It’s been a busy summer for community activists in Baldwinsville.
The greater B’ville area has dealt with a proposed fire station, changes to the middle school curriculum, election season heating up and a possible new bus garage. A group of residents has banded together to address these issues, calling themselves “Community Alliance for Residential Excellence,” or CARE.
CARE, formerly known as the Coalition of Concerned Citizens, took issue last month with the possibility that the Baldwinsville Central School District might build a new bus garage on 12 acres of woods and wetlands behind Durgee Junior High School. Now, the group is hoping to tackle other concerns in the community.
“We’re not a grievance group, and it’s not just about this bus garage issue,” said CARE member Tony Cavino. “[We want to] form a better line of communication between public and elected officials as a whole — village, town, county, whatever the case may be.”
Cavino said a core group of 30 to 50 CARE members meet weekly at each other’s homes in the Candlewyck neighborhood and surrounding areas. He said CARE’s email blasts reach about 100 residents.
“Our vision is really broad at this point,” Cavino said. “Our broader mission is to create a two-way dialogue between community officials [and residents. We want to begin a more robust public discussion.”
While CARE has challenged school district officials on the possible bus garage, Cavino said neighbors have asked the group to address other issues, such as the North West Fire District’s proposed station and the changes to the middle-level science and math curricula.
Cavino said CARE’s future areas of focus include traffic issues, code enforcement and working with the Baldwinsville Police Department to improve community policing.
“We’re trying to be very practical. This is not a ‘not in my backyard’ situation,” Cavino said.
Cavino said he has heard his neighbors express frustration that they are not being heard by local officials. He said one person told him of her experience trying to address the school board: “I’ve paid $60,000 in taxes to the school since I’ve lived here, and I got three minutes and they cut me off.”
“[People] have to do more than vote. They have to talk and they have to do it in a way that doesn’t disrupt formal procedure,” Cavino said.
According to Cavino, CARE meetings allow residents to express themselves and share community concerns with their neighbors. From there, CARE can present those concerns to local officials in a condensed, organized manner.
“We can distill it down and get it in front of the school board in written form,” Cavino said. “It’s a win for the school. If there’s an idea that’s just inherently unpopular, they’re not going waste their time on it, they’re going to know up front.”
CARE does not have a Facebook page or website, but Cavino said the group members keep in contact through email chains or via Facebook threads.
“Our fire is spreading,” he said.
Cavino said the group is nonpartisan and is made up of many diverse viewpoints.
“We’re not political. There’s no labels: we have Democrats, we have Republicans, we have Independents,” he said. “We have people against fracking; we have people who’d probably like to drill holes in their backyard for oil.”
There’s no official leader, but Cavino said the group keeps records of their discussions and assigns projects to members. One of Cavino’s projects was to create an informational flier about the possible bus garage.
Cavino said CARE’s primary goal is to provide local officials with a direct line to how B’ville feels about issues in the community. He said some officials may not be from Baldwinsville or may not live here their whole lives, but the decisions they make in office leave a mark on the community.
“Hopefully that mark will be one that’s positive,” he said.
Anyone interested in getting involved in CARE can contact Tony Cavino at [email protected].
