Paul Szmal: Good morning, it's 8.38, it's FLX Morning Friday. It's the Friday Extravaganza. It's also Guest-O-Rama Friday. Our fourth guest of the day is Auburn City Clerk Chuck Mason. Good morning.
Chuck Mason: Hey, good morning, Ted. There was a light council agenda last night. The one main item on the agenda was the upgrade to the pilot agreement with Olympia Terrace. So, tell us a little bit about this apartment project. It's getting ready to be constructed, is that what it is?
Paul Szmal: That's the renovation of Brogan Manor property, which is under the auspices of the Auburn Housing Authority. This is a project that's been back in front of the council as they've renovated their Malone Village properties, and they've been in the process of renovating the Brogan Manor properties. They've been in front of the council with these types of resolutions many different times over the last five to eight years. What that resolution was last night was when they went to finalize the paperwork for taking the last steps of filing the paper, they realized that there was a technical mistake made in one of the previous resolutions to the Auburn City Council. So, the resolution last night was simply correcting that mistake so that basically the paperwork can be finalized on this. So, the council last night, giving that unanimous approval, the Auburn Housing Authority has done great work with getting these projects done and keeping them moving at a very fast pace and really upgrading these housing facilities here in the City of Auburn. So, really no discussion or anything last night. It was really just a matter of correcting some of the technical wording in one of the resolutions that they had approved previously.
Chuck Mason: There's a notice up on the City website, auburnny.gov, part of the change in the traffic pattern around Seward Elementary School. There's a new four-way stop sign at the intersection of Metcalf Drive and Mary Street.
Paul Szmal: That's correct, Ted, and if you remember, we had discussed this all back during the month of August. The City Council passed the local law, actually, to implement the installation of this new stop sign. This is a project that the City is working in partnership with the Auburn and Large City School District on. On the west property of Seward Avenue Elementary School, the school district is in the process of finishing up the installation of a new student drop-off area, which is going to include a kind of a circular driveway where students will be dropped off for the school, as well as a new parking area, which probably has, it looks to me like it has about 40 parking spaces in it. The entrance and exit to this parking area lines up directly with Mary Street and Metcalf Drive, that intersection. Part of the overall plan to improve the student safety at the school was for the proper installation of a four-way stop with accessible sidewalks and striping for the pedestrian crossways on this intersection. The new stop signs have been installed, the striping is finishing up today and tomorrow, and they will be unveiling this stop sign so that it goes into action on October 12th, which is tomorrow, Saturday. The first day back to school after a long weekend is Tuesday, so this stop sign, this intersection is within the 20 mile per hour school zone, so we really are cautioning drivers to pay attention when you're over there in this new traffic arrangement. You should be slowed down to the 20 miles per hour anyways, but now you're going to need to be aware that there is a new four-way stop. Now, we do have message sign boards over there on Metcalf Drive that have been flashing all week, bringing this to people's attention. Those electronic sign boards will probably remain over there for a couple of weeks as we roll out this intersection, but the design is to improve the student safety. This is something that the City of Auburn worked with the Auburn School District on as part of their capital projects, and it worked out well because Metcalf Drive was repaved this year on our city road program, so the City of Auburn installed 50% of the accessible sidewalks on the project, and then the school district installed the other 50% of the accessible sidewalks on the other half of the intersection, so it's really a nice little joint partnership, and we're really hoping it's going to improve the safety for the students.
Chuck Mason: Yeah, always a good reminder when people get used to something being a certain way, just when it changes. Like you say, slow down a little extra, look around, make sure you're paying attention to all those signs, especially if you're a frequent driver through that area, you're used to the way it was for all those years.
Paul Szmal: A lot of discussion this week about harmful algal blooms. We've had a really tough season on all the Finger Lakes, including Awasco Lake. We had that stretch of calm, nice weather, which is great for people who enjoy the great weather, but it's also helpful to these algal blooms growing. So what was the discussion about this week?
