Archive: News

State Senator Mike Nozzolio announced Wednesday that a formal signed agreement to halt the SAFE Act ammunition database and background check program was reached today by and State Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan and Governor Cuomo.  The agreement comes as a result of extensive negotiations throughout the last several weeks.

"This Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) agreement is a victory for every law-abiding gun owner in New York State," said Nozzolio. "The ammunition database and background check requirements of the SAFE Act relied on unproven technology, and establishing it would have cost New York State taxpayers upwards of $100 million - a colossal waste of tax dollars. The establishment of this database was an affront to all law abiding gun owners and those who believe as strongly as I do in our 2nd Amendment rights."

The Legislature's Old Library Committee today reviewed further the matter of designating a preferred developer for the County's Old Library property, but members deadlocked and failed to forward any recommended action to the full Legislature.

At the Legislature's June 16 meeting, neither the proposal from the Travis Hyde group nor the proposal from the Franklin Properties group had achieved the eight votes required for passage.  Today, as the five-member committee considered a slightly revised resolution, recommendations to designate Franklin and to designate Travis Hyde both failed to win approval of the committee by 2-2 votes—Legislators Leslyn McBean-Clairborne and Dooley Kiefer supporting Franklin, and Legislator Mike Sigler and Chair Mike Lane supporting Travis Hyde.  (Legislator Kathy Luz Herrera was excused.)

Tom Reed discussed how energy produced in the United States, particularly as a result of fracking, is driving the costs of electric/gas bills and gasoline down for families across Western New York.

"Oil and natural gas developed in the United States is keeping oil prices around the world low, which is driving down the price of gas here at home," said Reed.  "Cheaper gas is also reducing the prices of food and electric/gas bills, which help families, as these are the largest expenses in a household," Reed continued.

The Cayuga Farms townhouse project passed two hurdles Monday when the Town Planning Board declared a negative environmental impact and approved the project's site plan.  When all phases of the project are completed the 31.4 acre project will include 21 buildings with 102 town homes total.  The project is located on the west side of North Triphammer Road between Hillcrest Road and Asbury Road.  Project Engineer Timothy Buhl says the scope of Cayuga Farms has changed several times since it was first proposed five or six years ago.

"It was a larger project," Buhl says.  "It was 144 units, and we downsized the project to 102 units on less acreage.  We even had single family homes in the first iteration.  Now it's an apartment project as opposed to the condominium project it was. "

Roy H. Park, Jr. was named Republican of the Year Saturday at the Tompkins County Republican Committee annual dinner.  100 local Republicans gathered at the Lakewatch Inn to honor Park, raise money and enjoy the dinner and fellowship.  'Politics Is Local', was the theme for the evening, stressed by Park and speakers Lansing Councilman Ed laVigne, County Legislator Mike Sigler, NYS Senator James Seward, and keynote speaker Tompkins County Department of Emergency Response Director / Fire Coordinator Lee Shurtleff.

"Everything in politics should be local," says Tompkins County Republican Committee James Drader.  "When we get right down to it this is what really matters: our home and our families and where we live and how we are affected in our daily lives.  More-so than ever, in the economic times that we face now, due to the national politics it's made it even tougher to govern in a small county.  We have one city surrounded by nine towns.  It used to be that the nine towns were very Republican. They had Republican majorities.  It's not that way any more, so local is the best way if you want to change your everyday life.  Local politics."

Lansing Fire Department officials say that a $190,000 training tower could be ready for use late this summer.  The fire-proof building behind Lansing Central Station on Ridge Road will be used for live training scenarios, dealing with smoke and fire when entering a building, and state certification exercises.  Officials say they expect the facility will be used to train neighboring fire departments as well as Lansing firefighters.

"They're starting to insulate the burn room," says Deputy Chief Brad George.  "They said that would take ten days.  I think they will turn it over to us in the next 15 to 20 days.  There's a small training session that we have to go through to learn to use the temperature sensors and things like that."

Village of Lansing Trustees voted Monday to request a speed limit reduction on East Shore Drive from 55 to 45 miles per hour.  If successful, the speed limit will be reduced to 45 miles per hour or less for the entire length of East Shore Drive.  With the recent reduction on Triphammer Road that means that three main thoroughfares leading from Route 13 into the Town of Lansing will be restricted to 45 mph.  Mayor Donald Hartill says the change will make the speed limit consistent from Route 13 to the 34B T-intersection.

Because East Shore Drive (NYS Route 34) is a state road, any change will have to be approved by the New York State Department Of Transportation (DOT).

Legislature Approves TC3 Budget
The Tompkins County Legislature, by unanimous vote, adopted the 2015-2016 operating budget for Tompkins Cortland Community College (TC3).  (Legislator Kathy Luz Herrera was excused.)
 
The $39.36 million budget includes a total sponsoring community contribution of about $4.65 million (split between Tompkins and Cortland Counties), a 2% increase in sponsor contribution over the current year’s budget.  Tompkins’ share of the sponsor contribution is just over $2.9 million (63%), based on a funding formula related to the proportion of students enrolled from each county—Tompkins’ contribution $57,445 more than for the current year.  The Cortland County Legislature will act on the budget later this week.
 

Congressman Tom Reed Tuesday called the Greek debt crisis a "stern warning" to America, advocating for the Federal government to live within its means and move toward a balanced budget.

"We should view the crises in Greece and Puerto Rico as canaries in the coal mine," Reed continued. "Countries around the world are over promising and financing obligations with borrowing.  You can't live on credit forever. People are beginning to question why their leaders didn't prevent these problems."

Maureen ReynoldsTompkins County, NY, has once again been named one of America's top digital counties by the Center for Digital Government and the National Association of Counties. The survey identifies best technology practices among counties nationwide.

After implementing Laserfiche enterprise content management (ECM) software in 2011, Tompkins County immediately began seeing benefits.

According to Maureen Reynolds, Tompkins County Clerk, "We wanted to be transparent for years and years. People always say that government is hiding information. It wasn't that we were hiding anything—before Laserfiche, we just couldn't find it!"

Lansing Park Superintendent Steve Colt says that parking at tonight's fireworks in Myers Park may be more restricted than usual.  In past years swarths of lawn have been reserved for fireworks parking.  But because of unusually heavy rain, Colt says the grass is likely to be too wet to handle parking without causeing major damage to the park.  Parking is always available at the Lansing schools, and free shuttle buses will run continuously to get people to the park.

"I hear it's going to be beautiful on Friday," Colt says.  "Even if it is we're probably going to super-restrict traffic down there.  Everybody's yards at home will probably be dry.  The pavement will be dry.  The sun will be out and the sky will be blue, but the grass at Myers Park is wet."

Assemblywoman Barbara Lifton (D/WFP – 125th) commented Tuesday on the end-of-session agreement between the Assembly, Senate and the Governor, establishing an unprecedented $19 million fund to aid municipalities and schools that lose 20% or more of their payment-in-lieu-of-taxes revenue from the closure of a fossil fuel based electricity generation facility. From text of the bill:

"Contingent  upon  available  funding, …..  moneys from the  urban  development  corporation  shall  be available for a municipal corporation or school district, as determined by the urban development corporation, where (i) a fossil  fuel  electric  generating  facility located within such municipal corporation or school  district has permanently ceased operations, and (ii) the closing of such facility has caused a reduction in the tax collections and receipts from payments in lieu of taxes of at least 20%..."