Paul Szmal: I feel like this morning rolls on on this frigid Friday it is 840 we're sitting at 14 but it still feels like it's in the single digits and I'm sure it's pretty frosty in Auburn where Auburn City Clerk Chuck Mason is at City Hall this morning good morning sir how are you.
Chuck Mason: Good morning Paul yeah mother nature is uh throwing us right into the winter weather for this uh early uh part of the winter season but the temperature in my car this morning was 10 degrees and uh definitely crisp out there to say the least.
Paul Szmal: Yeah we didn't even get a chance to dip our toe in the water we just had to dive right into it so let's talk about a couple of things that were on the agenda last night at the Auburn City Council meeting uh there was an authorization of a municipal cooperation agreement this is with the consortium for Cayuga County's health insurance that's correct.
Chuck Mason: Um the city's been part of this consortium for the last six years um the other members of the consortium are Cayuga County uh so that's the Cue County government Cayuga Community College uh the city of Oneana and the Cue County Soil and Water Conservation District um and the intent here is by joining forces um economies of scale you would get the uh best um deal on health insurance that's out there um there's other consortiums that the city is always kind of looking to see how other consortiums are performing and with the uh expiration of our current contract with the Cue County Health Consortium up uh the city staff did take a look at other consortiums in the area that we could have entertained uh joining and it determined that staying with the Cue County Health Consortium was our best financial um deal for the city of Auburn.
Now with all that being said unfortunately health insurance has been a major uh expense to uh municipalities and counties uh all over the place not just Auburn but uh it has definitely been a few years where we've seen double digit increases and it has to do with kind of the uh the bigger picture items that are happening kind of in the world at the national level especially and so doing everything we can to try to keep the health insurance cost of health insurance down is a priority of uh the mayor and council and an absolute necessity actually.
So that last night the council unanimously adopted the this agreement to stick with the Cue County Consortium for another three years um however uh uh while this is a a positive step certainly um we're all in this boat together uh with these uh double digit increases and it's not a not a good financial situation for any of our municipalities and upstate New York counties uh to be in um and we're all kind of uh up against the same kind of macro uh data that's out there that's uh driving these costs of health insurance up.
So you know the city will continue to work on things and uh we'll do everything we can to try to work with our own organization to keep health insurance costs under control uh but it's definitely a situation that has had a significant hit on our budgets in the last two to three budget years with these double digit increases so more to come you know we'll be talking about this a lot uh during the budget season upcoming Paul but uh last night uh was a major decision by the by the council to uh stick with the Cue County Health Consortium for another three years.
Paul Szmal: There was also a resolution that authorized the lease of space by the city of Auburn back to Cuyahoga County this is for the relocation of Cuyahoga County's 9-1-1 backup center.
Chuck Mason: That's right and this is one of the ramifications of the continued closure of the Cue County office building um the city has been uh working closely with the county on on building situations uh as necessary and uh being able to house the Cue County 9-1-1 backup center at the new city public safety building over on Seminary Street uh that's a small amount of space all things considered uh but we were able to utilize some of that extra space and the council last night uh discussing this and adopting it unanimously but there was uh some questions as to why the city would charge um the county for this space and uh it's really quite simple it's uh there are situations where the county sometimes has space in city buildings and there's a a lease agreement in place and then there's other situations where the city has space in county buildings and there's a lease agreement in place in place.
So one of the biggest lease agreements that we have the city of Auburn has with Cue County is for the city court uh Auburn city court is located in the Cue County courthouse and um the old post historical post office here in downtown Auburn and the city of Auburn pays an annual lease payment of about $105,000 over to Cue County for the leasing of that space uh so it's it's uh these these prices are kind of set at what is would be considered a you know fair market value for the space that's uh being taken and uh just uh an example of us continuing to work with our partners over at Cue County to make sure that our systems out there are functioning and as Cue County continues to work through its uh building issues uh that space will most likely uh remain available to them and we'll probably see this uh lease agreement come before the council again in the future if it's needed to be extended.
Paul Szmal: We're talking with Auburn City Clerk Chuck Mason here on FLX Morning. The uh holiday parade last uh weekend uh went well from what I understand got some uh reports back from some people that were in the parade said they had a ball.
Chuck Mason: That's right it was a great turnout we want to thank everybody uh for participating and coming out to the parade uh we want to thank our City of Auburn Police Department, the Cue County Sheriff's Office, uh New York State Police they all kind of came together and uh helped us out with keeping um control of the parade route and uh the crowd and uh as well as some volunteers from our volunteer local volunteer fire departments uh that stepped forward um City DPW crews that are out there all day long um setting up the parade route and then taking it down afterwards there's a lot of work that goes into these parades but the bottom line was we did have another successful holiday parade and then we lit uh what is going to be a uh a new second tree in the down locate downtown location uh a new Christmas tree that was placed at the State Street Event Plaza in downtown Auburn was lit uh with Santa Claus and Mrs. Claus in attendance after the parade and we're already making plans for next year's parade so mark your calendar uh we are going to have the parade again uh next year we've already made that decision it'll be Saturday November 28th of 2026 a year from now and uh we're going to set the start time next year for 4 p.m in the afternoon um and hope that everybody will uh come back.
Now we didn't really uh uh you know some people were questioning me the uh length of the parade this year and uh it actually was the same size parade that we've had for the previous two years with 50 participants in the parade um but the I'll tell you the everybody lined up and everybody was on time and everybody was marching along and it just uh the weather cooperated and we were able to get that parade down the street within about 35 minutes so um 35 minutes is still a pretty good uh parade but uh there weren't there were really no delays along the parade route at all and uh all the marchers uh did well and all the floats kept moving along and it was a great afternoon for everybody and uh so we're excited for next year and we want to thank everybody that uh helped us out again this year the Auburn police the Cougar County Sheriff uh state police all the volunteers that came out from uh different uh we had some volunteer fire departments that stepped up and then of course our city DPW crews that are out there all day long so it was a great day Paul and uh we saw your co-worker there from classic hits 99.3 she was rolling down the parade route as well.
Paul Szmal: So yeah yeah Lisa Cruz participating in the parade glad everything went well uh that is a wrap for our conversation for this week next city council meeting coming up this coming Thursday at Auburn City Hall we'll recap it next week on Friday morning as always thank you Chuck.
Chuck Mason: Yeah thank you stay warm and have a great weekend all right it is 8 50 on FLX morning.
