2/9/08 - Elections office may go in new DMV site

Commissioners say current space in the County Office Building is cramped

(As published by Cortland Standard, Christine Laubenstein reporting)

Election commissioners urged the county Tuesday to move the Board of Elections office into a planned Department of Motor Vehicles Office on River Street.

As a result, the county’s General Services Committee requested two cost estimates and project timelines for a DMV with and without an elections office.

Engineering firm Barton & Loguidice will complete the work.

County Administrator Scott Schrader estimated the cost without the elections office between $400,000 and $600,000, while the cost with it would be between $600,000 and $900,000.

The cost will be paid out of the county’s $2.8 million share of state settlement funds from tobacco companies.

The new DMV building would be about 4,000 square feet without the Board of Elections office, while having the Board of Elections within it would require about 6,000 square feet, Schrader said.

Once the cost estimates and project timelines are complete, which should be within the next few months, the committee will vote on which option it prefers, committee Chairman Chad Loomis (D-8th ward) said Tuesday afternoon.

The full Legislature will also have to approve the plan.

During Tuesday’s General Services meeting, county Election Commissioners Bill Wood and Bob Howe said they need more space.

Wood said one of the commissioners has a very small office with no air conditioning or heat. Howe said after the meeting that the office referred to was Wood’s.

Howe added that moving the Board of Elections office into the new building would allow an additional room for absentee voters coming in to vote.

Many absentee voters come into the office to fill out a voting form, Howe said, as opposed to filling it out at home and sending it by mail. Those people must go into Wood’s office, Howe said.

We are soliciting a proposal for the work as two separate options from Barton and Loguidice- one for the 4,000 square foot DMV, the second will be a DMV and BOE building. B&L has not been given the work until the proposal is received, reviewed and approved by the Legislature.

2/13/08 - Sheriff: New jail should be in city

(As published by Cortland Standard, Ida Pease reporting)

Cortland County Sheriff Lee Price suggested Tuesday that a new jail should be built in the city.
“I’m not prepared to give you a recommendation. I don’t want to shock you,” Price told the county Judiciary and Public Safety Committee.

Price said if the county remodeled or expanded the current jail on Greenbush Street in the city, a big cost would be for personnel. He explained that inmates would have to be moved if the jail was remodeled for better efficiency and they would have to be transported back and forth for court.

Price said the biggest ongoing expense in a jail is personnel so an efficient design is necessary in building a new jail.

Capt. Bud Rigg, jail administrator, said with a more efficient design the number of inmates could be nearly doubled without changing the staffing. He said the most efficiency the current county jail can obtain is one correctional officer to 24 inmates (providing there are no females) but the design would allow one officer to oversee 40 inmates.

The cost of a new jail could reach $30 million.

“I think we need to build for the future,” Price said, noting the jail should be attached to a county facility that also includes a common booking area for city and county police. He said the county does not have enough holding cells to handle city cases. Price suggested extra meetings about the jail be held outside committee meetings because discussions could become lengthy.

Committee Chairman Tom Williams (R-Homer) said judges, courts, probation and jail officials would all have input on how they impact the jail and projections for the future.

Price said a notebook each legislator on the committee had been given had all the studies from the last five years including one done by the National Institute for Corrections and a local one that included input from former District Attorney Tom Jewett, former Probation Director James Cunningham and Roy Lewis, former jail administrator.

2/9/08 - Internet access problem in rural areas

County Legislature forming committee to look at issue, study grants

Joe McIntyre/staff photographer
Karl Klein talks Friday about frustrations he has with a slow internet connection using a satellite at his home on North Tower Road in Solon. There is a lack of high-speed internet options in rural areas of Cortland County.

(As published by Cortland Standard, Christine Laubenstein reporting)

SUNY Cortland biology professor Terrence Fitzgerald would love to have high-speed Internet access at his Virgil home. Instead, he has to settle for a slower dial-up connection.

