might fill in the gaps. It left unanswered exactly who would pay for those extensions. Lawmakers made clear that taxpayers won’t shoulder the full $7 Million cost.

“I didn’t feel comfortable delaying it any further,” legislator Greg Mezey said in bringing the bid invitation forward. The Legislature had asked the Tompkins County Council of Governments (TCCOG) to weigh-in. But at a late-May meeting, many on TCCOG wanted a much more ambitious initiative, a county-wide municipal system, one that would go head-to-head with giants like Charter-Spectrum.

Legislator Mike Lane saw no support for that: “I don’t think it’s affordable,” he said. A county-wide public option was priced at $80 Million years ago, he said. “Would it be less now?” Lane asked.

But Danby’s Dan Klein—whose town sorely lacks broadband—urged the Legislature not give up on a County-owned municipal provider. “We should explore that possibility,” Klein said. “It will make our municipal partners happy.”

CJC’s Monalita Smiley

(June 22): The final decision rests with the Tompkins County Legislature. But Enfield Community Council (ECC) Board members learned at their meeting Thursday that legislator Randy Brown intends to introduce this year, and also for the next two, additions to the County Budget that would provide $25,000 annual appropriations to ECC to be earmarked for “staff salaries for programming purposes.”

ECC officials welcomed the news, saying it could provide ECC its first permanent staff to oversee programs at its Community Center and handle other program responsibilities.

Brown’s initiative—that would likely require annual renewal for both 2025 and 2026—will soften the blow caused by ECC’s losing out on its six-figure request for County-administered Community Recovery funds.

More good news Thursday for ECC: Monalita Smiley, Director of the Tompkins County’s Community Justice Center, invited the ECC to become the Enfield “Hub” for CJC’s outreach efforts. The ECC Board unanimously accepted Smiley’s invitation. It could open opportunities for such things as tele-health medical appointments.

“We want this to happen,” ECC President Cortney Bailey said of the Hub affiliation.

Veronica Pillar

(June 20): Last week, no one else on the Enfield Town Board chose to back my submitted Resolution to urge Governor Hochul to veto pending legislation, adopted by both the State Senate and Assembly, that would end the long-standing tradition of holding local town and county elections in odd-numbered years.

But Tuesday, the Tompkins County Legislature thought differently. By a vote of 10 to 4, the Legislature adopted a measure—which yes, I’d suggested and initially scripted—to encourage that veto. Thank legislators Randy Brown and Mike Sigler for advancing the Resolution. It gained bipartisan support.

The election year change would lead to “overshadowing of local races,” Veronica Pillar, one of Tompkins County’s most progressive lawmakers, told colleagues. “It’s counterproductive,” Groton’s Lee Shurtleff said of the bill now before Hochul. Thirty races could be on one, even-year ballot, he cautioned. “Granted, you’ll get larger turnout,” Shurtleff admitted. But the overwhelmed voter would simply leave the local races blank, he feared.

But Dryden’s Mike Lane bristled at what Brown and Sigler had asked him to pass, equating off-year local elections to voter suppression. “This is a good thing that the New York Legislature has done,” Lane firmly declared. “You are off track with this.”

As you prepare to vote for Enfield Town Councilperson in the June 27th Democratic Primary—and then, again, in the Nov. 7^th General Election—please consider my answers to five key questions posed Enfield’s candidates by the League of Women Voters Education Fund as part of its Vote411 outreach to the electorate.

I’ve been candid. I’ve been blunt. I’ve identified Enfield’s challenges as I see them. And I’ve made my best attempt as seeking their solution.

You can read the “Five Answers that Frame my Campaign” on this website under the Campaign 2023 tab. / Bob

Prof. Deirdre Hay

(June 17): She was raised and educated in Australia. She’s an adjunct law professor at Cornell. Now Deirdre Hay wants to fill a soon-to-open slot representing us on the New York State Supreme Court.

Hay this week christened her campaign for the Democratic nomination to judge for our 10-county Sixth Judicial District, holding a launch party Wednesday at Ithaca’s Argos Inn. Progressive activist Emily Adams has gone out of her way to support Hay, a strong signal that Hay, who must eschew politics on the campaign trail, bends to the partisan Left.

