Paul Szmal: Good morning 837, it's the Friday Extravaganza on FLX Morning. It's our weekly meeting with Auburn City Clerk Chuck Mason. Good morning, welcome back.
Chuck Mason: Hey, good morning, Ted.
Paul Szmal: One of the things that I love the City Council does, I don't know if every city does these, but these departmental presentations where residents just get a real thorough, detailed look at what each department does and how it does it and how it makes its decisions and how it spends its money. Last night it was Public Works Superintendent Mike Talbot talking about the Solid Waste Fund and all of the refuse collection and drop-off days and everything that department does.
Chuck Mason: That's correct, and Mike actually had both work sessions of January this year. He was in earlier this month with the snowplow presentation last night talking about a Solid Waste Fund, which includes expenses associated still with the old landfills. We recently closed the landfills just a few years ago, but there's continuing costs for several decades after you close a landfill to continue to monitor the site and stuff. Curbside trash and recycling pickup is part of this account, and then the running of the new transfer station. The transfer station is about three years old now, and the transfer station is located right at the landfill site, so sometimes it's still called the landfill, but it's now a transfer station.
Paul Szmal: So Mike going through all the details last night and talking about some of the activity that happens on a day-in and day-out basis down there, and then going through some of the numbers to get the council ready. This was kind of like a preview for the upcoming spring budget season, because this account in particular, one of the reasons why Mike was here a little bit earlier this year with this particular account, was to give the council the heads-up and show some transparency on the fact that this budget fund, the Solid Waste Fund, is going to need some attention by the council during this budget season.
Chuck Mason: So Mary Beth Leeson, the comptroller, was on hand as well to explain that. She talked about some of the long-term financing needs down at the transfer station, and she talked about basically the cash flow situation that that particular fund is in. That fund is funded with a refuse collection fee, which is added to the property tax bill for each residence, and then multi-unit residences pay more. And it's the last year of our contract currently with the landfill that we haul the trash to, which is right down the road at Seneca Meadows. So we will be putting out to bid this February and March. We will have a bid out for figuring out where we'll be taking the trash after July 1st of this year, and depending on the bid prices that come in, that's another unknown variable at the moment as to how decisions will need to be made in that particular Solid Waste Fund budget.
So more to come during budget season on this discussion, but last night Mike Talbot and Mary Beth Leeson, the city comptroller, giving the council kind of the heads-up on this is a fund that's going to get some attention during budget season.
Paul Szmal: How long is the responsibility for the closed landfills? The first of those was closed in 1992, so we're coming up on 35 years. How long is the city responsible for that monitoring?
Chuck Mason: Exactly, it's about three decades actually, and Mike was explaining last night on the old closed landfill number one that he's going to be submitting some paperwork to try to scale back on some of the testing that's been done on a routine basis because it's getting to the end and it's kind of the test results for the last couple years have shown that things are in pretty good shape with that landfill site. But there is, you know, it would be called legacy costs of running that operation, and there is quite a bit of not once you have to officially kind of close up, seal up, and cap the landfill, there's still testing requirements and you have to keep the area mowed and make sure there's no trees growing on top. Now we will remind everybody that we were able to make use of our landfill site with the new solar field that's down there, so there is a solar field now on top of the city landfill that was allowed, and that's good too because it's bringing revenue in on the side for the city through the lease that we have with the solar company, as well as a portion of some of the proceeds.
Paul Szmal: So the city's getting set to begin the work at Hoops Park Pond. We talked about this a couple months back. A lot of sediment is building in and nutrients getting in, and the concrete wall around the pond is literally about a hundred years old.
Chuck Mason: That's correct, and we are, yeah, we did just a couple years ago celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Hoops Park Pond, and it's time for a little work on the pond walls. Mike Talbot was back in front of the council back in November where he made a presentation on this project, and you will notice if you are a resident of Auburn in the area of Hoops Park, if you've been driving by Genesee Street, Route 20 by Hoops Park, you'll notice that the pond at this point is pretty much deplenished of water. That is intentional. We've drawn down the water for the pond for this work to start. We are partnering with the Keuka County Soil and Water Conservation District. Council approved a contract with them to do the work on this as far as the dredging of the pond goes, and they're planning on starting the work on February 3rd.
So we're about 10 days out from when they're looking to start the work on this project, but we're trying to spread the word to let everybody know that this activity will be happening. Now this is a project that is being funded in part with a $150,000 grant we were able to get from the state of New York through Senator John Manion. He got us that grant about three years ago when he was our state senator over here. He's now the United States Congressman for this district, but we are putting some state grant money to work on this project.
