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 during the 2019 Town Board election campaign and beyond, up through today.

Here’s a recent list:

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

Petition with Respect: Comment on the 2022 Congressional Campaign; posted Mar. 21, 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…)

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):

January 2022: Expanding and Reshaping the TCIDA

January 2022: Shaping the Next Tompkins County Legislature

November 2021: My Take on the Tompkins County Budget

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

July 2020: Local COVID-19 Surveillance Testing

2019: My Stand on Fracking

2019: What I Stand Against

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

Here’s What’s News:

Mar. 10: Enfield may Gain from Second Wind’s Stumble

Mar. 8: Tompkins’ Green New Divide

Mar. 4: Hearing Set; “Breezy Meadows” Questions Remain

Feb. 24: Community Council Faces $20K Budget Gap

Feb. 23; expanded Feb. 24: Sampling Site to stay put as Tompkins subsidies end

Feb. 21: Locals move to block Albany’s Medicaid money-grab

Feb. 20: The “Death” of a Good Judge. Analysis; the Judge LaSalle Debacle

Feb. 9: Newfield Town Board Acts to Stand in Second Wind’s Path

Feb. 6: Enfield Planners chart contrasting course in Subdivision Rewrite

Jan. 18: Town Assessment Boards Axed

Jan 17: Talking the (Downtown) Talk

Jan 13: Newfield Advances Moratorium to Block Second Wind

Jan 11; expanded Jan 12: State Job will limit Redmond’s Enfield role

Jan. 9: Troubling Times at TCAT

Jan. 7: Into the Weeds with “Breezy Meadow’s” Review

Jan. 4: Freshman Fervor: Randy Brown makes his mark defending hometown interests

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

(Mar. 27): Readers of this site know how I’d supported Judge Hector LaSalle, Governor Hochul’s initial nominee, to preside over the New York Court of Appeals. You also know how I detested the State Senate’s smearing of Judge LaSalle’s record and the brute-force politics members used to bury his nomination.

I applaud the editor of City & State for digging into the background of how a good judge’s nomination was lost and his reputation destroyed in the process.

Cynical about Albany politics? You have good reason. Please read:

https://www.cityandstateny.com/politics/2023/03/inside-story-fight-against-hector-lasalle/384162/

Judge Garry and me, 2020

(Mar. 25): Chenango County’s Elizabeth Garry, a State Supreme Court Judge Tompkins County helped elect and Presiding Justice of the Appellate Division’s Third Department, is among seven candidates for Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals on a list released Friday by the state’s Commission on Judicial Nomination.

Governor Kathy Hochul must select the Chief Judge from among that list now that Hochul’s first judicial pick, Judge Hector LaSalle, was rejected by the State Senate February 15.

Observers stand impressed with the new list of seven. It includes three sitting justices on New York’s Highest Court, including its Acting Chief Judge, Anthony Cannataro.

Court of Appeals justices also named are Shirley Troutman and Rowan Wilson. Two lawyers in private practice chosen by the panel, Caitlin Halligan and Corey Stoughton, have been described by one legal expert as “great lawyers in the state, perhaps even the nation.”

Judge Garry has served as a State Supreme Court Judge in our 6^th Judicial District since 2006. She’s been Presiding Justice of the Third Department since 2018.

When she was re-elected in 2020, during the height of the pandemic, this writer was among the Democratic delegates who renominated her. As she then accepted her nomination, Judge Garry stated that we seek “fairness and equality under the law.” Our principles are “always worth fighting for, reaching and striving for.”

Until Governor Hochul makes her choice, Judge Garry has a one-in-seven chance of selection. Then comes State Senate confirmation, a test Judge LaSalle notably failed because majority Democrats found him insufficiently liberal. / RL

(Mar. 25): He could just as easily have interviewed our Enfield Fire Chief, Greg Stevenson. But NPR host Scott Simon this Saturday morning chose a volunteer Fire Chief from Accord, NY to discuss the challenges of volunteer firefighter recruitment and the benefits, tangible and otherwise, derived from volunteer fire service. “It fulfills sort of a space in people’s lives,” Accord’s Chief, Peter Nelson said.

Give this story a listen:

https://www.npr.org/2023/03/25/1166059895/its-getting-harder-to-recruit-volunteers-who-make-up-about-70-of-all-fire-depart

Zooming into Newfield

(Mar. 23): Second Wind Cottages’ Executive Director David Shapiro zoomed in for public comment at an otherwise routine work session of the Newfield Town Board Thursday. When he did, Shapiro sought peace with the Board, speaking two nights after he’d surprisingly withdrawn Second Wind’s proposed—and controversial—expansion of its homeless encampment in Newfield, only to have the Tompkins County Legislature later pave the way for expansion nevertheless.

“How can we be a better part of the community?” Shapiro asked. “It’s a beautiful site,” he spoke of the 18-unit tiny house cluster already built. “I wouldn’t want to do anything to taint that for you guys.”

After Tuesday’s County affirmation of the revised Second Wind proposal, Shapiro said he’d return to his governing Board should it want to reconsider its withdrawal. “I don’t know how they’re going to feel,” Shapiro told Newfield Thursday. Yet he added, “We can do this together.”

After he’d retreated behind his zoom tile, Shapiro left a cryptic message in the chat box. It suggested maybe the 12 additional homes could be built not this year, but next. “Or 6 in 2024 and a slower build,” the message ended.

Newfield Town Board members had no direct questions for Shapiro. But they briefly discussed the issue, non-confrontationally, among themselves. Councilperson Heather McCarty suggested a possible Town-sponsored meeting where encampment organizers could field neighbors’ questions.

“So it’s now in Second Wind’s Court,” Councilperson Christine Laughlin surmised as to the next move.

(Mar. 23): Results of an “Enfield 2022 Needs Assessment,” released Thursday at the Enfield Community Council’s monthly meeting, find that “Lack of Mental Health Resources” stands as among the three greatest challenges facing Middle and High School students in the town.

The demand for those resources ranked equally with those of limited youth recreation opportunities and limited activities for youth development. Each earned a 53 per cent priority ranking, where every survey respondent could list three top concerns.

As it happens, a first-ever Enfield mental health wing for its community center was exactly what the ECC had proposed Tompkins County support through its Community Recovery Fund. But the $206,000 agency request failed to make the funding cut. Though the survey’s sample size was small, its results affirm that ECC’s priorities are rightly placed.

As for the needs of younger children, in Elementary school and younger, the Needs Assessment found top community challenges to be affordable childcare (63%), access to sports and recreation (53%) and access to theater, music, art and recreation (42%).

Parents, grandparents, elected officials, and school staff took part in the survey.

(Mar. 16): As they say, “Bend over…”

Buried within the State Assembly’s 134-page Budget Bill is another new tax that those in Albany would rather you not know about until it hits you.

The Assembly bill would amend the tax law and related statutes to impose a 25-cent fee on every delivery transaction made within the state. This new “not-a-tax” would kick in September first.

And no, the measure would not be Albany’s way of squeezing blood out of FedEx and UPS. The bill’s language dictates that the fee “shall be passed on to the purchaser and separately stated on any receipt.”

The bill’s sponsors say their stated purpose is to aid mass transit. Some money would go to the downstate MTA. Maybe some would also find its way to TCAT. Yet the bill doesn’t tell us how much or assure us that the money we pay would find its way back home.

(Remember how that pandemic-spawned sales tax charge-back for a “Distressed Hospital Fund” wound up in Andrew Cuomo’s General Fund coffers?)

And there’d be business burdens too. Anyone who collected the fee would need to register and file monthly returns. And mind you, New York already imposes sales tax on deliveries when they’re bundled into the product’s bill.

Food, medicine, diapers, and baby formula would be exempted. And so, too, would be the U.S. Mail. (Nice of them to think of that.) / RL

Kayla Matos; (Southside Community Ctr. photo.)

(Mar. 15): “This organization is unapologetically serving People of Color,” Southside Community Center Deputy Director Kayla Matos told a Tompkins County Budget Committee meeting last October, her emphatic—perhaps edgy—comment striking a line in the multicultural sand in defense of her agency and of African-American exceptionalism. Now Matos is running for Common Council.

Setting the stage for what could be this year’s most watched Ithaca race, the progressive Matos will challenge incumbent City Alderperson Cynthia Brock for the Democratic nomination in the realigned, West End-focused First Ward. The Left-leaning Working Families Party has already endorsed Matos.

Brock, seen by many as a political centrist, is best known of late for having taken on former Mayor Svante Myrick and others in City Hall by lodging an ethics complaint, now before the Tompkins County Ethics Advisory Board.

This could be one of those bellwether contests that tell us whether already-liberal Ithaca slides just a little bit farther into the progressive column. Watch this race. / RL

Bostwick Road and the creek crossing

(Mar. 14): Monday, Mar. 13 brought a double-dose of bad funding news for Enfield.

In a pair of form letters, the New York State Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services rejected not one, but two grant applications by Enfield, the larger of which would have replaced an aging culvert on Bostwick Road over Enfield Creek and rerouted the stream to stabilize the streambank that parallels the road.

Similarly rejected was an application that would have replaced culverts under Fish and Enfield Center Roads.

Enfield Supervisor Stephanie Redmond has for nearly a year promoted the Bostwick stream relocation, telling the Town Board in September that the work could cost close to $1 Million, and that she’d plan to use federal ARPA money for the nearly $100,000 local match.

