Paul Szmal: Good morning, it's 837. It's the Friday extravaganza on FLX Morning and it wouldn't be a Friday without Auburn City Clerk Chuck Mason. Good morning.
Chuck Mason: Hey, good morning, Ted.
Paul Szmal: We had two ceremonial proclamations at the council meeting last night. One, we've been talking about this, we've done a number of interviews. October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month and Cindy Vasil was at the council meeting last night.
Chuck Mason: That's right. Cayuga-Seneca Community Action Program, the CAP program, was on hand last night to accept the proclamation. They run the Community Awareness Campaign for Domestic Violence Awareness Month. They do a great job with it. I don't know if you realize this, Ted, but there's purple lights on all of the streetlights in downtown Auburn. The City Hall bell tower is lit purple for the month of October and then yesterday was Wear Purple Day. And in the daytime yesterday at 12 o'clock noon, they had a ceremony on the Kew County Courthouse steps. Mayor Genitino was down there with Chief Slayton, Sheriff Skank, District Attorney Brittany Grome, Antonacci was on hand with the leadership from the CAP agency and several people from the community to shine light on the stats behind domestic violence and to generate the awareness, all in an attempt to to reduce domestic violence in the community and support victims of domestic violence. So last night we read the proclamation for the month of October and we were able to or the mayor was able to attend yesterday's Wear Purple Day ceremony.
Paul Szmal: That's terrific and we've done a couple of interviews this month and there are great resources out there both in Kew County and across New York and nationwide for victims of domestic violence.
The other one, I didn't know about this one, this was declared by Congress back in 1964. October 15th is White Cane Safety Day, being aware of the blind people with the white canes.
Chuck Mason: That's right. The day was actually originally established by President Lyndon Johnson in 1964 and White Cane Day, the mayor was actually on hand at the Equal Rights Heritage Center earlier this week on Tuesday the 15th with the representatives from Aurora of Central New York and they held a ceremony at the Heritage Center and the mayor actually did an experience of what it would be like to be sight impaired and needing to use a white cane. But representatives from Aurora were on hand last night at the council meeting and just again bringing awareness. If you see a person walking down the street with the white cane, they are entitled to your watching out for them. Pedestrians have the right-of-way but especially people with the white cane, it's a signal that they are trying to make their way and they do need, it is actually legal for them to have the right-of-way and your cooperation. So Mayor Genentino presenting that proclamation last night to the representatives from Aurora.
Paul Szmal: One at a time we're returning properties that were formerly delinquent, not paying taxes, back onto the taxpaying rolls. In this case it's an open lot 25 to 27 Delavan Street and they found buyers.
Chuck Mason: That's right and this one was a relatively simple and straightforward one. The lot gets divided in half and sold to each adjoining property owner. So sometimes this is a great way to get properties back on the tax rolls and especially when you know that you have two neighbors that are very good property owners and good neighbors on that street. So the sale goes to 50% to one neighbor to the south, 50% to one neighbor to the north and back on the tax rolls. So it'll join the property owner on each side and a win-win for everybody in that particular neighborhood down on Delavan Street.
Paul Szmal: Talking with Auburn City Clerk Chuck Mason, the Casey Park Arena Boiler, they're still on the original boiler from when that building was built over 50 years ago and they finally decided they can't put any more band-aids on it so a bid's been awarded for a new one.
Chuck Mason: Exactly, we got our money's worth out of that thing and so this work is going to be funded through the City of Auburn's allocation from the American Rescue Act funding. One of the final projects that will come out of the American Rescue Plan Act and it goes to Amcor Services Bettlem of Rochester, New York for $139,000 to replace that boiler. This is the facility that houses the ice rink. We have indoor facilities such as the locker rooms and a lobby area and a concession stand and things like that. In the summertime the the locker rooms will service the outdoor pool area. So this is a building that's frequently used and it actually will be used coming up here on November 5th. It's one of our pooling sites in Auburn, the Casey Park Rec Center. It'll be great to have this work done and construction on this will happen over the next few months and the building will have a nice new boiler which will hopefully last for another 50 years.
Paul Szmal: So there's another use of this ARPA money. It's actually kind of a sub program of ARPA called the Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund and the City of Auburn has what it calls its VAD program for vacant, abandoned, and deteriorated properties. So there's about what 10 properties I think that are going to get torn down buildings where needed and just cleaned up.