He’s considered satellite Internet, but it’s expensive and not necessarily as fast as a digital subscriber line, or DSL, connection, which is unavailable in his neighborhood.

“I pretty much have to come into my office to do the work I need to do,” the Lash Road resident said.

His plight and that of those living in Cortland County’s outlying areas in parts of Virgil, Truxton and Solon has caught the attention of county_ legislators.

Legislator Kathie Arnold (D-Cuyler, Solon and Truxton) said as she campaigned last fall she realized many people lack high-speed Internet access.

Arnold, Legislator Carol Tytler (D-3rd Ward) and other county officials are creating a county committee to examine the issue and find ways to extend broadband access throughout the county.

A goal will be to apply for state funding to extend broadband Internet infrastructure locally, Tytler said.

Fewer than 25 percent of New Yorkers in rural areas have access to broadband Internet, according to Gov. Eliot Spitzer.

Spitzer is pledging $15 million this year to the Universal Broadband Access Grant Program, which would provide money to municipalities and other entities for expanded broadband service. For every dollar the state provides, the applicant would have to provide $4.

Cortland County missed the deadline for this year’s grant funding, but hopes to apply for the funding next year, said Cortland County Planning Department Director Dan Dineen.

He said waiting until next year to apply for the grant would give the committee time to identify needs and meet with utility companies.

Broadband service can be expanded through the addition of special equipment in underserved areas that connect with a central office. The equipment increases the distance from the office that broadband covers.

Typically the offices provide broadband coverage to locations within a radius of 3 miles.
Verizon has centers in the city of Cortland, village of Homer and village of McGraw, whereas Frontier has centers in the village of Marathon, village of Dryden, Truxton, Virgil and Cincinnatus.

Representatives from both companies said it is pretty likely they wouldn’t build new central offices in the Cortland area, but that they might consider expanding the capacity of their offices in the future.

“It’s really something we don’t discuss because of the competitive environment,” said Cliff Lee, a Verizon spokesman.

Whether the companies decide to expand capacity depends on customer demand, they said.
Both Lee and Karen Miller, a Frontier spokesman, said their companies would be interested in meeting with members of the committee that Cortland County is putting together to talk about applying for a state grant.

“I think we’ve got a pretty good track record of working with local and state governments,” Miller said. “We’d be more than happy to work with them.”

Local residents say they hope the county committee will look into possibly bringing new Internet technology to the area.

Karl Klein is an Onondaga Community College computer science professor and Solon resident who pays $80 per month for WildBlue satellite Internet service because it is his only high-speed option.

He said he’s curious about the possibility of Google rolling out wireless Internet technology everywhere across the county, a goal it has _communicated.

Google is bidding on Block C of the Federal Communications Commission’s 700 MHz spectrum, which is being auctioned as a result of U.S. television stations moving off of it and converting to digital signals in February 2009.

“With a good plan the Cortland County Legislature could maybe make sure it’s rolled out here,” he said.

Fitzgerald said he’s curious about New Visions, a company in Syracuse that delivers high-speed Internet over electrical lines to municipalities such as the village of Solvay.

Carmen Branca, New Visions president, said he’d love to sit down with Cortland County officials and talk about bringing the company’s technology here. The company has recently partnered with National Grid.

“We’ve got a lot of calls from your area, from Cortland, Tully, Virgil …,” Branca said. “This (high-speed Internet access) is very important because if affects economic development. … You can’t recruit businesses if you don’t have the infrastructure.”

2/6/08 - Walsh named to Cornell board

Local attorney and former Cortland mayor Ronald Walsh Jr. has been appointed to the Cornell University board of trustees.

Walsh, of Pleasant Street, graduated from Cornell in 1981 with a bachelor’s degree from the School of Industrial and Labor Relations.

At the recommendation of Assemblywoman Barbara Lifton (D-Ithaca), Democratic state Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver appointed Walsh to serve as his designee on the 64-member board.