But Tuesday, Angel Hinickle, Conservation Specialist with Tompkins County’s Soil and Water Conservation District, advised Redmond that federal ARPA funds could not have been used as the match because the grant would have come from federal sources.

Still, New York never let Enfield’s application get to Washington. A state official signed the rejections, in both instances saying that neither application met “specific FEMA Benefit-Coast (sic) Analysis Criteria” [nor, I guess, spell-check].

Redmond emailed Town Board members her disappointment and Tuesday acknowledged she did know ARPA funds were off-limits. Expect the Town Board to discuss the rejections in April. / RL

(Mar. 11): The Enfield Town Board could be on the verge of making its most important decision of the year. It could soon—public consenting—loosen the ties between Town Government and the Enfield Volunteer Fire Company.

Sixteen years ago, the Town Board briefly considered forming a “Fire District” to replace the “Fire Protection District” under which the EVFC then (and now) provides Enfield fire protection services through contract. The 2007 Minutes report that an Informational Public Hearing was held, a Town Board executive session followed, but nothing more was done.

Fast forward to today: At the February Quarterly Meeting between Town and EVFC officials, talk of forming a Fire District resurfaced. And following up, the Town Board March 8th authorized the Supervisor “to engage the services of legal counsel to research the steps needed” to create that Fire District. The next day, Board members learned that an attorney with a Syracuse law firm holding expertise in the area will brief the Board April 12.

Under a “Fire District” arrangement, a Board of five (eventually) elected Fire Commissioners would oversee fire protection. It would contract with the EVFC, set the budget, and impose taxes. The Town Board would hold little, if any, role.

Would the change benefit Enfield? We don’t yet know. And the change would require a Public Hearing. As the Board’s latest action made clear, “Adoption of this Resolution in no way commits this Town Board to (such a) transition.”

Expect more on this topic to be written here soon. / RL

(Mar. 11): “The future is bright,” Enfield Community Council’s Debbie Teeter informed the Enfield Town Board Wednesday, as Teeter asked the Town to allocate $30,000 in American Rescue Plan (ARPA) funds to help ECC close projected budget gaps for this year and next.

The Town Board postponed action for at least one month on the grant request, members requesting financial specifics and questioning whether ECC’s justification fits into ARPA’s tight rules.

“I’m not sure a projected budget shortfall would meet our regulations,” Enfield Councilperson Jude Lemke cautioned. Teeter indicated she’d sharpen her calculations and her funding rationale within the next month.

Teeter, a member of the ECC’s Board of Directors, told the Town Board volunteerism is up at her organization, but that COVID-19 lockdowns and past shelter-in-place tendencies had reduced event participations and building rentals.

So far, the ECC has tapped savings to close its gaps. But without the $30,000 ARPA bailout, Teeter warned, “We could cover with reserves, but it would likely deplete them.”

Read more about the ECC budget crunch, posted on this website.

“It’s too aggressive.” Randy Brown

(Mar. 11): As I’ve written, it’s easy to ignore these things until they turn around and bite you.

Governor Hochul in January proposed, in her words, “to end the sale of any new fossil fuel-powered heating equipment by 2030.” And by 2026, any new home in the state could not be built if it had an oil furnace, or wood stove (or presumably, a gas cooktop) within it. Wednesday night, our Enfield Town Board was warned that by next decade you may not even be able to buy furnace parts.

Tuesday, March 7^th, the Tompkins County Legislature went one better. By a party-line vote, it backed a pair of Albany legislators’ bill that would move that latter date up. The “All-Electric Building Act” would make it illegal to build anything less than seven stories tall containing “equipment for the combustion of fossil fuels” as soon as next January. Eleven downtown Democratic legislators actually signed onto this bill. Republicans like Randy Brown opposed it. Brown called the initiative “too aggressive.”

I’ve written a story about their action and posted it on this website. Please read it.

And for Democrats, some advice: These are the kinds of mandates that can cost you elections. Lee Zeldin didn’t lose last year by that much. / RL

(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.

Allinger before the Legislature’s committee

(Mar. 6): By a vote of two-to-four, a Tompkins County legislative committee Monday rejected Second Wind Cottages’ revised funding application seen as essential for saving the group’s plans to expand its homeless encampment in Newfield by adding a dozen new “cottages” for the unhoused.

Action by the Community Recovery Fund Advisory Committee followed pleas by three Newfield Town Board members, including Supervisor Michael Allinger, not to approve the changes, revisions Second Wind advanced in an effort to circumvent a recently-imposed one-year Newfield moratorium on the kind of “campground-type” structures it had first proposed and had received a prior committee recommendation for $510,000 in County funding.

“It’s an awful lot of money for 12 people,” legislator Deborah Dawson remarked prior to her vote against the change. Second Wind’s earlier proposal had called for as many as 25 new campsite shelters.

Newfield legislator Randy Brown said after the meeting he’ll ask the full Legislature March 21^st to drop Recovery Fund support for Second Wind altogether. And then, if it does, he’ll seek committee support next month for a trio of Enfield applications, earlier sidelined, including that of the Enfield Community Council. “I’m going to push hard for this,” Brown said.

Lisa Holmes

(Mar. 4): As the saying goes, “It may take an act of Congress.” Here, literally.

Tompkins County Administrator Lisa Holmes, back from a statewide conference of county leaders, told a Tompkins County Legislature committee Thursday that New York lawmakers may be powerless to act on an Albany administrative money grab that could cost this county $610,000 in Medicaid revenue this year and an additional $1.5 Million in 2024.

“The piece of that that is a little confounding,” Holmes told the Government Operations Committee, “is that the state intercepts of those federal funds is formula-based. It’s not technically in the Governor’s Budget, so that the State Legislature cannot act to take it out.”

As the County Legislature learned in February, while Washington appropriated extra Medicaid reimbursement to the states in response to the pandemic, New York administrators snatched for themselves the portion that, many argue, was supposed to filter down to the counties. (See story posted on this website.)

“So advocacy efforts have to be focused on the Governor’s Office and on federal legislators,” Holmes advised the committee.

Committee member Mike Lane responded that he’d read that area Congressman Marc Molinaro and two upstate colleagues have introduced legislation to clarify Washington’s intent and to seek override of Albany bureaucrats’ money grab. ”So there is something going on at the federal level,” Lane reported.

One abandoned, old Babcock barn; 12 more.

(Mar. 1): The 33-lot, large-acre, proposed Enfield subdivision that stirred intense controversy when first disclosed three months ago, will head to a Public Hearing April 5th.

By a unanimous vote Wednesday, the Enfield Town Planning Board set the hearing for Land & Lakes Development’s proposed “Breezy Meadows Farm” carve-up of some 337 acres of former farmland between Podunk and Halseyville Roads. It includes 13 large, long-vacant barns once part of the Babcock Poultry Farm. The Board also declared itself the lead agency in a state-mandated environmental review of the project.

Board action followed a more than two hour review of Land & Lakes site plat and its 145-page environmental report. Only three residents attended Wednesday’s meeting. They asked occasional questions, but made no public statements.

“I don’t have a problem with the plat as it is,” Chair Dan Walker said at one point, as he and other Board members reviewed how the developer would slice Breezy Meadows into building lots. “All the lots meet the minimum requirements, and there’s enough (road) frontage,” Walker said.

Yet Board members had concerns. One issue was the likely inadequacy of Tucker Road, which bisects the total tract, to handle increased traffic.

“The road is not very strong,” Walker said of Tucker’s dirt surface; lightly traveled now, but on which the developer could front more than 20 new lots. Board members suggested—but Land & Lakes did not commit— that it make the developer pay for an upgrade.

Read the full story on the Board’s action now posted on this website.

“Progress” coming to where Joe’s now stands

(Mar. 1): Tellingly, during the entire 25 minute discussion, the name “Joe’s” was never mentioned. No one seems to care anymore, not within Ithaca City government anyway.

Tuesday night, giving absolutely no deference to tradition nor a passing thought that they might be killing off a West End icon, Ithaca’s Planning and Development Board unanimously granted Preliminary and Final Site Plan Approval to “The Citizen,” Visum Development’s nondescript, gray-paneled, five story apartment house planned for West Buffalo and North Meadow Streets, right where the legendary former Joe’s Italian Restaurant will soon be demolished.

“It’s a great project and a great spot,” Board Chair Robert Lewis remarked as the developer’s staff completed their sales pitch for this, just another high-rise box where residents will pay monthly rent, but never build equity.

As you might suspect, no one bothered to give public comment to the Planning Board Tuesday on this project or any of several others up for review. About the only negative remark came from one Planning Board member who said, about “The Citizen’s” upper stories, “It looks monolithic to me. It feels fairly generic and flat. It doesn’t have life.” He voted for it nonetheless.

So a slice of local history will soon bite the dust. I’m told some among Ithaca’s new generation actually like these High Rises. It reminds them of the Manhattan they grew up in. Good bye Joe’s. Hello to a Gray Elephant apartment house. I guess Ithaca calls that progress. / RL

McGonigal, at the County Legislature, Feb. 7

(Feb. 25): He’s one of the few grownups left in that disaster zone we call Ithaca City Government. And I cannot let the moment pass without noting—and regretting—the imminent retirement of George McGonigal from Ithaca’s Common Council.

With all 10 Council seats up for re-election this year because of redistricting, McGonigal announced February 21 he will retire as Alderperson at year’s end, thereby ending a decade of exemplary governmental service. No doubt, someone much more liberal—and more naïve—will take his place. That he or she will speed the City’s handbasket ride to that you-know-where. Thank God we’ll still have Cynthia Brock on Council, that is, unless another of the “children” knocks her off in the election.