Hay grew up in Melbourne. She earned law degrees at universities there and in Sydney. She’s past-president of the Women’s Bar Association of New York, where, it’s said, she urged the WBA to work harder for a state Equal Rights Amendment and Equal Pay legislation.

In New York’s quirky judge-picking process, parties select Supreme Court candidates at late-summer conventions. Adams knows of no one else seeking the Democrats’ nomination. Broome County lawyer Cheryl Insinga is a likely Republican nominee.

Professor Hay owns a horse farm in Freeville. To humanize her favored candidate, Adams writes, “Deirdre has a narrative that will stick in people’s minds. She has mud under her fingernails, she throws hay bales around, she drives a tractor… and she wrote a PhD thesis on anti-trust law.” And yes, Adams says, “She speaks with a charming accent.”

The barn when we built it.

(June 15): By unanimous vote, and with little discussion beforehand, the Enfield Town Board Wednesday authorized the Supervisor to sign a bonding contract with the Greene County Commercial Bank to finance the local share of the Town’s new salt and storage barn, built last year.

The Greene County bank, the lower of two bidders at an auction June 7^th, will charge an interest rate of 4.18% on $429,842 of financing from next year through 2035. The competing bank would have charged rates a tenth or two higher.

Yes, rates are higher now than they were last year. But how good are they? One well-placed Tompkins County finance officer told this writer they’re competitive. “A net interest rate of 4.18% isn’t bad on a small issuance,” the source said. He said that in February, Tompkins issued bonds for a much larger $12 Million. That bid sale drew a rate of 3.25%. And larger totals usually draw better rates, he said.

Councilperson Lemke; voted No

(June 15): Given the opportunity, the Enfield Town Board took a pass Wednesday on urging Governor Kathy Hochul to veto a bill just adopted by the State Legislature.

The bill would move the elections for all Town offices—as well as many other local offices—from odd-numbered years to even-numbered years. Critics call the bill blatantly political, designed to get more Democrats elected.

Councilperson Robert Lynch (this writer) introduced the Resolution to urge Hochul to veto the bill. He found himself the only Town Board member to support it.

Councilpersons Jude Lemke and James Ricks opposed the Resolution. Supervisor Stephanie Redmond, a part-time legislative employee, had to abstain. Councilperson Cassandra Hinkle abstained as well.

“There has been outrage from a number of elected municipal leaders, primarily in upstate New York,” Lynch advised the Town Board. “And I can sympathize with them.” Lynch said the change would have local races “buried at the bottom of the ballot.” Republican opponents, he said, see the change as “a transparent effort by Democrats in the Legislature to get people to vote automatically,” straight-ballot, whenever they cast votes for President or Governor.

“I would think that going to even years and getting more people to vote seems like a reasonable idea,” Councilperson Lemke said in opposing the failed Enfield initiative.

Yes, Anna supported it. Too Bad.

(Update; June 13): It’s now up to Governor Hochul to sign or veto a bill which would eventually alter how upstate counties and towns elect their local leaders. And it would be a change not for the better.

The Assembly passed Thursday, and the State Senate followed suit late Friday to adopt a Democrat-backed bill that would move the elections of town officials and county legislators from odd- to even-numbered years. The bill cleared the Assembly 89-57. Our local Assemblymember, Anna Kelles, supported the revision. State Senator Lea Webb also voted in its favor.

Media reports say local lawmakers statewide are livid about the change, generally seen as benefiting Democrats, whose members turn out more in even-year elections. They urge Governor Hochul to veto the bill, should it pass both houses.

Here’s how I just put it in my appeal for Sen. Webb to oppose the bill: “I believe the change proposed by this bill would harm local democracy and discourage public interest in local elections…. Holding local elections in odd-numbered years gives these races and the offices they seek to fill the prominence they deserve.”

(June 7): James Ricks’ requested withdrawal from his race for reelection as Enfield Councilperson has chilled any talk of a Democratic candidates forum before the June 27^th Primary.

“We don’t really need a forum,” one prominent Enfield Democratic leader wrote late Tuesday, after this candidate had inquired about where earlier-discussed debate plans stood. We “should instead concentrate our efforts on getting that information out to Democratic voters” regarding Ricks’ decision, she stated.

Earlier talk had focused on a forum at the Enfield Community Council, perhaps the week of June 12^th. Don’t expect one now. Ricks will still be on the Primary ballot, one of three candidates competing for two Councilperson’s seats. The primary can’t be canceled. But without Ricks, the two remaining—including this writer—would each secure a nomination.

