Cicero — While Supervisor Mark Venesky insisted the town of Cicero is “not in bad shape” financially, the Cicero Town Board voted Feb. 24 to bond for new police and highway vehicles and more than $700,000 in road repairs.
“Last year, the former supervisor put the budget together in conjunction with some of us on this board,” Venesky said. “We knew that we were going to be short for road construction and some heavy equipment purchases.”
Venesky said the town will have to borrow money this year but is working on reducing its costs and generating more revenue.
“We are also putting into place measures that … will position this town for success and bring some additional money into the town of Cicero,” he said.
The town has reduced its 2016 road repair budget from $829,000 to $715,000
“We feel that we can get as much road as we would have gotten at the higher amount done this year for a lower rate,” Venesky said.
Also in the highway department, two vehicles were unable to pass inspection and must be replaced. The town will bond $479,554 for heavy equipment.
Cicero will also bond $156,204 to lease police cars. Venesky said it is less expensive for the town to pay the entire lease amount up front than to buy the cars.
Resident Don Snyder took issue with the town taking out five-year bonds to pay for police cars with a useful life of three years. Town attorney Robert Germain explained that while a police car’s useful life is listed as three years, the bonds reach maturity in five years.
“That’s crazy,” Snyder said. “You can’t possibly ask us, the taxpayers, to pay for something for the fourth and fifth year that we don’t even own anymore. We’ve got to pay for that now.”
continued — “We’ll pay the cars off when we’re done with the cars,” Venesky said. “We’re not going to be paying for vehicles after we turn them in.”
Also on the agenda
-Senior citizen coordinator: The board provisionally appointed Alexandra Ryan to the position of senior citizen coordinator. Ryan’s annual salary will be $39,000 and she begins March 26.
Parks Director Jody Rogers said Ryan was one of 29 people applied for the position. Ryan has 10 years of experience working in nursing homes, is a volunteer firefighter and EMT and holds a graduate certificate in therapeutic recreation from SUNY Cortland.
“Hopefully, she’s going to bring something new and different … and take our program forward,” Rogers said.
-Website: The board also voted to re-appoint David Kirk as the town’s website administrator; Kirk receives a $1,700 annual stipend. Venesky also said the town is seeking to redesign its website to make it more “functional, user-friendly [and] pleasant for people to look at.”
-Signs: While Councilor Mike Becallo was absent from the Feb. 24 meeting, the remaining board members discussed whether they wanted to go forward with Becallo’s proposed revisions to the sign code. The town board originally began considering such changes back in July 2015.
“Is there an issue with the current sign code that I’m unaware of?” asked Jonathan Karp, who was appointed to the town board this year.
“I am not in favor of changing anything. I think the code is fine the way it is; our code enforcement officer will tell you that and also our planning board will tell you that,” Venesky said.
Venesky said the town previously changed some of the fees to bring them in line with other towns. The board agreed to not pursue the issue.
-Consensus: There will be an informational about the Consensus local government consolidation proposal at 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 2, at the Cicero Senior Center, 5924 Lathrop Drive.
“I would ask everybody to ask your neighbors, relatives, friends — anybody who lives in the town of Cicero — to come to that meeting,” Councilor Dick Cushman said. “There’s a lot of misinformation out there, and we hope to get it all clarified. There will be lots of questions asked and hopefully we’ll get a lot of answers.”