You’d never call George McGonigal a fashion trendsetter. He often attended County Legislature meetings looking like he’d just come in from pruning trees and mowing yards (which, by the way, he does for a living.) A refreshing change. But more important, George has always been a plain-spoken, down-to-earth, and downright honest community advocate. When supposed “progress” messes up his West-End neighborhood, he lets you know it, and with words you’ll remember. He defends his city and its people in a way few do anymore.

McGonigal told The Ithaca Voice he positions himself among Ithaca’s “redneck-hippy contingency.” To me, he’s a part of our quirky little central city that’s rapidly, sadly, disappearing,. Best to you, George. You’ve served your people well. Soldier on. / RL

Alan Godfrey & family (photo courtesy The Ithaca Voice.)

(Feb. 24): Some say as many as 95% of criminal cases end in bargained pleas. And so did this one. One wonders if it should.

Last March, William L. Marshall was indicted for the high-profile murder of Alan Godfrey in July 2021 on Ithaca’s Taughannock Boulevard. Police at the time said they thought Godfrey was targeted, meaning the early morning killing was not random. Police cloaked their investigation in secrecy until the arrest many months later.

Thursday, Feb. 23 in Tompkins County Court, Marshall pled guilty, not to second degree murder, his original charge, but instead to the reduced count of first degree manslaughter. The manslaughter plea carries a maximum sentence of 25 years. Murder-second could have locked Marshall up for life.

Judge Joseph Cassidy will sentence Marshall in April. And with no trial, details of Godfrey’s killing may never become public.

Of course, one will never know the strength of the prosecution’s case or how prosecutors gauged the likelihood of conviction. Yet given the circumstances, perhaps William Marshall should have been put on trial. He won’t be. / RL

(Feb. 24): They could use some of the cash to buy a piece of land. But the Newfield Town Board spent most of its effort Thursday considering the prospect of spending most of its half-Million Dollar American Rescue Plan (ARPA) allocation on a “Creating Community Spaces” multi-faceted project that would include work at the Newfield Community Park, and most notably, expand the Town Hall.

Washington provided Newfield more than $519,000 through ARPA. A small fraction has already been committed. But $480,000 could be directed to “Community Spaces,” something Newfield had hoped Tompkins County would support with up to $250,000 through its Community Recovery Fund. The County zeroed out Newfield’s request.

“We have to spend it this year, Town Bookkeeper Blixy Taetzsch warned the Board about ARPA. “We don’t have a whole lot of time to explore other options.”

ARPA funding of “Community Spaces” would provide a $174,000 “Multi-Purpose Room” addition to Newfield’s Town Hall as well as construct an $87,000 basement add-on. It would renovate first floor Town Hall restrooms and build a $100,000 park pavilion.

“These are pretty broad, big brush numbers,” Taetzsch, admitted to the Board. The bookkeeper drove Thursday’s discussion. Having improved Town Hall accessibility and a larger meeting space, she told the Board, would in her opinion benefit Newfield considerably.

(Feb. 24): At its Annual Meeting Thursday, the Enfield Community Council Board of Directors adopted a 2023 Budget that puts expenses over projected revenues by nearly $20,000. ECC leaders blame the COVID-19 pandemic for the shortfall, and they plan to ask the Enfield Town Board for a supplemental appropriation to give them a hand-up.

“We are now where we should have been two years ago,” Board member Debbie Teeter said as she presented the proposed budget. “I’d like a balanced budget,” Teeter said, but admitted that what she offered wasn’t that.

ECC officials blame the pandemic for fewer-than-expected bookings at their community center to host events, like weddings. The budget projects a more than seven-fold increase in building revenue for 2023.

Read more on this story, posted under Latest News.

Martin Stallone, briefing legislators

(Feb. 22): In a twist of the tongue that hospital officials were quick to correct, Cayuga Medical Center CEO Martin Stallone briefly implied Wednesday that the CMC COVID-19 Sampling Site at Lansing’s Shops at Ithaca Mall would imminently close, or even that it had closed already. Not so.

Briefing the Tompkins County Legislature’s Health and Human Services Committee and stated while posting a PowerPoint slide labeled “February 2023,” Stallone told the committee that with that current month, “We actually closed the COVID testing at the mall with the (testing) totals that I listed before, 2.77 million tests.”

Within two hours of the CEO’s remarks, Melissa Tourtellotte, CMC’s Vice President of Marketing and Communications, clarified and corrected: “If I said it incorrectly, I apologize,” Tourtellotte conveyed her boss’s contrition. “What Stallone meant to say,” Tourtellotte stated, was that the analysis of sampling results—not the sampling itself—is being transferred from a Cayuga Medical site on Brown Road, near the airport, to CMC’s hospital on West Hill.

“It will be an invisible change to the public,” Tourtellotte said. She indicated that mall-based sampling for COVID-19 will remain in place for the indefinite future.

Senator Anthony Palumbo

(Feb. 21): In a decision that won’t revisit the past, but may impact the future, a State Supreme Court Judge ruled Tuesday that the nomination of Hector LaSalle to head the New York State Court of Appeals did not dead-end with a committee’s turn-down in January. It should have—at it did—go to the full Senate floor.

Despite earlier reluctance, Democratic State Senate leaders brought LaSalle’s nomination to a floor vote February 15^th, where it then lost 20 votes to 39.

Before that vote, Republican Senator Anthony Palumbo had sued on grounds the state Constitution gave Democratic leaders no power to withhold a floor vote. Judge Thomas Whelan’s Tuesday ruling affirmed Palumbo’s viewpoint.

“An unnecessary constitutional crisis arose in the past month,” Justice Whelan wrote in his decision, issued four days after he’d heard oral arguments. “To the contrast, the issues are quite easy to resolve. It is time for this constitutional logjam to be broken asunder.”

Senate Democrats had argued that its Judiciary Committee’s recommendation was the final word. Judge Whelan disagreed.

“The appointment here was not ‘lost,’ as stated by the defendants (in oral arguments Friday) … but was still alive, awaiting final resolution by the full vote of the Senate chamber,” the judge stated.

It’s likely Democrats will appeal Whelan’s ruling, perhaps up to the Court of Appeals. And Palumbo insists the case’s outcome still matters. Governor Hochul’s next nominee for Chief Judge, he says, could travel the same tortured path as LaSalle’s did.

Lots of Red: We’re in “High Transmission.” Brown is better; yellow better still.

(Feb. 21): You know who they are, bless their hearts: Those who will probably mask in public until the day they die (and die of something other than COVID-19).

Locally, the ultra-cautious have friends in high places. In a Valentine’s Day news release, Tompkins County Health officials advised that even though the New York State Health Department has relaxed its masking mandates for medical facilities—albeit, only a bit—Tompkins County wants patients and personnel at local doctor’s offices to keep masking up.

“Healthcare facilities as defined in the guidance should continue to require mask wearing for both staff and visitors until such time that the transmission levels fall to medium or low,” said local Health Commissioner Frank Kruppa. “At that time, based on their own unique circumstances, facilities may choose to operate based on CDC level guidance.”

The terminology gets confusing. “Community Level,” the most commonly-cited metric, blends a trio of factors, including local hospitalizations and hospital capacity. “Community Transmission,” by contrast, focuses only on spread of the disease. Statewide and nationwide, the “Transmission” number is generally worse. As of February 16, Tompkins County stood at “Medium” Community Level, but “High” Community Transmission. Therefore, Kruppa wants medical masking to remain.

On February 14, only five in Tompkins County were hospitalized with COVID-19. No additional deaths were recorded during the week until then.

Jeffrey Barken

(Feb. 14): The member of Ithaca Common Council best known for standing up to defend press freedoms announced Monday his plans to vacate his position at mid-year.

Third ward Alderperson Jeffrey Barken, first elected to Council in late 2021, confirmed to media that he’ll be leaving Ithaca government and Ithaca itself to “pursue other interests out of state.” He’ll resign in June.

Barken is best known beyond the city line for standing up to defend embattled former Tompkins Weekly reporter Deidra Cross last fall after Tompkins County officials allegedly intervened to bridle her reporting of comments critical of the City-County Reimagining Public Safety Collaborative. Cross alleges it was that official meddling that got her fired.

“From a writer’s perspective, the very thought of a government official or any outside entity, forcing the change of even one word against their will is a major affront to democracy” Barken said on the floor of Common Council last September 7^th. “When ideology is blindly or systematically used to impose rhetoric regulating the free press, we have undermined our very ability to imagine anything at all.”

Jeffrey Barken’s courage and candor will be sorely missed in a City Government that, in my opinion, has lost both. I wish him well. / RL

Councilperson Hinkle.

(Feb. 8): “It’s best to keep it local,” Enfield Councilperson Cassandra Hinkle remarked, expressing the strong majority view as the Enfield Town Board Wednesday postponed indefinitely further consideration of consolidating its Justice Court with that of a neighboring town.

Supervisor Stephanie Redmond had floated the idea of consolidation in December after long-time Enfield Town Justice Betty Poole announced her planned year-end retirement. Redmond first thought a merger would save space and money. But state law requires a town pay for justice services rendered by another municipality. “There’s no free lunch,” Councilperson Robert Lynch (this writer) reminded the Board.

Lynch also counseled that Enfield residents like their sense of community, something a local court system helps provide. Others agreed. Councilmember James Ricks initially thought money might be saved. But Councilpersons Jude Lemke and Lynch countered that moving court could actually cost Enfield in the long run, since it might need to subsidize space needs elsewhere that it can supply locally for free.