Chuck Mason: Yeah, so this week the City of Auburn had a slight scare in that some of the results that we received back from our testing lab showed that there was higher levels of microcystin in our finished water, still below the 0.3 threshold that the federal EPA uses for having to put out notifications and stuff, but more of a higher hit than we've experienced in quite some time. So what had to be done was the messaging for our water is conducted through the Kew County Health Department. So the Kew County Health Department did put out a press release on Tuesday night, letting the public know that we'd received these higher levels in the microcystin testing for the finished water. This time of year, the microcystin levels are always on the higher end for the raw water, but we have a power-activated carbon system that was installed about seven years ago at the City of Auburn water filtration plant and has been very successful over these years at removing the microcystin toxins that are in the raw water, not appearing in the finished water. So what had to happen was on Wednesday, we worked with our water testing lab, as well as a secondary water testing lab, to retest the samples from Tuesday, and the retest came back on non-detect for the finished water, and then the regular Wednesday samples came back testing non-detect as well. So it was a little bit of a scare, but the Kew County Health Department has the responsibility of communicating what the results of these tests are as they come in, and we had a feeling that there was something that was just not quite right about those test results. It was the same for the town of Awasco on that day as well. Both Auburn and Awasco received that higher level of microcystin count in the finished water, but the retest on the next day and then Wednesday's testing showed non-detect as well. Mayor Giannitino held a press conference at City Hall on Wednesday to kind of set the community's attention level on this and explain the whole situation, and it's part of the stress that our city and county is under when these microcystins and algal blooms are in our lakes, is that there's unknown variables, and when your testing comes back, such as it did this week, it really creates a scare in the community, and it's a very important issue when it comes to the public drinking water. So the good news is, and the takeaway is, Auburn's water remains safe to drink. You should be aware that the algal blooms have been in full force this year. We've received high microcystin counts in the raw water. However, once we treat the water through our treatment system as well as the power-activated carbon system, we've been very successful for all these years with the removal of those microcystins. However, there is probably a trace of these things in the finished water, so the public really does need to be aware of that. However, the water, according to federal standards, is safe to drink.
Paul Szmal: Talking with Auburn City Clerk Chuck Mason this morning, we're going to have a brand new Wall Street playground. Phase 1 renovations are underway now, and then Phase 2 next fall to finish up.
Chuck Mason: That's great. This is a project of the Community Development Block Grant Program, and this was out of last year's Community Action Plan, and there was public meetings last fall down at the playground with the neighborhood. Phase 1 is under construction right now, so what you're going to see is a lot of activity over the next three to four weeks. They'll be basically doing a lot of landscape work, grading the area, installing a new kind of Figure 8 pathway that's going to be down there. There's going to be some new fencing put up along the riverbank. This is a park that kind of overlooks the Owasco River down in the west end of town, and then some installation of new playground equipment, including new swing sets and benches and things like that. And then next year, Phase 2, we'll install even more playground equipment as well as a basketball court and things like that. So, exciting project here. One of the great things that happens every year when we do the Community Development Block Grant Program is we usually focus in on a playground area. Last year, it was the skate park. Down at Casey Park this year, it's the Wall Street Playground, and it's fun when these things come under construction and you really see the results. So, looking forward to this great upgrade down to the west end of Auburn.
Paul Szmal: And pretty soon, Ted, I'll probably be talking to you in the next couple weeks about the upcoming CDBG public meetings that we'll be having this fall, because it's not only a year that we'll be worried about the annual action plan, but this is one of the years that we will renew kind of the five-year outlook on the action plan. So, there'll be probably a couple extra public meetings, and we'll have the survey and stuff, and have a lot to talk about over the next few weeks when it comes to CDBG.
Chuck Mason: All right. Sounds good, and happy to hear that the water tested out okay. Chuck Mason, Auburn City Clerk, we always appreciate the update.
Paul Szmal: Ted, thank you. Have a great weekend, everybody.
