Archive: Opinions

How surprised were you when you found out that Tompkins County is considering building another entirely new office building? Oh, you haven't heard? Well, let's begin talking about this newest tax bonanza.

Before we begin with the new, let's get some background on the 'old'. I've been told that I seem to never forget anything about county politics, so...Back in the 80's, Tompkins County realized it had to build a new jail, for good reason. The county jail on Court Street at the time was absolutely decrepit, dangerous, standing alongside the County Court House which was built in the 1930's and still quite solid. The jail was/is a three story affair and definitely needed to be replaced. The county Board of Reps voted to tear it down (the jail) but found out it could not be torn down: it housed much of the heating and other infrastructure for the court house! Who knew?

So, someone said 'Let's refurbish it for county offices'. Frank Liguori proposed, tongue in cheek, that it could be used for 'storage...VERY secure storage'. So, at the cost of, if I remember correctly, well over two million dollars, that brick edifice was turned into county offices. Not many of them, but they are definitely grand and comfortable. The paneling reminds me of Morgan Stanley.

Noe, the County Office for the Aging and the County Clerk were still housed in the basement of the County Courthouse, the DMV was over on 3rd Street and the Office of Assessment was on Buffalo Street. The Department of Social Services and the Health Department had been moved up to West Hill for unknown reasons and the county had still not solved its problem of what to do with its employees who seemed to be growing like Topsy.

So, the county bought a huge chunk of land between Seneca and State Streets and built that huge three story building (totally out of character for Seneca Street) and put the probation department and human services in it. Since then, the county has spent another almost million dollars to reconfigure that building so that probation could expand and include Day reporting (which had been located in that white elephant known as the Old Library). I seem to remember that building on Seneca/State costing well over five million dollars, not counting the loss of millions of dollars of prime real estate which was taken off the tax rolls. I had proposed building a downtown WalMart on that block, but c'est la vie.

The state told the county to get the Office for the Aging out of the courthouse so the court system could expand, so the county took another commercial, tax paying building off the tax rolls on State Street and turned it into another fine, non-tax-paying office building.

The county legislature wanted 'new digs' since they felt that their meeting room in the courthouse didn't match their tastes (champagne taste on a beer pocketbook, as my grandmother used to say) so they spent a couple million refurbishing the original courthouse (which had formerly housed the Planning Department in the 19th century historic structure) and built themselves a fine meeting room, and where they put the Planning Department (which has to continue proving it has a job to fulfill) I'm not too sure.

The Office of Assessment? Still on Buffalo Street in an obsolescent fifties-style building, two story, covered with solar panels and smack in the middle of the DeWitt Historical District, so, if they moved out, the building could present the county with another 'old library' syndrome/conundrum of obsolescence and potential asbestos, an orphan looking for another landlord who wants to build more 'affordable' housing. Good luck after the Travis-Hyde debacle.

The Health Department? Oh where, oh where did the Health Department go? Out of sight, out of the taxpayers' mind, as we travel all the way to the airport and Cornell technology park, and spot a humongous, ultra-modern office building, with super-cool blue windows, hidden among the trees of the Park. The parking lot appears to be full of employees' cars, for a building that is possibly half-empty, with a bevy of dark blue Fords marked as County health Department, and never seeming to move, along with a bunch of electric vehicle charging stations never occupied, since the county, apparently, hasn't any rechargeable vehicles yet.

And, the DMV sits quietly on 3rd Street, with no known need for more space, but like any bureaucratic entity, always wants more space.

I understand the people pushing for this new county effort to eliminate more property from the tax rolls is the District Attorney's Office and the County Clerk. Why? To operate more efficiently? This means more money to renovate the current administration offices (on Court Street, remember). More money, indeed.

Now, to the new. Walk down Tioga Street from the Court House (I should say, walk North) a block past Temple Beth-El and the Temple offices, toward Cascadilla Creek and you'll see some fifties'-style offices currently housing dentist offices and a fairly large parking lot, as well as another house or two with office space. The county wants to take these properties off the tax rolls, and build a new administration building here. For what purpose? Apparently, the employees desire and deserve more parking spaces than they currently have, as well as bigger offices (whoops, I mean more efficient usage of space). Parking spaces? I thought this bunch of fourteen legislators voted to reduce the county's so-called 'carbon footprint? With what, more solar panels (which might not work too well in that neighborhood unless they cut down trees) and more parking spaces? By encouraging more driving and building a new building and parking lot practically on top of Cascadilla Creek?