The Town Board agreed to postpone further discussion of court consolidation until it learns whether any Enfield Justice candidates emerge for this year’s elections.

Supervisor Redmond

(Feb. 8): After a month of anxious uncertainty, Enfield Supervisor Stephanie Redmond announced to her Town Board Wednesday that Albany’s ethics rules will not require her to resign her office even though she’s taken a new, part-time job with State Assemblymember Anna Kelles.

Redmond disclosed in January that the State Ethics Board would conduct a routine investigation into possible conflicts-of-interest. “It’s fine to keep both jobs,” the Supervisor told the Town Board Wednesday after the Ethics Board made its determination. Redmond said the State will require she recuse herself in Town matters affecting state grants. She said she’ll assign someone else to handle those duties.

Redmond Wednesday announced her decision to recruit newly-arrived Enfield resident Greg Hutnik as her Deputy Supervisor, Hutnik replacing the resigning Isabel Castillo. In January, Hutnik joined the Enfield Planning Board as an alternate member.

Though Redmond’s choice of deputy is at her discretion, the Town Board perfunctorily affirmed her choice, and also commended Castillo for her two years of service.

Legislator Dan Klein

(Updated Feb. 8): A sudden twist was revealed at the Tompkins County Legislature Tuesday night in the controversial move by Second Wind Cottages to establish a 25-unit campsite in Newfield for the homeless.

“It is likely Second Wind is planning on changing significant details of their proposed project,” Danby legislator Dan Klein announced to lawmakers, Klein providing first-ever details of what appears to be a compromise plan worked out with hesitant Newfield leaders.

“Rather than building 25 structures in a campground-like setting, they (Second Wind) are planning to add additional cottages to their current 18 cottage facility,” Klein announced. He said current plans call for adding a dozen of the wooden tiny houses.

The Advisory Committee Klein Chairs had earlier recommended disbursement of $510,000 from Tompkins County’s Community Recovery Fund to underwrite the campsite project. Newfield officials balked. And the Newfield Town Board this Thursday (Feb. 9) will hold a Public Hearing on a proposed one-year moratorium on campground construction, a law directly targeting Second Wind.

Nevertheless, Town and Second Wind leaders met January 27^th to seek compromise. What Klein announced Tuesday may be the product of their talks.

Klein’s committee has asked for a revised Second Wind funding application, which it will consider March 6^th.

Newfield leaders and residents have objected to the high-risk “low-barrier” residents the campsites could attract arguing their community lacks the medical and police protection that their arrival might demand.

To the Legislature: “It does some good.”

(Feb. 8): Dryden’s Mike Lane made his comment crisp. “Let’s pass this.”

Without objection, and following a Public Hearing where this Councilperson spoke, the Tompkins County Legislature Tuesday opted-into a new state law permitting qualifying volunteer firefighters and ambulance workers to claim a ten per cent assessment exemption on the Tompkins County portion of their property tax bills.

The Enfield Town Board will likely approve a similar exemption on Town taxes February 8th. Newfield adopted the exemption earlier this month.

“Volunteer retention and recruitment is a very important need of fire companies in our rural communities,” I told the Legislature during its Public Hearing on the implementing law. “And this will help. It may help only on the margins. It does not solve the whole problem. We know that. But it does some good.”

Legislator Rich John admitted skepticism. “It just seems such a classic New York State complicated, bizarre approach to what is a systemic problem in our community and our county,” John observed. Yet he backed the local law. “I wish that there was something more substantive,” he lamented.

Dryden legislator Greg Mezey tacked on a last-minute amendment, one that urges all local towns, villages, and school districts to implement the exemption as well. / RL

(Feb. 8): After a lengthy executive session, which addressed several topics but consumed most of the time President Biden delivered the State of the Union, the Tompkins County Legislature Tuesday approved a bonus hiring plan to recruit new corrections officers at the County Jail.

“The Sheriff’s Office is currently experiencing staffing shortages in our Corrections Division,” a County-authored News Release acknowledged the morning after the meeting. The new recruitment policy, contained in a Resolution circulated to legislators only during Tuesday’s meeting, and later amended after the closed session, would establish a sign-on bonus as high as $10,000 for what were described as “lateral transfer Corrections Officers.”

A $7,500 sign-on bonus will temporarily be provided newly-hired Corrections Officers, new recruitment made retroactive for those hired since January 1. Eligible candidates must be either new hires or those who left as Corrections Officers during the past year for reasons other than retirement. To be fully eligible, recruits must give the Sheriff a three-year work commitment.

(Feb. 6): “Nothing is constant except change,” they say. And that applies to Enfield Government.

On February 3rd, Supervisor Stephanie Redmond confirmed the impending departure of Deputy Supervisor Isabel Castillo, named to the deputy’s position in February 2021 and serving Enfield in the part-time position since then. Supervisor Redmond advised Town Board members that Ms. Castillo will depart her position to pursue “other commitments.”

At the start of her tenure, Isabel reviewed and signed Town vouchers. In later months, she helped organize community events like “Deck the Halls,” designed eye-catching flyers, and led initiatives toward parks and recreation opportunities in Enfield.

Expect the Town Board to recognize Isabel Castillo’s accomplishments at its meeting February 8^th. Supervisor Redmond has yet to select a successor for what’s a discretionary appointment.

Shedding jobs Big Time; our Lansing plant (photo courtesy Casey Martin, Ithaca Voice.)

(Jan. 27): If you can believe it, the City of Ithaca’s planner charged with economic development said this to The Ithaca Voice: “It is an exciting time for economic development in the City of Ithaca.”

Tom Knipe’s comment fell less than a week after BorgWarner announced the planned closing of one of its two side-by-side plants in Lansing, likely to idle up to 280 workers, about a quarter of its workforce. Most of the jobs will go to Mexico.

“Unfortunately, businesses have to make decisions that maintain their competitiveness nationally or globally,” Heather McDaniel, Executive Director of Ithaca Area Economic Development, lamented. You can read the full Ithaca Voice story here:

https://ithacavoice.com/2023/01/after-bout-of-bad-economic-news-local-leaders-press-forward/

So, McDaniel’s agency grants cushy tax breaks for apartment developers who create one or two permanent jobs at best, or to solar farms which create none at all. Meanwhile, leaders either paint happy faces on the local economy, or shake their heads in dismay. Neither provides comfort.

Yes, I suppose a skilled Morse machinist can go clerk at Wegmans, or maybe retrain to be a nurse at CMC. But more likely, he will—if he can—pack up and move to a state where industry still thrives. Politicians, are you listening? Do you really care? / RL

(Jan. 26): Wordsmithing on the fly, without their attorney present, the Newfield Town Board Thursday tried to tighten-up language in the proposed one-year moratorium it will put to Public Hearing February 9^th in effort to halt Second Wind Cottages’ plans to build 25 camp-style cabins to house the homeless.

For nearly an hour, the Board wrestled with possible revisions in the attorney’s draft document, and most notably agonized over whether to direct the moratorium against “campsites”—as the original draft had proposed—or “campgrounds,” as Board members would prefer. Precision would prove crucial both in keeping the moratorium generic and also in staving off a possible lawsuit.

“You should remove language specific to Second Wind,” Planning Board member Debra Eichten, who joined the meeting, counseled. Moreover, “we don’t want to close the door to opportunities we might want to pursue,” Eichten added, suggesting that other campgrounds might benefit the town.

“We’re not talking about kids in the backyard,” Councilperson Christine Laughlin remarked, assuring everyone her target is not the family outing. Yet drawing an exacting line proved difficult.

Settled on for now, a “Campground,” subject to the moratorium, would be “any parcel or tract of land including buildings or other structures under the control of any person where five or more campsites are available for temporary or seasonal overnight occupancy.”

The Town Board will run its changes by its attorney, Tom Smith; and also the Newfield Planning Board.

Director Jay Franklin

(Jan. 26): Tompkins County Director of Assessment Jay Franklin, questioned Thursday at a meeting of the Tompkins County Council of Governments, discouraged towns like Enfield from convening their own, home-grown Local Advisory Boards of Assessment Review even though the County Legislature, at Franklin’s urging, has suspended the long-standing practice of permitting town-based review.

“I don’t think it would be appropriate, because we wouldn’t be treating all of our residents the same,” Franklin responded to this writer’s suggestion of an Enfield-initiated Advisory Board to replace the County-sponsored panel assembled in past years.

As Franklin looks at it, “If one Town were to offer some sort of other pseudo-assessment review process… it really would give that property owner a false sense of something may happen if they went there and provided their information to them.”

The Assessment Director’s objection, coupled with his office’s streamlined procedures, may preclude a grieving property owner from meeting an assessor face-to-face until late-May, on Grievance Day. / R. Lynch

(Jan. 26): Citing New York’s Higher Minimum Wage, the Enfield Community Council (ECC) Board of Directors Thursday recommended higher admission fees for this year’s summer camp.

As recommended by the Board, fees for this summer’s six-week day camp would rise from $950 to $975 (2.6%) for Town residents and from $1,250 to $1,300 (4%) for non-resident enrollees.

Newly-established by the ECC Board is a weekly rate: $200 per resident child; $250 for non-residents.

“I don’t think it’s gouging anybody,” ECC President Cortney Bailey said of the increased fees. Bailey noted the State’s minimum wage just rose by $1.00 an hour. With three people working at camp, the salary increase alone, she claimed, hikes costs $120 per week.