Chuck Mason: That's right. So some of these properties have already been done. What the City Council did last night was took some of the remaining funding from the American Rescue Plan Act and put it into this so that we can actually get a little bit more done. So an additional $46,265 of remaining ARPA funds has been put into this demolition and cleanup account and this has really helped us get out into the neighborhoods. The properties done so far were 6 Barber Street, 7 Church Street, 42 Jefferson Street, 25 Holly Street, 103 Seymour Street, and 58 Francis Street. Also 200 State Street and then still to do is 15 Bradford Street and this has been a great opportunity for the city to get out take care of some some of these houses that you know we take in foreclosure. It's just not, we're just not able to, there's too much disrepair. We're just not able to sell them or get them back into use and demolition is what's necessary. Sometimes they maybe have experienced a fire or something in their in their history and there's a reason why demolition is what's needed. But this is great news that we were able to put a little bit more money into this program to get a couple additional properties demolished and it really helps these particular neighborhoods that these properties sit in to take care of the blight in the neighborhood and usually it's it's these one houses that are that are kind of bringing the whole entire neighborhood down so when we're able to get in there and clean these things up and remove the blight it's really beneficial for the entire neighborhood. It was a great use of these American Rescue Plan funds, these kind of one-shot expenses that unfortunately these properties may have had to sit around for several years before the city was able to get funding such as this. So it's it's great news that we've been able to get all this work done and and a little bit more work to do here and a big improvement for all these particular neighborhoods.
Paul Szmal: And then once those are improved will they be put up for auction?
Chuck Mason: Most likely. It'll be the vacant lots so it'll be handled on a case-by-case basis and it wouldn't surprise me if most of them get sold off such as what we just did with the Delavan Street property last night.
Paul Szmal: Final note from the council meeting that's the annual holiday adjustment of meetings so the Thursday November 28th meeting and Thursday December 26th council meetings will not be held.
Chuck Mason: That's true. One for Thanksgiving and the second for Christmas. We usually take the meeting between the Christmas and New Year's Day holiday off so there'll be three meetings this year in November and three meetings in December. And Ted I also want to remind everybody that October this year has five Thursdays so on Thursday October 31st there will be no City Council meeting. That's due to the fifth Thursday but also conveniently lines up with Halloween so everybody can be out there celebrating Halloween. So we have a meeting next week but no meeting on the fifth week of this month and then three meetings in November and three meetings in December due to the holidays.
Paul Szmal: And then a reminder tomorrow is the first of the two fall cleanup days at the City Transfer Station for City residents only. All details on the website auburnny.gov.
Chuck Mason: That's right the Transfer Station will be open 7 a.m. till 11 30 a.m. It's going to be a beautiful day a beautiful weekend this weekend so get your fall cleaning done things that you're looking to get rid of before the winter time sets in. This is your first crack at it. We'll be back with the second fall cleanup day on Saturday November 2nd but with tomorrow's beautiful weather and the forecast tomorrow might be your best bet to get this stuff down to the landfill. Free for City residents and please check the website for the complete set of rules you will need to be able to demonstrate your illustrate your your proof of residency that matches your vehicle that you're bringing into the Transfer Station.
Paul Szmal: As Chuck said the second of those cleanup days is November 2nd and that's also the day that the Public Works Department and Grow Auburn's Trees are looking for volunteers to help plant a hundred new trees.
Chuck Mason: That's right and Dr. Well Aikman who heads up the volunteer group of the Grow Auburn's Trees was on hand at Council last night to announce the upcoming fall tree planting day. We'll be out there with over a hundred trees. These trees are being funded through some of the grants that we've reported on at previous shows Ted. Some of the American Rescue Plan money ACT money that we received is going towards planting these trees and this will be a great opportunity if you have kids out there that are looking for service credits for their school or the Boy Scouts or the Girl Scouts any any group or organization that may be interested in coming and helping us out. The meeting place is Saturday November 2nd at 8 a.m. and the meeting place is the Permaculture Park which is also known as Lepec Park down on 53 Garrow Street here in the west end of Auburn and when you meet that morning you'll get the instructions and then you'll be assigned various trees throughout the city and as you drive around the neighborhoods of Auburn over the next couple weeks you will notice that our city DPW crew is out there they've kind of staked these trees out where they'll be going there's white stakes in the ground along the city roadways and then they'll be down the week before November 2nd they'll be down to dig the holes but the work orders have been placed for all these trees so the utilities will be checked they'll be digging the holes and it's real easy for the volunteers to show up plant the tree fill the hole and kind of help us get to the finish line I'm planting over a hundred new trees here for the city of Auburn this fall.
Paul Szmal: All right and by the way Walt has a cool email address you can email walt at earthheritage.com if you want to find out more or to sign up to volunteer and again that information is on AuburnNY.gov Chuck Mason Auburn City Clerk we cover a lot of ground each week and appreciate it as always.
Chuck Mason: Ted thank you very much have a great weekend everybody.