What about the residents of Tioga Street and especially Sears Street (the shortest street in the city)? Sears is totally residential, much of it appears to be owner occupied, is extremely narrow (it was a horse-path between the creek and the original court house in the 19th century). Sears Street would be severely and negatively affected by building an unnecessary administration building and parking lot. Tioga Street may be zoned 'office/professional' in that block, but it is the 'gateway' to Fall Creek neighborhood and is much more residential in feeling, thus would turn the entrance to Fall Creek into a thoroughfare, already impacted by speeding commuters and lack of police presence to enforce reasonable driving (never mind the bicycle speed bumps).

They're trying to mitigate negative feelings by proposing a possible building of new housing on this parcel as well as an office building/parking lot. You can bet they'll use the buzz word 'affordable' to keep up the charade while taking another couple of million off the tax rolls which is actually partially driving the loss of 'affordable' housing in the city.

In this age of computerization and cloud storage of data, why do they need more space in the records, property and vehicle sections? My guess is that it really is just a way to keep growing, keep from spending on things which have positive impact like county roads, road patrols, quality of life issues including real housing for the lowest on the economic scale, if that is deemed appropriate for tax dollars. To remind you, if you are not aware, there are approximately 750 county employees on the payroll right now, and I have never heard of one being laid off or one 'slot' going unfilled.

Could I make a couple of suggestions for someone on the legislature to answer? Here they are:

1) How much does the county currently owe in bonds?
2) How much property does the county actually own or hold? What is the actual dollar value of the property the county has built on, holds vacant or seized for taxes? Can anyone answer that? And if not, why not? Telling us that the answer is not available is not an acceptable answer.
3) How much did the county spend, in total, on the Health Department building, the DSS building, the COFA building and the new legislature meeting room in the 'old' courthouse?
4) Did the county 'net' any profit from the old Library building?
5) Did the county spend money on refurbishing of the county courthouse so the state could move in, displacing county offices, and how much was that total refurbish and move to another building which the county evidently bought?
6) How much money will be lost to the city tax rolls by 'purchasing' (read: possible eminent domain proceedings) the properties on North Tioga Street and what 37,000 square feet of office space would actually cost to build on that space? In accordance with that question, how much would the county borrow, at what interest rate, to do so?
7) What damage to property values on Cascadilla Street and Sears Street would occur and how will the county mitigate that?
8) How can the county justify 'more parking space' when they subsidize TCAT with cash every budget but never seem to think county employees should be utilizing it in lieu of parking permits, much like Cornell does with TCAT passes?

I know that this seems like a city/county problem, but here we are again watching the county tax and spend, with no regard for the rising tax burden of the outlying towns and municipalities. They can vote for 'do-good' feelings and nebulous 'causes', but when it comes to another building, another expense, another borrowing escapade, another robbery of valuable property, these people on the county payroll have never seen a spending idea they didn't like.

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I must make one note about the Mueller report, assuming it won't go away as a news item anytime before November 2020. The right wing talk show hosts are absolutely adamant (through their gritted teeth) that this report exonerates the Trump administration. I maintain that it neither exonerates nor implicates any political cause or personage, right, left, Democratic nor Republican.

Richard Haas, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, stated (in the Wall Street Journal): "So Putin has to be feeling good with today's news..." Indeed. I would like to refer you, dear reader, to my column in the Lansing Star a bit more than a year ago. My fictional account of the meeting in Putin's office with KGB agents prior to the American election, where the entire purpose of the Russian destabilization efforts was not to alter the American vote (since they are not really too interested in who is in the White House, but finding ways to influence public opinion) but to destabilize American morale, and Americans' last bastion of trust: our electoral system. They succeeded, folks, in taking away our last belief, the sanctity of our vote, without actually changing one vote for either candidate.

This was the real emphasis of the fake Facebook accounts, the 'fake news', the entire effort was not to elect Trump or Hillary, but to damage our faith in the sanctity of the vote. I refer you to my column about a year ago.....it has come true, and the Mueller report will not need to exonerate the real villain: Putin, who really wanted not only revenge for our sanctions, but to find another way into our demoralized society. He's smiling like the Cheshire Cat, as I predicted. And the United States is reeling like a punch-drunk prize fighter on the ropes, still looking for who sucker-punched us, not in the election, but in the months preceding, and especially the years following the election of 2016.

It wasn't collusion, it wasn't the intelligence community, it wasn't even the FBI or Trump, nor Hillary nor the DNC: it was the Kremlin. Pure, and maybe not so simple. But don't expect any of the above 'suspects' to be able to figure this one out. It's too obvious, in my way of thinking. And the danger is just getting deeper, more pervasive.

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