The ECC summer camp had some 40 enrollees last year. Organizers hope for 50 this summer. And they assert the Enfield camp’s a bargain. Some well-known day camps near Ithaca, they asserted, charge enrollees as much as $600-$700 per week.

The new rates form part of the ECC’s 2023 budget, set for approval in February.

(Jan. 24): At a special meeting Monday night, convened so as to meet a fast-approaching state deadline, the Enfield Town Board approved a second-round application under the Restore NY program to fund demolition of two abandoned properties in the town. Or so it thought.

The following morning, Tuesday, Town Supervisor Stephanie Redmond informed Board members that the owner of one of those properties, the one at 198 Black Oak Road, had backed out. Even though the state grant, if approved would pay 90 per cent of the demolition cost, Redmond said the owner declined to support the remaining ten percent, given the likely cost of asbestos removal.

The withdrawal adds credence to the argument, advanced by Highway Superintendent Barry “Buddy” Rollins at Monday’s Public Hearing, that the rewards in curing rural blight may not be worth the Town-paid $500 application fee.

“I have a little problem with the $500,” Rollins said. “The people who buy it (who purchase the vacant lot once the old house is gone) should pay the $500,” Rollins argued. Redmond responded State rules don’t allow that.

Rollins also worried that the building’s removal might actually decrease the parcel’s assessment, thereby reducing Enfield’s tax base.

Still covered by Monday’s Restore NY application is the removal of a vacant building at 329 Connecticut Hill Road.

“Enfield got nothing.” Randy Brown

(Jan. 18): Work by the Community Recovery Fund Advisory Committee is largely done. But watching what remains of that committee could, to say the least, prove “fun.”

“We wanted anyone who wanted to be a part of this committee to be on it,” Shawna Black, Chair of the Tompkins County Legislature, said Tuesday night as she announced her annual reassignment to legislative committees. And because he (most definitely) wants to offer input, Newfield-Enfield rep. Randy Brown became among the seven Black tapped to sit on what’s became this most controversial of legislative committees.

The Advisory Committee grew to an authoritarian gatekeeper last year as it recommended award of $6.5 Million in Community Recovery Fund cash. It’s the program to which Enfield applicants received not one penny. Brown rose as the committee’s most outspoken critic. And he was the only legislator who voted against the group’s final funding package December 20.

Now, the committee’s work stands mostly past-tense. But it must still, as Black said, “check in on the grants that we’ve provided,” and also reallocate any awards that are “not claimed” by their initially-designated recipients.

Brown won’t be the Advisory Committee’s only new member. Also appointed were legislators Mike Sigler and Travis Brooks. They, too, wanted in. They, too, could mix things up. / RL

“Another point of engagement.” Mike Sigler

(Jan. 18): Securing the bare minimum of eight votes, the Tompkins County Legislature Tuesday suspended, indefinitely, the half-century old practice of convening Town-based Local Boards of Assessment Review that allowed town residents to complain to local officials at their local Town Hall prior to Grievance Day’s final review.

What’s more, at Tuesday’s meeting, Director of Assessment Jay Franklin revealed for the first time that the “Informal Review Meetings” he’s encouraged to replace the Local Boards will this year take place only by telephone, no longer in person; not even on zoom.

Lansing’s Mike Sigler was among four lawmakers who urged the Local Boards be retained.

“These are one of the few times that we give the public an opportunity outside of this actual building, outside of downtown, to come and talk with us,” Sigler said. “It’s another point of engagement.”

Read more about the Legislature’s decision, posted on this website.

(Jan. 14): I’ve called it our Town Board’s most boring meeting of the year. Only this time, it really wasn’t.

By each January 20^th, New York State requires every Town Board to hail into its meeting room anyone on its team who handles money. It’s called the Annual Audit. We in Enfield conducted ours Friday evening, the 13^th. (We’re not superstitious.)

The Town Clerk, the tax collector, and our bookkeeper all presented their papers and answered questions. Everyone’s answers satisfied our checklist.

But what made this year special—albeit bittersweet—was Town Justice Betty Poole’s attendance. Judge Poole retired in December, yet she’s still responsible for last year’s judicial accounting. Dealing with some medical issues these days, Judge Poole appeared via zoom. Her accounts all stood in order. And it gave the Judge and us Board members an opportunity to say a proper goodbye. We did.

We thanked Judge Poole for her service. She thanked us for the opportunity to serve. Betty’s served more than 33 years in local courts. She’d been Enfield Justice since 1994. We will miss her smile, and her firm, yet fair administration of justice; her respect for the Rule of Law.

Audit Meeting adjourned. Enfield marches on. / RL

(Jan. 12): After a prolonged delay, and following the retirement of long-time Town Justice Betty Poole in December, the Town of Enfield Justice Court is getting back to a regular schedule.

Town Supervisor Stephanie Redmond announced at the Town Board’s Wednesday night meeting that Judge Thomas Schlee, one of the Town of Ulysses’ two justices, will be assuming temporary duties in Enfield. Schlee will hold court until either the installation of a new Enfield Justice following this November’s elections, or the Town Board’s appointment of a local resident as interim justice before then.

Judge Poole had long held Town Court on Mondays, either in the mornings or evenings. Judge Schlee will move Court to Tuesday evenings, sessions commencing at 6 PM.

Though the position of Court Clerk remains at a judge’s discretion, Redmond also announced Wednesday that Judge Schlee will retain Enfield resident Heather Knutsen-King as his clerk, with Judge Schlee’s Ulysses Court Clerk assisting her, as needed. The Town Board appointed Knutsen-King only in late-December, as Judge Poole’s clerk, her daughter, had also resigned.

Bye-Bye to Fossil Furnaces; Kathy Hochul

(Jan. 10): If you live in New York State, and you want to buy a wood stove, or an oil furnace, or even a propane heater, better plan on buying it within the next seven years. Because if you don’t, according to Kathy Hochul, Big Government will say you can’t.

Words mean things. And I take Governor Hochul at her every word. Buried in Hochul’s “State of the State” Address Tuesday, sandwiched among all the aspirational platitudes about mental health, child care, and inflation-ratcheted minimum wages, was this troubling tidbit, Hochul tipping her hat to the Green New Deal:

“To set us on that path, I’m proposing a plan to end the sale of any new fossil-fuel-powered heating equipment by 2030.”

I take Kathy Hochul literally. To me, that means anything that burns oil, or gas… or (even) wood would be banned from sale by the start of the next decade. But there was more:

“And I’m calling for all new construction to be zero-emission, starting in 2025 for small buildings and 2028 for large buildings. We are taking these actions because climate change remains the greatest threat to our planet, and to our children and grandchildren.”

All right. I presume this means the new home you build in two years can only heat with electricity. Again, to me, words mean things.

And to me, they mean something else. At least here in rural upstate, they mean that folks like Lee Zeldin have a good shot at the Governor’s Mansion in 2026. / RL

Nor running for mayor; Cynthia Brock

(Jan 10): The best-known member of Ithaca Common Council to those of us living outside the city line has disappointed many of us by declining to reach for higher office.

First Ward Alderperson Cynthia Brock, best known for her lodging of an ethics complaint against former Mayor Svante Myrick and other City officials, has told The Ithaca Voice she will not run to succeed Laura Lewis as Mayor, after Lewis announced her plans last week not to seek a full, four-year term.

Instead, City leaders appear rallying around another Council member, Fifth Ward Alderperson Robert Cantelmo, who Sunday became the first to announce his intensions to run for mayor this fall.

The Voice reports Cantelmo pushed all the right liberal buttons during his campaign rollout, talking up the Green New Deal, affordable housing, and Reimagining Public Safety. Reportedly, many of Cantelmo’s Council colleagues attended his announcement, Brock included. Lewis was not there.

But the mayor elected this fall will be a weak mayor. Ithaca switches to a City Manager government in 2024 making its top political position more ceremonial than administrative.

Hochul’s Inaugural: No talk of raises.

(Jan. 8): You won’t find it in any Kathy Hochul press release. Nor did she mention it in her Inaugural Address. Assemblymember Anna Kelles didn’t touch on it in her weekly online update. (Kelles’ last posted news release was in March.) And Senator Lea Webb’s official site is still bear naked.

So much for news. But a scant few media outlets reported it New Year’s Day. Governor Hochul New Year’s Eve quietly signed the lame-duck-passed law granting State Senators and Assembly members a 29 per cent pay raise.

As far as one knows, Hochul has yet to comment on the action she took. Two days before Christmas, Hochul was abrupt. “I have many bills on my desk … so I will address that in proper time,” was about all she then said. I guess she did address that bill. Then she sealed her lips.

But Albany Republicans are talking. Not a single GOP legislator supported raising legislative pay from $110,000 to $142,000 annually. Here’s what Assemblyman Michael Lawler tweeted, according to the New York Post: “If Hochul had any political courage, she would not only veto the ridiculous $32,000 pay raise, she would have called us back for a special session to deal with the disastrous cashless bail.” Amen. / RL

Never extemporize. Mayor Lewis (left) at Common Council Jan. 4.

(Jan. 6): She read from a script. She seldom looked up. She spoke in a monotone. And she buried the lead.

Newly-installed Ithaca Mayor Laura Lewis’ “State of the City” address Wednesday night was anything but inspiring. It was hardly a stem-winder. And eleven minutes into her 15-minute dry-as-a-desert recitation of supposed urban milestones and hard-fought accomplishments, Lewis dropped a political bombshell that landed with a thud. Though just elected to complete the final year of Mayor Svante Myrick’s unfinished term, the newly-installed Lewis announced she will not seek re-election this fall to remain mayor beyond December.