“There is, however, a point to be gained by each candidate presenting his or her perspectives to the voters,” I responded to the party. “I, as one Democratic candidate in this year’s election, would welcome the opportunity to meet voters in a community event and express my views.”

No word on any Republican debate for the contested nomination for Highway Superintendent. / RL

(June 6^th): Last year, the State Legislature considered, but never got to complete, action on a bill that would move local elections (like those for Enfield Town offices) from odd-numbered to even-numbered years. Such a change, of course, would bury local contests in most voters’ minds, eclipsing them amid races for President, Governor, or Congress.

It’s a bad idea. But Albany Democrats like it because they think even years will draw to the polls more of their party’s voters. Raw politics.

Now comes word that amended bills are again cycling through State Senate and Assembly committees, perhaps being groomed for adoption in the legislative flurry prior to adjournment.

They’re Senate Bill S3505B and Assembly Bill A4282B. If you oppose them, tell your legislator. / Bob

(June 1): Earlier fears that much of Enfield’s American Rescue Plan funds would be clawed back by Congress as part of ongoing Debt Ceiling negotiations now appear unfounded.

Clarification by legal staff of the New York Association of Towns—a sentiment shared by some local officials—indicates that the “unobligated” COVID-relief moneys subject to clawback in the Debt Ceiling bill are only those within federal agencies, not those handed out to local governments during the past two years.

“Once funds left the U.S. Treasury and were delivered a local government, they were considered ‘obligated’ for federal government purposes,” the Association advised its members.

The Enfield Town Board distributed most of its ARPA allotment May 25^th in fear of the clawback.

Read more, posted on this website.

Holmes: Only slight help from Albany

(June 1): At a minimally-publicized “second retreat session” held May 30th, its summary released only Thursday morning, the Tompkins County Legislature revisited its prospective 2024 County Budget. Members took a “straw poll,” and a majority purportedly agreed to cut any projected tax levy increase next year to only two per cent.

That’s less than half of the larger, 5.53% levy increase that County Administrator Lisa Holmes had forecast at the Legislature’s first retreat April 25^th, an increase she’d scaled back only days later.

The County’s news release failed to indicate how many—or whom—among the Legislature favored the 2% hike.

Passage of the New York State Budget left us “only slightly better than we’d been expecting,” Holmes conceded to local municipal officials in a Zoom conference Thursday. There’s little relief from a Governor’s Office decision to hijack local Medicaid reimbursements, she said. And there’s the burden of new, mandated increases in Assigned Counsel fees.

Holmes also pointed to higher electricity and natural gas expenses, which, she said, could add $400,000 to next year’s budget.

(May 30): On Tuesday afternoon, I handed the Tompkins County Board of Elections 23 self-gathered Nominating Petitions that provided my race for Enfield Town Councilperson an Independent line in the November General Election.

I want to thank the 213 Enfield residents of all political stripes—Democrat, Republican, and Independent—who provided me the signatures to secure me the “One Enfield” party designation.

I’d filed for the same third-party line during my 2019 first run for office. An Independent nomination provides every voter the opportunity to support me in November regardless of the Democratic Primary’s outcome. It also allows those who’d never vote for a Democrat the choice to cast their ballot for me while otherwise holding true to their principles.

I needed just 67 names to earn the Independent line. But I got three times that number for one simple reason: I wanted to meet you; and more importantly, to hear your concerns about Enfield. / Bob Lynch

Endangered: Alderperson Cynthia Brock (Dem.)

(May 31): I remember the days—decades ago—when Republicans held an almost insurmountable lock on Enfield politics. (Remember Supervisor Bob Linton?) Those days are gone. So, too, are those when an Ithaca City Republican held even a prayer of a chance.

But now, even the traditional Democratic Party looks endangered, facing an insurgent challenge from self-proclaimed Socialists and those whose first loyalty lies with the Working Families Party. (Yes, to those of us over 50, most candidates look like kids.)

