Lysander, B’ville apply for grant with SOCPA
By Ashley M. Casey
Associate Editor
The Van Buren Town Board opted to sit out of a partnership with the town of Lysander, village of Baldwinsville and the Syracuse-Onondaga County Planning Agency to apply for a Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan (LWRP) grant from the New York State Department of State. Town officials cited a lack of publicly accessible waterfront property and future budgetary concerns for their reluctance to participate.
The town board held a special meeting Monday, July 22, to hear a presentation from SOCPA Director Dan Kwasnowski on the LWRP proposal. Lysander and Baldwinsville signed on to the grant application July 18 with the town of Lysander agreeing to be the grant administrator. SOCPA wrote the grant application, which was due July 26.
“When we can have all communities along the river participating, it makes for a strong application and a strong plan,” Kwasnowski told the Van Buren Town Board.
According to Kwasnowski, the LWRP grant is structured in phases. Phase I requires the participating municipalities to create an advisory board responsible for drafting a request for proposal to hire a consultant, whose job would be to help identify possible capital improvement projects along the Seneca River. With SOCPA’s help, the RFP would be complete in early spring 2020.
Phase I funding would total $150,000, with a 25% required match from Lysander and Van Buren. Kwasnowski said the towns’ $37,500 match could come from in-kind services, such as the time volunteered by advisory committee members, SOCPA and the town engineer.
For Phase II funding, the advisory committee would decide which projects the municipalities would like to complete and in what order. Kwasnowski said the Village of Baldwinsville already has six projects in mind.
“You can go inland quite a ways,” Kwasnowski said. “It’s not just the waterfront. It’s not just the shoreline.”
One possible project would be the creation of a “blue trail” or “blue line,” a digital trail marking historical areas that boaters and kayakers can follow.
Kwasnowski said three other communities in Onondaga County have active LWRP grants: the towns of Clay and DeWitt and the City of Syracuse.
Van Buren Supervisor Claude Sykes said SOCPA is “putting the cart ahead of the horse” by asking for municipalities’ buy-in before “taking the pulse of the community.” He said Van Buren only has 823 feet of municipally controlled waterfront and it is not publicly accessible. He added that Van Buren’s interest in waterfront-focused projects would vary significantly from Lysander’s and Baldwinsville’s.
“It might be hard to come to a consensus on what projects to fund,” Councilor Darcie Lesniak added.
Sykes said the town does not have the staff to devote to the “in-kind services” the grant would require.
“Our engineer’s plate is overfull right now,” he said, adding that the town had to seek help from SOCPA to complete its hazard mitigation program.
Town Comptroller Greg Maxwell objected to the burden LWRP projects could place on Van Buren’s budget. He said the town is already close to the state mandated tax increase cap for 2020 and might have to raise taxes next year.
“You’re being asked four days before a deadline without any idea of what you want to do except commit to spending a lot of money for a consulting company,” Maxwell said.
It would be difficult for the town to save for LWRP projects, Maxwell added, because state law says municipalities can only open capital reserve accounts for specific projects.
“This is something that would take quite a few budget cycles to fund,” Lesniak said.
Councilors Pat Dickman and Wendy Van Der Water were the only two board members to vote yes on the resolution.
Dickman said since each municipality would be responsible for funding individual projects, Van Buren could participate in the Phase I advisory committee and sit out future phases.
“I don’t see what we have to lose for the first part,” she said.
“There’s lots of opportunities,” Van Der Water said.
Despite the promise of those opportunities, the potential costs outweighed the benefits for the board. Supervisor Sykes and Councilors Darcie Lesniak, Howard Tupper, Mary Frances Sabin and Ron Dudzinski voted against joining the LWRP coalition.