“For the past five years, it has been my privilege and continues to be my greatest honor to serve the city I love as Councilmember, and now as Mayor,” Lewis read, head down, at Common Council’s first-of-year session. “I look forward to the many challenges and opportunities we will face together throughout 2023. However, I’m announcing tonight that I will not be seeking reelection to the position of mayor in 2024.”

There. Thud. Lewis gave no reason for her taking the shortest of mayoral paths. But I bet Katie Sims and Zach Winn would love to have known her intentions when they campaigned against her last November.

Still, in 2024, the job of Ithaca Mayor will become a far cry from what it was back in Ed Conley’s glory days. Next year, a City Manager will take the helm, and the elected mayor becomes relegated to Chief Meeting Chair and Baby-Kisser. Maybe Laura Lewis knows that. Or maybe that in a city with rising crime, labor strife, ethics probes, and here-today, gone-tomorrow chiefs of police, it’s best to get out while the getting’s good.

Laura Lewis: City Hall’s latest, year-long Lame Duck, and in a place that starves for real leadership. In a way, it’s rather fitting. But in another, it’s kind of sad. Ithaca, Good Luck. / RL

“We are open to a lawsuit.” Mike Lane

(Jan. 6): “I hate it,” Dryden’s Mike Lane said of weighted voting Thursday. Yet Lane, a constitutional purest, wants to see it, at least temporarily, in the Tompkins County Legislature.

At a meeting of the Government Operations Committee January 5th, Lane pushed hard to impose a weighted voting scheme from now through the 2025 elections. It would only be then that redistricting from the 2020 Census will finally reshape district lines and balance representational populations.

Quest for power does not drive the Dryden Democrat’s calculator-intensive initiative. A spreadsheet Lane shared with the committee showed he would be one of two legislators to forfeit the most influence. Lane would only cast 85 per cent of a vote.

Enfield and Newfield’s influence would also fall. Anne Koreman would cast 99% of a vote; Randy Brown, 96%. Three Ithaca City districts would gain the most. Rich John’s vote would weigh-in at nearly 119%.

“The people in Tompkins County have not been equally represented,” Lane reflected. He faulted legislators for not shortening their current terms to allow constituent equity to take hold sooner. “And we are open to a lawsuit,” Lane warned.

Others, notably committee chair Amanda Champion—who would actually gain influence under the change—are more willing to kick the can down the road, gather information first, and not bring Lane’s resolution to the floor next month, as he’d like. “I would not entertain a resolution at that time,” Champion said.

What’s more, by February, committee assignments could change. Lane may be off the committee; or for that matter, maybe Champion as well.

No “wiggle room.” Attorney Bill Troy.

(Jan. 6): As it moved toward implementing the new state law that would grant volunteer firefighters and EMS volunteers a 10 per cent assessment reduction for their service, Tompkins County lawmakers Thursday briefly questioned whether the exemption could be “capped” for those who own expensive homes.

The issue was fairness: “The volunteer in the Million Dollar house, should they be benefiting 20 times more than the volunteer who’s in the lesser-valued ($50,000) house, and should they be benefiting at all over the volunteers who are renters and wouldn’t receive any of this exemption?” Director of Assessment Jay Franklin asked the Legislature’s Government Operations Committee, somewhat rhetorically.

But County Attorney Bill Troy had advised Franklin—and warned the committee—against setting a cap. “Someone could come in and challenge it (the cap) and say it’s unlawful,” Troy told lawmakers. “How realistic is that? I don’t know. But the statute doesn’t seem to have any wiggle room.”

The committee recommended the firefighters’ exemption be applied on the County’s portion of taxes without any cap. Town Boards, like Enfield’s would need to adopt their own laws.

What about school districts, Franklin was asked. “I haven’t heard from any school districts,” the Director told the committee. But judging from past practice, Franklin surmised, “I would highly doubt the school districts would pass on this. They haven’t been too entertaining on exemptions.”

“I’m not giving up on the school districts,” Franklin said. “But that’s kind of the reality of it.”

Land & Lakes “Breezy Meadows” site sketch.

(Jan. 4): In what was termed a “sketch plan conference,” developers of “Breezy Meadows,” the proposed 33-lot subdivision that would straddle Tucker Road and encompass the long-abandoned Babcock Poultry barns, discussed their plans with the Enfield Planning Board Wednesday. Public turnout for the meeting dwarfed that of early-December when flyers in neighbors’ mailboxes alerted and alarmed many and packed the room for the developer’s initial presentation.

Wednesday’s meeting brought only talk; no action. Land & Lakes Development’s next presentation to the Planning Board, including a Preliminary Plat with set subdivision lines, will likely reach planners in early-March, pushing off a Public Hearing to April at the earliest.

“This is a big project, and it’s going to be important to the people of the Town for many, many years,” Planning Board member Mike Carpenter observed at one point in the more than hour-long back-and-forth with Land & Lakes’ Alan Lord. Much of that discussion focused on proposed covenants the developer would likely attach to land it sells, restrictions preventing further subdivision, banning single-wide mobile homes, and limiting dwelling density.

(Dec. 28): A year-long moratorium on approval of new large solar farms in Enfield will end now that the Town Board Tuesday approved a series of revisions to the Town’s three-year old Solar law, its regulations tucked within Enfield’s larger requirements for site plan review.

The most important change the revised law makes is financial; it states clearly that the Town reserves the right to enter into Host Community Agreements with solar developers, agreements that would provide the Town direct compensation in addition to the Payment in Lieu of Tax (PILOT) funding that might otherwise be negotiated, including by Tompkins County’s Industrial Development Agency.

In December 2021, the Enfield Board enacted the current moratorium after financial negotiations with developers of Norbut Solar’s Applegate Road solar farm proposal failed to provide compensation beyond the PILOT’s amount.

But the Solar Law may change further. Councilperson Robert Lynch Tuesday introduced—but then withdrew—an amendment that would have tightened controls on how solar farm operators maintain the legally-required “residual acreage,” that part of the property it must keep free from solar panels. Lynch wanted rules that prevent the operator from “wasting” the land; letting it grow to weeds, rather than keeping it farmed or mowed.

After lengthy debate, Board members promised to pursue Lynch’s concerns in future months and perhaps toughen the rules in time.

There’s expanded coverage of the story now posted on this website.

So near, but so far; our “almost” generator

(Dec. 28): It sounded too good to be true. And it was.

Meeting during the closing moments of a “live” online equipment auction December 14, our Enfield Town Board authorized up to $30,000 for purchase of a (very slightly) used standby generator for our Highway Department. As the meeting closed, we thought we’d bought it. Sadly, we did not.

During the closing minutes of our Town Board’s end-of-year meeting December 27, Highway Superintendent Buddy Rollins shared the bad news. Another party had bid higher before the closing gavel. And once a commission payment was added in, the total climbed slightly above what we’d authorized Rollins’ deputy to bid. Too bad. We need that generator. And the price was a bargain.

“Please look for another one,” I advised Rollins. I know he will. Better luck next time.

On the brighter side, the Superintendent reported he’d successfully bid—and our Board Tuesday promptly authorized—purchase of a 2015 dump truck and salt spreader formerly used by Tompkins County’s Highway Department. It replaces the truck in our fleet with a blown engine. No question; our bid’s good this time. / RL

(Dec. 28): The resignation of Enfield Town Justice Betty Poole and her court clerk, her daughter Tiffany Poole, would have left Town Court completely unstaffed at year’s end. Tuesday night, the Town Board filled at least 50% of the combined vacancy.

By unanimous vote, the Town Board tapped recently-arrived Enfield resident Heather Knutsen to be court clerk. Knutsen, who admits she holds a rather unconventional resume for the job, was for the past 31 years a veterinarian’s assistant in Oneonta. Marriage brought her to this community.

But Knutsen holds an important professional asset. She told the Board her father has been Town Justice for the Town of Schoharie. And the new appointee said she might choose to run for Enfield Town Justice in the coming year’s election cycle to permanently fill the judicial vacancy.

The State Court System will appoint Judge Poole’s immediate replacement, but reportedly has yet to do so. Knutsen said she recognizes her appointment is discretionary. A newly-appointed justice might want a different clerk.

(Dec 12.): For the moment, the Town of Enfield and Hayts Road residents have lost their fight to cut a speed limit that they say once claimed a life.

The August 2018 death of 82-year old Carmen Jacks, who died when struck by a car while crossing Hayts Road east of Van Dorn, prompted the Town and neighbors to fight for safety improvements, including a lower speed limit.

But in a December 6^th letter to the Town, with logic that may sound clueless, Scott Bates, Regional Traffic Engineer for the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) rejected Enfield’s request for a lower limit on Hayts between Sheffield and Sage Roads.

“NYSDOT professionals determined that lowering the speed limit would not be appropriate at this time,” Bates wrote the Town. “Setting the speed limit at the prevailing free-flow speed (55 MPH) decreases conflicts, minimizes crashes, and makes it easier for vehicles and pedestrians to judge the speed of approaching vehicles.” Never mentioned, the limited sight distance that likely caused Carmen’s death.

“No, I am not happy with this finding,” Enfield Councilperson Robert Lynch (this writer) wrote the Town Board Monday after reading Bates’ letter. “A woman got killed on Hayts near Van Dorn, and NYSDOT doesn’t care.” Lynch encouraged the Board to consider other measures to calm Hayts Road traffic.