What you're going to see come February 3rd up there is you'll see the mobilization of a lot of equipment. There will be backhoes and dump trucks and pumps and stuff up there to keep this project rolling over the next few weeks. You will see construction activity and noise. You'll hear some noise up there if you're in the area. The work will be predominantly happening in the daytime from 7 a.m. till 4 in the afternoon, but it'll just be a few weeks of inconvenience and a little bit of a mess up there depending on what the weather does. Actually this cold weather is a little bit convenient for keeping the the messy situation down, but if it starts to warm up, if we get one of those winter thaws, it would quickly turn to a kind of a muddier situation up there.
So we just want the residents in the area to be aware. This is work that's necessary for the long-term interest of the pond, and once spring comes and we can get the mess cleaned up, the construction mess cleaned up, we'll have a beautiful Hoops Park again to celebrate for summertime.
Paul Szmal: That's terrific. We got about two weeks left in the public comment period for the Community Development Block Grant program. This is a five-year plan from 2025 to 2030. The public hearing is on February 6th at 5 p.m. A lot of times these public hearings, not many people attend or nobody really has anything to say, but you were saying that in this case of these CDBG funds, some of these great ideas we've talked about over the years have come from public input.
Chuck Mason: Exactly. A couple of the latest examples that are more exciting for people is the Casey Park Skate Park was really born out of this CDBG process, as well as the upgrades that are currently being made down at the West End Wall Street Playground. We're halfway through that project, that'll be finishing up in the spring. So it's like, this is a great opportunity for residents to have thoughts or ideas of improvements that could be made to their neighborhoods, different human service needs that we have in the community. This plan is extremely driven on public input, so literally the public input that's received can be put into the action on this plan, and in fact it's a requirement of the plan.
So the final public hearing will be two weeks before the City Council, Thursday night, February 6th, beginning at 5 p.m. There will be a final presentation being made of what's in the draft proposal, and it'll be the final opportunity for the public to weigh in at a public hearing. And the Mayor and the Council are accepting any comments that they receive in writing, through email, or through a letter, or if somebody just wants to stop by and leave their comments verbally with the staff, here you can do this still for the next two weeks. And the final written comment deadline is February 7th, and then the following week at Council, on the 13th of February, the Council will be asked to put its staff of approval on the plans that will go in for approval to Washington HUD.
So this is a program of the federal government, Department of Housing and Urban Development. A long time, and Auburn's had this CDBG program, and it's some of the best work that we do out there, and sidewalk improvements, tree planting, neighborhood housing improvements, and then parks and playgrounds. There's just so much that we can accomplish with these funds. So the public has a great opportunity here, and we'll be back in action.
Now remember, next week, Ted, there's no City Council meeting due to the fact that it's the fifth Thursday of the month, so this will be in two weeks at the next City Council meeting, February 6th.
Paul Szmal: And if you want a great job, and a hugely important one, I mean, we've seen what the firefighters did in Ovid over the last few days. The examination is coming up on March 1st to become an Auburn firefighter. Application deadline, January 30th. A good job and a good pay.
Chuck Mason: Yeah, there's no doubt about it, and the civil service process is complicated if it's the first time that you've ever gone through it. So if you're interested in this, the sooner you check in on it, the better. The last filing date for the exam is January 30th here at the end of the month, but it's not really something you can do real quick within the final hour of January 30th. You really want to have a few days ahead so you can see everything that's involved with this process. Because not only do you need to file for the exam, but then you need to prepare for the exam. The exam will be given this year on March 1st, but there's really a lot to look into. So if you go to the City website, all the information is piled on to the City website.
And you're right, Ted, when situations like down in Ovid happen, you know, we're so appreciative of our volunteer firefighters out there. But here in Auburn, we are very fortunate to have a professional fire department, and we're really appreciative of everything that they do to keep our community safe. So shout out to, you know, to everybody that's willing to get into this, either at the volunteer level or as a professional career, because these are the people that are on the front lines keeping us safe when these incidents occur.
Paul Szmal: Auburn City Clerk Chuck Mason, you're the most frequent guest on this program and one of the best. You've been a key part of our keeping our Auburn listeners informed. I know you'll continue to be when Paul's here. I just want to thank you for everything.
Chuck Mason: Appreciate it. Yeah, Ted, thank you and best of luck to you and enjoy some extra time as you transition into a retirement stage.
