Paul Szmal: Welcome back to FLX Morning here on Finger Lakes News Radio. It is 8.38. This time on a Friday is when we check in with our friend Chuck Mason, the Auburn City Clerk, to get a recap of the City Council meeting. And Chuck is here. Good morning, sir.
Chuck Mason: Hey, good morning, Paul. Let's jump right into the agenda. There was an amendment to the agreement with Cayuga County for the rental of City Court and the historic old post office building.
Paul Szmal: That's correct. Anybody that's familiar with downtown Auburn is familiar with the beautiful old historic post office building. It's a building that's owned by Cayuga County. And one of the main tenants of the building is the City of Auburn Court. And City Court's been over there for several years and will continue to be there under this agreement through the end of 2026. So this agreement extends the city's lease to December 31st, 2026.
It all works out really well over there because between the old historic post office and the county courthouse across the street, everything court related in Cayuga County and the City of Auburn is kind of like on the same couple of blocks in downtown Auburn. So as we've spoken about on this show over the last couple of years, we've taken a look with Cayuga County at renovation of the space, upgrades that are needed to the old historic post office. Fortunately last year when those items were put out to bid, the expense of those repairs actually was much more than what the engineers and architects had anticipated. So everything's kind of been put on hold for now. But what this does is allows the City Court to remain in the building for the next couple of calendar years. And the City of Auburn will continue to work on future needs for the City of Auburn Court space. So more to come probably on City Court, but this agreement in place with a unanimous vote of the City Council at last night's council meeting.
Chuck Mason: And then there were a couple of amendments for the sale of some property.
Paul Szmal: That's right. You know we talk about these properties quite a bit and it's we're into getting into our third full year of where we have used a real estate agent to put some of these properties that have been foreclosed due to unpaid taxes back on the tax rules. And we've had a lot of success with our Steve Byer from the Real Estate Agency has been working hard over the last couple of years on behalf of the City of Auburn. And we've managed to return quite a few of these properties. It's almost getting to the point where you know two or three of these a month are hitting the council agendas, which is great. Prior to that we would do just an annual auction and we wouldn't get very much money for these properties at the annual auction, but being able to sell them individually one by one we've had a lot of success.
So last night 11 Adams Street was sold and the property it's been sold to Sarah Fagan and she does intend to renovate the property and return it back to good use. And then the second property on 103 Seymour Street is just a vacant piece of land that's being sold to an adjacent landowner but puts the property back onto the tax rules for the city. So a couple of other wins for the council last night and both of these approved unanimously and we thank our real estate agent Steve Beyer who's out on the pounding the pavement for us trying to get these properties back to useful life.
Chuck Mason: There was also talk about the legislation that was put together by Assemblyman John Lamondis and State Senator Rachel May about relocating the Central New York Welcome Center to Auburn.
Paul Szmal: That's correct and we appreciate the work that our state representatives are doing on this particular bill. Senator Rachel May introduced this legislation in the senate side and has already been able to get it through committee and it was actually on March 18th it was approved by the New York State Senate and Assemblyman Lamondis was able to introduce this bill on the assembly side and it currently is with the Economic Development Committee of the State Assembly.
So what the bill would do is at the conclusion of contracts that the New York State Empire State Development Department has with the Destiny Mall at the conclusion of the current contracts it would relocate that Central New York Welcome Center to the Heritage Center that was built here in Auburn the New York State Equal Rights Heritage Center. Originally when these projects were announced back in 2016 by the state of New York it was designated that Auburn would be the host of the Central New York Welcome Center. Shortly after that announcement the governor at the time changed his mind and decided that the Destiny Mall would get the Central New York Welcome Center and Auburn would get the Equal Rights Heritage Center which has worked out well but the the Destiny Mall has had some issues in recent years and it's kind of proven to be not an ideal location for that Central New York Welcome Center.
So this legislation would would kind of put things back to where they were when the state made the original announcement and when that original announcement was made it was actually the Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul who made the announcement that this Central New York Welcome Center would be find its home in Auburn, New York. So the council last night going on record expressing their gratitude to our state representatives Rachel May in the Senate and John Lamondes in the Assembly and asking for the Assemblyman Lamondes to do all he can to try to get this through the Assembly process and to a final vote in the Assembly and then once that happens and it lands on the governor's desk encouraging Governor Kathy Hochul to sign this for us and then at the conclusion of existing contracts as the bill is written there will be new contracts that could be taken up for the relocation of this Central New York Welcome Center to the City of Auburn. So more to come on this but we appreciate the work that our state representatives have done. Mayor Genentino and the City Council last night giving this a unanimous stamp of approval.
Chuck Mason: We're talking with Auburn City Clerk Chuck Mason here on FLX Morning. The council meeting wrapped up with the latest round of budget presentations.
Paul Szmal: That's right some of the behind the scenes departments that you'd never really think of but they are definitely an important part of your everyday life and that is our municipal utilities with our water department and our sewer department and then our IT department which is IT has really become big you know big part of the operations these days and especially with security of all of our systems and so much work that's being done online but to begin Seth Jensen was here to present his budgets for the municipal utilities which includes the water department sewer department and our hydroelectric facilities as well.