(Dec. 18): Admittedly, it’s not everyone’s cup of tea; eclectic, uninhibited, and decidedly left-of-center. But culminating a decade-long effort, Ithaca Community Radio, licensee of Radio Station WRFI, signed-on December 13^th with a full-power station that expands its reach to cover most of Tompkins County, including Enfield.

Up until now, the volunteer-staffed, progressive licensee has broadcast locally with only a highly-directionalized, low-power signal at 88.1 MHz. one that covered Ithaca, but was barely audible west of Sheffield Road. Now, by rebuilding its tiny, co-owned Odessa affiliate (formerly WINO), WRFI, at 89.7-FM, blankets West Hill communities it could not before reach.

Yes, for some, this is all inside baseball by a diehard former broadcaster. But here’s something to remember: For all its sometimes strangeness and arguable political bias, WRFI does cover local news, performing a duty that many other stations have forgotten. Refreshing. / RL

(Dec. 11): At its Annual Banquet and Recognition Dinner Saturday, the Enfield Volunteer Fire Company (EVFC) paid tribute to members, present and retired, who’ve contributed to the EVFC’s volunteer firefighting efforts.

Most notably, EVFC founding member Howard Stamp, 98 years old, was honored for his 75 years of Company membership. The room gave Mr. Stamp a standing ovation. The EVFC also gave Larry Saulsgiver an award for his 50 years of service. Corey and Rodney Ike ranked one and two for answering the largest number of calls this past year.

Jim Whittaker received the George A. Palmer Achievement Award, given only in years when a member’s service and dedication rises to a level deeming it worthy of nomination.

EVFC President Dennis Hubbell struck a forward-looking tone in his brief remarks to attendees.

“If you’re looking in the rear view mirror all the time you’re going to crash,” Hubbell said. “We need to start looking out the windshield.” Hubbell emphasized the need for cooperation at all levels to meet emergency needs and urged everyone to “work as a group to help each other.”

Quick, Vote! Mayor Lewis (l) and Alderpersons cutting speed limits.

(Dec. 11): Yes, Ithaca’s City speed limits will fall to 25. And no, from attending Common Council last Wednesday, you never would have known it.

Buried within a “Consent Agenda” whose items were never read openly and passed by only a quick show of hands, City Alderpersons voted 9-0 (Cynthia Brock was excused) to cut the city’s long-standing 30 MHP limit to little faster than a school zone. It was a long meeting, and Council treated the zone-thing as a throw away.

City officials estimate replacing some 135 old speed signs (and having a contractor do it) will cost Ithaca $30,000. By that same, quick vote, Council approved the money.

City traffic-calmers like the change. Probably rural commuters will hate it. And NYDOT gets caught in the middle. The City’s Director of Transportation and Parking says large portions of Routes 13, 79, 96 and 89 are State-owned and can’t have speeds lowered without State DOT consent.

And more under-the-radar news: With Council mired in matters like a botched Police Chief hiring and testy labor talks, this one got swept under Wednesday’s rug too. Council authorized the first step toward a new $20-$30 Million Public Safety Facility. It approved up to $4 Million in bonds for site purchase, location not stated.

(Dec. 9): A City-commissioned, taxpayer-funded investigation by a Syracuse law firm has cleared former Ithaca Mayor Svante Myrick of any legal or ethical wrongdoing in the Reimagining Public Safety initiative. Yet the 57-page Investigation Report also faults the mayor and others for their lack of transparency.

Attorney Kristen Smith, of Bond, Schoeneck and King, focused much of her attention on the cozy, politically-aligned relationship Myrick had with the advocacy group People for the American Way (PFAW), for which he served part-time and then became its Executive Director last February.

Both parties supported Reimagining. But as attorney Smith wrote, “[T]he investigation concludes that since PFAW’s efforts were focused only on promoting Myrick’s vision of what was in the public interest, there was no actual conflict within the meaning of the Code of Ethics.”

Nonetheless, the investigation also found Myrick should have been more transparent. “One cannot deny that Myrick’s decision not to disclose PFAW’s involvement was in poor Judgment,” Smith wrote. “Myrick violated the spirit of the [City’s Code of Ethics] and the public trust by not openly sharing information related to PFAW’s campaign.”

Svante Myrick, meanwhile, is firing back. WHCU reported Friday that the former mayor is accusing Rich John, Chair of a separate, Tompkins County ethics probe into Myrick’s conduct, of his own conflicts of interest.

Interim Finance Director Drew Braman

(Dec. 8): Congratulations to Enfield’s Andrew (Drew) Braman, unanimously appointed Tompkins County’s Interim Finance Director by members of the County Legislature Tuesday.

Braman, of Bostwick Road, takes over as the county’s top financial person following the retirement of Rick Snyder in late-November. Braman will serve until Tompkins County completes its search for Snyder’s permanent successor.

Braman briefly thanked the Legislature for his interim promotion, though quickly credited the man whose shoes he fills. “We miss Rick already,” Braman said in its customarily deferential style. “I hope to do my best in the interim, and I appreciate your support in taking this role on.”

In a second appointment Tuesday, the Legislature promoted Chief Deputy Clerk Katrina McCloy to Clerk of the Legislature, effective in January. McCloy takes over from the retiring Clerk, Cathy Covert.

(Nov. 19): The law required a Public Hearing. But no one spoke to object November 9^th as the Enfield Town Board invited comment, and then approved raising the income eligibility limit for a Senior Citizens’ discount on Town property taxes.

For many years, Enfield had set the income ceiling at $24,000 for older homeowners and the disabled to receive a 50% reduction on the Town tax. Until this year, New York allowed senior incomes of no higher than $29,000 to qualify.

But in August, Governor Hochul signed legislation raising the allowable exemption significantly. Tompkins County hiked its own limit to $35,000 in response. After studying several options, the Enfield Board agreed to set the same level as a kind of Goldilocks compromise.

Under a stair step formula established by the State, Enfield seniors with incomes as high as $43,400 will also now be eligible for exemptions of something less than 50%

Sadly, the limit can’t be enjoyed before the January 2024 tax bills. Eligible seniors will need to apply before next March 1^st and may receive a notice from the County Department of Assessment encouraging them to do so.

When it still had trees; the Norbut site.

(Nov. 13): As expected, the Tompkins Country Industrial Development Agency (IDA) November 9 delayed by one year the beginning—and the end—of Norbut Solar Farms’ Payment in Lieu of Tax (PILOT) abatement for its Enfield solar farm off Applegate Road. Norbut maintains supply chain delays have kept it from installing panels until next year. If the IDA had not acted, Norbut would have lost money on the project’s back end.

“But they have begun construction,” Enfield Councilperson Robert Lynch (this writer) told the IDA’s Wednesday meeting. “They subcontracted to a construction company, and they stripped the whole land of all the trees. It is a great concern to the people on the Enfield Town Board that they basically left the site all weedy and a moonscape. “

“This body provides financial assistance, and it does not provide site plan approval,” IDA Executive Director Heather McDaniel responded. “It does not have any control over construction, unfortunately.”

Later that day, the Town Board moved forward in rewriting Enfield’s Solar Law, in part, to correct problems the Norbut adventure has laid bare.

A bigger pantry, we need.

(Nov. 9): By unanimous vote, the Enfield Town Board Wednesday put its weight, if not its money, behind the Enfield Food Pantry’s push to tap more than $1 Million in Tompkins County post-pandemic money to build a new food distribution center somewhere in its town.

The Board endorsed the non-profit Enfield Food Distribution’s recently-submitted request for support under the Tompkins Community Recovery Fund (TCRF), County Government’s vehicle to parcel out its share of the federal American Rescue Plan.

“This Town Board believes that the facilities Enfield Food Distribution proposes would enhance the well-being of Enfield’s residents and reflect the proper use of TCRF moneys fully consistent with and in the spirit of the funding program’s purpose and guidelines,” the Town Board’s Resolution stated.

Enfield Food Distribution seeks $1.66 Million through the program. Its application puts $1.2 Million as the minimum it would need.

“What if less than the minimum is awarded?” Councilperson Jude Lemke asked. Town Clerk Mary Cornell, daughter of Food Pantry Director Jean Owens, said additional grant sources could be tapped.

Cornell brushed off a second question, namely where the new pantry would be sited. That’s “proprietary” at the moment, she said.

Town Councilperson Robert Lynch stressed that the support resolution he introduced seeks only County money, no Town funds.

(Oct. 28): It didn’t come without controversy. But the Enfield Town Board Wednesday night approved a nearly $2.5 Million 2023 Budget covering both Town expenses and those for its Fire Company. All five Board members ratified the spending plan. It calls for a nearly 8.5 per cent increase in the combined tax levy and would provide both the Highway Superintendent and his staff 12 per cent raises.

Wednesday’s Board action followed a nearly two-hour Public Hearing, attended by more than a dozen members of the Enfield Volunteer Fire Company. During that hearing, Fire Company officials and volunteers urged the Town to budget an additional $25,000 to cover so-called “turnout gear” for EVFC members. A budget amendment to provide that money lost four votes to one. But the Board subsequently agreed to allocate the $25,000 for the purchase from funds awarded it under the American Rescue Plan.

The Town Board also rejected, two votes to three, an amendment to trim the Highway Superintendent’s salary from its proposed 12 per cent increase to slightly over nine per cent.