Here’s how The Ithaca Voice shakes out this year’s Ithaca battle between Left and uber-Left. It’s not Mayor Ed Conley’s Ithaca anymore. Or even Carolyn Peterson’s.

https://ithacavoice.org/2023/05/the-lefts-battle-for-ithacas-common-council/

Cortney Bailey (at home)

(May 30): Cortney Bailey, president of the Enfield Community Council and a 2021 write-in candidate for Enfield Town Supervisor, has charted a new political course for herself. She wants to become Town Justice.

Confirming months of speculation, Bailey filed Nomination Petitions Thursday (May 25) to run for Town Justice under the Independent “Enfield First” party designation. The Gray Road resident will face Heather Knutsen-King, the Republican Party nominee, in the November General Election. Democrats did not field a candidate for Town Justice.

The position of Town Justice remains vacant following the retirement of Betty Poole, who ended decades of service to Enfield last December. Knutsen-King has served as Clerk of the Enfield Justice Court since January.

(May 30): Whoever wins the June 27^th Republican Primary for Enfield Town Highway Superintendent, the loser will live on to fight in November.

Tompkins County Board of Elections officials Tuesday revealed that Chris Willis, the Black Oak Road resident who’s challenged long-time incumbent Barry “Buddy” Rollins in the GOP Primary, submitted that day nominating petitions to secure for himself an Independent line in the General Election.

Rollins was already assured November ballot placement, as Democrats cross-endorsed him in April. Democrats had no Highway Superintendent candidate of their own. Willis’ Independent petitions could still be challenged.

As of late Tuesday, the deadline date for submissions, no previously-unannounced Independent candidates had petitioned for either Enfield Town Supervisor or Councilperson. If that holds, Supervisor Stephanie Redmond would coast into the November election unopposed.

(May 26): Demand is up. Supplies are down. And the Enfield Pantry needs your help.

“We are in a financial crisis,” Enfield Food Distribution Director Jean Owens wrote local residents in an email May 23^rd, one whose message bordered on desperation.

“Presently, our funds to secure food to continue to provide for those coming to us for help are almost depleted,” Owens wrote. “We are in a financial crisis. We will continue to distribute whatever foods we can secure including all those rescued foods we glean from our local stores.”

Owens’ request exclusively sought funds for the provision of food. She referenced that from January through December of last year, the Enfield Food Pantry served 24,372 households, 22,216 children, 45,626 adults, and 8,102 of the elderly.

Owens urged checks be made to the First Baptist Church of Enfield Center. Write “Food Pantry” on the memo line. Checks can be mailed to Jean Owens, 800 Enfield Falls Rd., Newfield, NY 14867.

John Joly (courtesy The Ithaca Voice)

(May 26): Former Acting Ithaca Police Chief John Joly puts it bluntly: He alleges in a forthcoming lawsuit that he was passed over for permanent Chief because he is a white man.

A notice of claim, filed in March and this week detailed by The Ithaca Voice, alleges that key city officials, including half of Common Council, and most pointedly, the City’s African-American Director of Human Resources, steered the Police Chief’s selection process to give favor to a competing candidate, one who is Black.

Joly, currently on a self-declared personal leave, claims the HR Director elevated race to the forefront of community forums. It reportedly led to a search committee’s favoring the Black candidate. But Mayor Laura Lewis nominated Joly anyway, only to pull the nomination days later when numerous Alderpersons declared their opposition.

John Joly’s used an obscenity to describe the selection process. And his latest actions underscore the unending friction between police culture and Ithaca’s liberal politics.

Fresh face; School Board winner Katie Apker

(May 17): No, a taxpayer revolt never occurred. But voters in the Ithaca City School District did oust two School Board incumbents in Tuesday’s election, preliminary results showing Christopher Malcolm and Patricia Wasyliw losing to a pair of Board newcomers.

School Board President Sean Eversley Bradwell secured the most votes (2187) to assure his reelection. Just four votes behind him, Garrick Blalock took the second of four seats up for election.

Another newcomer, Katie Apker, came in third. Adam Krantweiss secured the fourth seat, a shortened term caused by an earlier resignation.

Joe Lonsky—the guy with the yard signs—finished far behind anyone else, garnering only 599 votes. Lonsky had waged a taxpayer-friendly insurgent campaign, arguing schools spend too much and waste too much.

Of note, all four winning ICSD candidates Tuesday held the teachers union’s endorsement. Only 66 votes separated the first and fourth-place finishers, showing perhaps the power of the ITA.