Seth kind of going over there's been so much work that's been happening in the last couple years we completed some upgrades to the slow sand filter and the rapid sand filter parts of our water filtration process and then we're undergoing a 90 million dollar upgrade down at the wastewater treatment plant and Seth's really had a full plate but he's got a great team at both departments that really do a lot of work to keep our city running on a daily basis and trying to do everything we can under what can be sometimes some tough and stressful circumstances during the algal bloom season to make sure that our water remains good quality drinking water and they do a great job in both departments and Seth also talking about the fact that we are undergoing a water rate study at the moment with the adjoining towns that are also wholesale customers of of the city water system and Seth going through everything that there is to do with his utility budgets and then our controller Marybeth Leason was on hand with our IT director Jesse Chehovich and they went through all things IT we are basically looking to have a year of IT which is just kind of holding things in place no major new investments or upgrades for the for the next year to IT but we have just over the last couple of years completed some upgrades to servers and equipment and things like that so the IT budget kind of remaining as flat as it possibly can as well and a lot of important work behind the scenes with IT to keep us all running in today's world and we appreciate everything that our IT director Jesse Chehovich and as one assistant does for our entire organization to keep us safe and secure in the internet world.
Chuck Mason: I wanted to touch base while we have a couple of minutes Chuck on some of the upcoming events that the City of Auburn has one of those happening tomorrow in Hoops Park that's the annual Easter Egg Hunt.
Paul Szmal: That's right and this is an event that's well looked forward to annually every year at Hoops Park it is sponsored this year by the Auburn Rotary Club along with the Mattson and Kellogg Benefits Group out of Wheatsport New York they're the main sponsor with the Rotary Club and there'll be lots of great prizes for the kids there is three age categories under three is one category four to ages four to seven is the second category and ages seven till nine is the third category we encourage everybody to arrive early the event starts promptly at 10 a.m. and the reason why we say arrive early is this event is usually over as far as all of the eggs being found by about 10.02 or 10.03 a.m. it's a real fast moving event but they will the hundreds of children will collect thousands of eggs in about three minutes worth of time yeah it doesn't take long does it yeah it doesn't take long so get there on time it looks like mother nature will cooperate tomorrow morning it looks like we're gonna have some mild temperatures with dry conditions so we're looking forward and we thank our organizers Auburn Rotary and Mattson and Kellogg.
Chuck Mason: Also coming up the first transfer station spring cleanup day for city residents that's uh happening uh tomorrow yeah also tomorrow okay a busy day in Auburn New York tomorrow morning so the first for city of Auburn residents the first opportunity to drop things off at the city transfer station for free 7 a.m. till 11 30 a.m. tomorrow morning Saturday April 19th transfer station is located at 311 North Division Street down the west end of Auburn.
Now there's a complete set of rules for this program so they're all posted on the home page of the Auburn website auburnny.gov we encourage everybody to check out those rules you will need to have a driver's license that matches your vehicle registration to prove your city residency but it's a great opportunity for city residents to uh to get some spring cleaning done this is the first of two days we'll be back down there in a couple of weeks on Saturday May 3rd 7 a.m. till 11 30 a.m. for the second opportunity this spring but uh a great opportunity for city residents to uh get some things down there and if you have anything that contains Freon there is a charge 45 dollars each for if you have any old air conditioners or refrigerators that you're bringing down there will be a charge for Freon appliances but uh the complete set of rules is on the city website and um we encourage everybody to take take this opportunity to get some spring cleaning done.
Paul Szmal: And finally uh we are one week and a day away from Earth Day that's right Earth Day is going to be celebrated next week and the annual Earth Day celebration events in Auburn will be happening on Saturday April 26th. The Auburn Beautification Commission teamed up with the Cougar Climate Action Group uh with the downtown bid in the city of Auburn we'll be doing an Owasco River cleanup day at 10 a.m. uh the meeting place is the Mill Street Dam uh on Osborne between Osborne Street and Miller Street in the city of Auburn uh volunteer we usually get about anywhere it's between 60 and 100 volunteers to come out uh and we'll get that entire area of the Owasco River cleaned up as the Owasco River is meeting the downtown area um and then new this year the Auburn Beautification Commission and the Cougar Climate Action are sponsoring a swap shop that'll be 12 p.m. noon till 3 p.m. at the Auburn Public Theater space on uh 8 Exchange Street and the swap shop is an opportunity for people to bring you know maybe 10 or 15 items that you would normally sell maybe at a garage sale we'll bring them down to this event and uh if there's 20 or 30 people that bring these all these items you can swap things with what people uh if you're interested in swapping with what somebody else brings you can swap there or if you at the end just want to leave the items that you brought down for the swap shop we will get them uh the beautification commission will work to get them to uh donate it to good productive uses so and we're we're talking about small items here like you might have an old radio sitting around the house or old uh dishware maybe some uh respectable looking uh good use clothing um items such as that so uh the swap shop will happen 12 till 3 the intent here is to keep things out of the landfill one person's uh garbage might be another person's treasure type of thing and uh for more information on that you can reach out to Dominic Gambiani he's our uh chair of the Auburn Beautification Commission and uh it's beautifulauburnny.com the website where you can reach Dominic at as always pleasure to talk to you Chuck thanks so much Paul.
Chuck Mason: Thank you have a good weekend and happy Easter everybody it is 8 54 on FLX morning.