Read more about the Enfield Budget, now posted on this website.

(Oct. 21): Call it a small footnote to this week’s County Legislature meeting. Yet view the principle behind it.

Ithaca’s Downtown Conference Center—which I believe Tompkins County foolishly bought into—is costing more to build than the $31.5 Million projected when community leaders committed to build it just before the pandemic broke.

“The construction cost on this project, as pretty much any construction project these days, has gone well above budget, and that’s the basis for this ask,” Ithaca’s Rich John told his Tompkins County Legislature in requesting it refund $18,551 in Mortgage Recording Tax the Center’s developers mistakenly paid, but now want back to help pay for cost overruns.

The County Legislature consented, but only on a 9-4 vote.

“The Conference Center would be a community-wide public benefit,” John insisted. Some might disagree. I did, and told it to the Legislature just as the pandemic hit.

“This grandiose Conference Center initiative was acknowledged to be a risky experiment (pre-COVID),” I said in March 2020. “Rational minds must now multiply that risk many times in light of today’s reality.” Amen / RL.

(Oct. 13): By a quick, unanimous vote, following a Public Hearing and with no discussion prior to the raise of hands, the Newfield Town Board Thursday night adopted a $3.7 Million 2023 Budget that carries less than a three per cent increase in the Town tax levy.

The Newfield Budget—which grew far less percentagewise than did the spending plan in neighboring Enfield—will see General Fund expenses rise by 10.5 per cent and Highway Fund expenses climb by just 1.4 per cent. A projected drop in Workers Compensation expenses helped tamp down the Highway ledger.

With the budget put to bed, the Town Board then turned its attention to a couple of construction projects members would like to see built, funded, in part, through the federal American Rescue Plan. Board members eyed architects’ drawings for a Town Hall addition and a park pavilion. The Town Hall add-on would cost $326,000; the pavilion $305,000. With contingencies, the total would fall just short of $700,000.

The Newfield Board asked Bookkeeper Blixy Taetzsch to prepare the application paperwork. “I’ll be creative,” Taetzsch promised.

(Oct. 5): It could be argued that boring meetings produce the best law. If so, the Enfield Planning Board could have spent nearly two hours wisely Wednesday crafting details of new water protection regulations that could limit some future commercial and residential development close to the town’s major streams.

Using a draft Town of Caroline protection law as its launching point—but Board members frequently faulting Caroline’s as too detailed and intrusive—Enfield planners drew themselves toward proposed regulations that would restrict development within a 100-foot buffer zone of so-called “perennial streams,” generally Enfield Creek and its principal tributaries. Unlike in Caroline, “intermittent streams,” those that don’t flow all the time, wouldn’t be regulated. Residents who want to build within the buffer could still seek a Planning Board waiver.

And unlike Caroline, the Enfield regulations would largely steer clear of farming. The Caroline draft, members claimed, would prohibit agricultural operations within 50 feet of any stream.

“Can you tell somebody you can’t plow over there?” Board member Mike Carpenter asked. Board Chair Dan Walker replied that’s a State decision. “We can’t supersede DEC,” Walker maintained.

Two months ago, the Enfield Town Board handed off to its Planning Board the task of drafting tighter land use regulations. Wednesday’s working session carried the mandate forward. The streamside rules would likely become part of a revised Site Plan Review Law planners have worked on for months.

Enfield’s Water Protection Committee has requested the tighter rules. “Floods are getting bigger,” Carpenter warned. Though he also stated, “I don’t like making laws we’re not going to enforce.”

“The canopy?” Lane knew what happened.

(Sept. 27): County Legislator Mike Lane knew the answer. He’d heard it two months earlier in his own committee. But he couldn’t resist the set-up.

“There was point-four Million Dollars for some kind of additional work on the canopy?” Lane not-so-innocently asked Airport Director Roxan Noble at the Legislature’s Expanded Budget Committee meeting Monday. “What’s that about?”

Noble answered. “The canopy,” part of an Albany-micromanaged 2019 airport renovation, “doesn’t apparently work in northeast airports. We have issues with snow sliding off, which causes a safety concern.” So the canopy needs a fix.

Lane then launched: “The reason we have that canopy is because Governor Cuomo wanted it. It cost over a Million Dollars, Roxane?” Noble confirmed it cost more than a million.

“In my opinion,” Lane responded, “it’s ugly, it ruins the view of our beautiful airport terminal, and I just regret we have to spend more money on it.” Lane continued, “If it’s for safety, of course we should. But I’d like to—would Binghamton like to buy it?” (No offers yet.)

Actually with federal and state aid, the retrofit could cost local taxpayers much less, perhaps as little as $17,500. But with passenger numbers down and the local airport bleeding cash, administrators hedged their numbers.

“Whenever you have politicians that are handing out money, they want things their certain way,” Legislature Chair Shawna Black told Monday’s meeting. “But the canopy was something very specific that Governor Cuomo wanted a certain way. And we had to dish out that money in order for us to have that part of the airport. And it cost us money.”

And it’s costing us still more. / RL

The Building only a “placeholder” next year.

(Sept. 27): Tompkins County’s already bought the land. But expect little earth to turn next year toward constructing a more than $30 Million Center of Government on the Buffalo and Tioga Street corner.

Though she expected “design work to occur in the near future,” County Administrator Lisa Holmes told the County Legislature’s Expanded Budget Committee Monday that “construction would be slated potentially for 2024,” not before.

“We are going to need to look carefully at the cost of that facility and our capacity to support it,” Holmes cautioned about the mammoth construction project that’s already given some legislators the jitters. The Administrator said Tompkins County may need to draw down its massive fund balance to build it.

In presenting her proposed 2023 Capital Plan to lawmakers Monday, Holmes merely carried over last year’s project cost estimate, $30.6 Million, as a “placeholder.” The price, no doubt, has risen since then. “When we get into the design phase,” Holmes said, “we will know the costs.”

In addition to putting the Center of Government on an effective one-year hold, Holmes’ $7.38 Million proposed Capital Plan—up 16 per cent from 2022—also provides no money for either a new jail or an emergency rescue building at the airport.

(Sept. 19): NY Route 79, Mecklenburg Road, through Miller’s Corners just got safer.

In response to the Town of Enfield’s request, the New York State Department of Transportation has lowered the posted speed limit along a two-mile stretch of the highway from 50 to 45 Miles per Hour.

Town Board members welcomed the NYSDOT’s decision at their September 14^th monthly meeting. And by the following weekend, the new lower speed limit signs between Applegate Road and Podunk Road had already been posted. Expect enforcement to follow.

In some instances, workers attach red flags to the signs to warn motorists of the change. Here they did not. So take care to notice… and to remember.

Unfortunately, the State DOT did not grant the Town Supervisor’s second request, namely to install a sidewalk between the Sandy Creek Mobile Home Park and Miller’s Corners businesses. So if the Town wants sidewalks, Enfield will have to build them itself. / RL

(Sept. 8): “When you talk about tourism, that’s what we have,” Councilperson Christine Laughlin said, more in truth than in jest.

With its crown jewel in mind, the Newfield Town Board voted unanimously Thursday night to apply for a tourism grant that would fund parking and various site improvements around the Newfield Covered Bridge. The application’s due within days, on September 12. Town officials could not predict how soon the grant might be awarded or how likely it is the Town will receive it.

What made some Board members swallow hard, though, is the application’s stipulation that a full two-thirds of the expenses must be paid by the Town. Bookkeeper Blixy Taetzsch’s estimated that, on the high-side, the project could cost $50,000. That would mean as much as a $33,000 local match. Board members suggested in-kind contributions might help defray the local share. Perhaps the Town Highway Department could perform site work. Members couldn’t be sure.

Meanwhile, though it’s not legally due until month’s end, Bookkeeper Taetzsch Thursday presented the Newfield Board the 2023 Tentative Budget she’d drafted. The Board will begin what Supervisor Michael Allinger termed a “deep dive” into that budget September 15. The Board set October 13 as the date for the budget’s Public Hearing; again, on a date well ahead of the mandated deadline.

(Sept. 7): “We’re not creating a zoning ordinance. We’re just looking at land uses,” Enfield Planning Board Chair Dan Walker stated firmly Wednesday night as the Planning Board concluded the first of what’ll likely be numerous monthly discussions into potential tightened controls on certain specified land uses in the town.

Though the “Dreaded Z-Word” had been bandied about numerous times at Town Board and Planning Board sessions this summer, “zoning” was only mentioned casually in passing by planners Wednesday. Instead, the Board focused on Enfield’s existing Site Plan Review Law, and how its regulations might be updated to bring them more into line with Town Supervisor Stephanie Redmond’s stated concerns about potential new arrivals to the Town like noisy factories or even a smelly landfill.

A full story on this meeting is now posted. See the Latest News tab.

At our Enfield Town Board meeting March 9th, Highway Superintendent Barry “Buddy” Rollins announced his decision to no longer accept wood debris or brush at the Town Highway Facility. Rollins has since closed the entrance to what had been the wood drop-off.

“It’s getting a little out of hand,” Rollins explained to the Board. People were mixing in weeds and leaves with mulch-ready wood. But more seriously, they were dumping off lumber with nails that could damage the Town’s equipment.

With the Enfield drop-off closed, Tompkins County’s Solid Waste Facility on Elmira Road provides an alternate depository, though the facility charges a fee.

Please be advised that Rollins’ decision is legally his to make, not the Town Board’s. Yet you remain welcome to express your concerns to us at our next monthly meeting.

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.

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.