The governor, the speaker of the Assembly and the president of the Senate have voting rights on the board of trustees but usually appoint someone to serve in their place, according to a press release issued by Lifton.

Walsh said he comes from a “Cornell family,” given the fact that his brother and one of his sisters went to the university, as well as three of his brothers-in-law. His sister is also assistant dean of students at Cornell.

“There are a significant number of Cortland County residents who either work for Cornell or with companies that are located in the region because of Cornell. It’s certainly in our parochial interests for Cornell to fare well.” Walsh said.

Walsh served as a Cortland County legislator, 2nd Ward alderman and deputy mayor before being elected mayor in 1992, serving four two-year terms. Since 2006, he has been an assistant county attorney and has also served as town attorney for Harford.

CONGRATULATIONS RON, you are very deserving!

2/6/08 - Sandy Price LEGISLATOR'S MONTHLY REPORT FOR FEBRUARY 2008

LEGISLATOR'S MONTHLY REPORT FOR FEBRUARY 2008

The regular session agenda included a number of appointments,
re-appointments, and routine resolutions authorizing agreements and
purchases that were in the 2008 approved budget.

Authorization to bond for $405,000 of highway equipment was
unanimously approved.

Authorization was given to hire outside legal counsel to represent the
county and its employees for up to $10,000 in law suits over the
creation of the Conflict Attorney Office. This was done because the
County Attorney was conflicted.

Committee assignments were received and filed. In addition to being
the Majority Leader, my assignments for the coming term are: member of
the Personnel Committee, member of the Budget & Finance Committee,
member and vice-chair of the Health Committee, member and chair of the
Human Services Committee. Larry Cornell and I will continue as
co-chairs of the CCTVS [County, City, Towns, Villages and Schools]
Committee. 

I will continue to represent the county in contract
negotiations at TC3 for the Professional Administrators and the
Faculty. I am also the legislative representative on the Older
Americans Advisory Board, RSVP Advisory Board, and the Nutrition Task
Force, and the Employees Wellness Day Committee. Additionally I  serve
on the Family Counseling Board of Directors, the Salvation Army
Advisory Board, the TC3 Foundation Board, as a Director of the
Cortland County Farm Bureau, the Virgil Youth Commission as the
Program Director, and the Harford Building Committee. From time to
time I also serve as a parent representative on the Cortland Schools
Committee on Special Education. At the Virgil Methodist Church  I
serve as the Religious Education Director, Youth & Family Group Leader
and on the board.

Additionally I am serving on the newly formed Cortland County Transit
Needs Assessment Transportation Advisory Committee.  The first meeting
was very well attended. Surveys and discussion will happen to improve services. I
believe that public transportation is very important. I reported that
one of number one priorities identified in my recent survey was
?transportation for youth employees from the city to Greek Peak?.
Additionally I reported that other unmet needs were: bus shelters at
high volume areas, once a week shopping trips for the senior
apartments in Harford, and a fixed route through Virgil for workers on
the day shift specifically to the Cortlandville Mall area. The TC3
route is appreciated. Finally that coordination with Tompkins County
should be expanded. Any thoughts?

Workers Compensation Insurance was the topic of  the first of what
will hopefully will be a number of meetings with all interested
parties. The Town of Harford suffered a great loss of a fireman. The
community was devastated needless to say. Survivors are rightfully
getting money each month to make up the tremendous loss this husband
and father. This money has to come from somewhere and the way it is
set up now the town picks up that full cost over a three year period.
The payment hike this year resulted in a 20% tax hike for the
landowners in Harford. That was a cost of $27,000 in '07 and will be
$38,000 in '08, $53,000 in '09, and $66,000 in '10. For a small town
like Harford with much of its best land belonging to the state and
with a bare bones budget to start with this is leading to financial
crisis. It is my hope that the local law can be amended to help the
Town of Harford and protect all municipalities from ever being in this
situation. All support is welcome.

Is there anything I should be aware or doing?