Ithaca’s school budget passed handily, 73% to 27%. A proposition to buy buses did even better, winning by a four-to-one margin.

(May 17): In 2022, the Newfield School Board struggled with its budget, voters initially rejecting the district’s spending plan, only later adopting a trimmed-down version. Tuesday, the results were different.

By a roughly three-to-two margin, Newfield voters approved, on its first outing, a $24.5 Million budget to operate the school system for the next year. The vote was 163-112. By similar margins, voters authorized the purchase of three electric school buses—soon a state mandate—and established a “Transportation Capital Reserve Fund,” which would, in part, buy electric buses and their associated hardware.

The vote margin proved instructive here, because last year, the Newfield District Budget also earned majority support, but not the 60 per cent required to override a state-mandated tax cap.

Had the same rule applied this year, the budget would have lost again, just barely. But officials say the district kept the tax levy beneath the tax cap, meaning passage required only a simple majority.

In elections to the Newfield School Board, both incumbents were elected. Jeremy TenWolde secured 213 votes; Missy Rynone, 208. Both ran unopposed.

I spoke to the waiver, then it got pulled.

(May 16): Tuesday, for the second straight meeting—and after this Town Councilperson once again made an impassioned plea for downtown help—Tompkins County legislator Randy Brown withdrew his member-filed Resolution aimed at relieving the Enfield Community Council from a taxation oversight that had allegedly cost it more than $20,000.

Brown had offered the Resolution to provide required County Government endorsement of a special State law that would waive the one year’s worth of property taxes ECC purportedly paid the County, the Town of Enfield, its Fire Company, and the Ithaca City School District.

But later, after the meeting adjourned, Brown explained that ECC officials now admit they, themselves, never paid most of the tax. And whenever a taxpayer defaults, Brown said, County Government steps in to reimburse the other taxing entities. Brown said he’s heard no talk of Tompkins County foreclosing on ECC, as it would a private homeowner.

This latest delay will allow everyone time to sort matters out—yet again. But because the State Legislature plans to adjourn in early-June, and the County Legislature won’t reconvene until June 6, it could be next year before the matter’s resolved. / RL

(May 12): The Newfield Town Board took an important first step Thursday toward an ambitious, more than $1 Million investment, including renovation of its Town Hall and construction of two park pavilions.

By a unanimous vote among the three Board members attending, the Board approved a contract with STREAM Collaborative to design the capital improvements, most notable among them the construction of a new Town Hall meeting room estimated to cost $400,000. Another projected $117,000 would be spent on offices; $40,000 for code-compliant restrooms; more than $450,000 for both pavilions.

Only the design work was authorized Thursday. It will cost the Town about $29,000. And while American Rescue Plan funding will cover some of the later construction, Supervisor Michael Allinger admits it won’t cover it all, and that total project funding remains an unresolved issue.

Less glamorous, yet more expensive at the moment, the Newfield Board also Thursday awarded a more than $885,000 bid by Frank P. Kane Construction for sewer system improvements. Kane’s was the lowest bid of four submitted. Allinger said the sewer work—most of it grant-funded—will address concerns state regulators have raised about excessive sewer “inflow.”

Newfield’s engineering consultant recommended Kane Construction, writing that it’s “found them to be competent to complete the work at hand” based on Kane’s work at a project in Naples.

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.

(Mar. 11): After a wintertime break, Enfield Dog Enumerator Pat Baker has resumed her enumeration of all dogs within the Town of Enfield. Baker began her canine count in October. And while Town Clerk Mary Cornell has reported that the enumerator found many owners not at home during her first round, she intends to make follow-up visits to ensure that all resident canines in the Town are properly licensed.

Clerk Cornell stresses it’s much more than a search for revenue. Her concern centers more around public safety, since licensing requires documentation of up-to-date rabies vaccinations. Without a license, authorities have little way to know vaccination status in the event of a dog bite.

Clerk Cornell has stated that “In the event a dog is found to be unlicensed, the owner will be required to license that dog within 20 days of receipt of notice by the enumerator. Dogs found to be unlicensed during the enumeration period shall be subject to a $10.00 enumeration fee in addition to the regular license fees.”

You can avoid the penalty by bringing the dog’s rabies certificate and proof of spay/neuter to the Town Clerk’s office and purchase the license before the enumerator arrives.

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.