By Ashley M. Casey
Staff Writer
While details of the Onondaga County Shared Services Plan are still being ironed out, municipalities continue to pursue their own shared services agreements. The city of Syracuse will allow the town of Cicero to use the services of the city’s grant writers.
“We have been looking for a grant writer,” Town Supervisor Mark Venesky said at the Oct. 25 meeting of the town board. “We were doing some in-house with [Parks Director] Jody Rogers and we were paying for grant writing.”
Venesky said the town found the going rate for its own grant writer to be a bit steep, so he met with Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner. While Syracuse has entered into numerous intermunicipal agreements with Onondaga County, Venesky said this was the first such agreement between the city and a town.
The town board voted to approve an agreement to pay the city of Syracuse an amount not to exceed $6,000 for the services of the city’s Bureau of Research. Venesky said the town will pay an hourly rate, which has not yet been determined. The agreement lasts for one year with a one-year conditional renewal.
The agreement is pending approval by the Syracuse Common Council.
“If it works out well, I really hope the next mayor will continue [the agreement],” said Town Councilor Mike Becallo.
Streetlights revisited
In addition to approving the grant writer agreement with the city of Syracuse, the town board addressed the issue of additional streetlights in certain neighborhoods.
The town board held public hearings to consider additional streetlights in the underground lighting districts of Mariner’s Landing and Wallington Meadows. No one spoke either for or against the proposals, and the board voted to approve them.
As for additional streetlights in the Champlain on the Lake subdivision, there are two proposals before the board.
At the Oct. 11 meeting, the town board voted 4-1 to approve streetlights that would cost homeowners an additional $59.71 per year. Resident Patricia Keating submitted a petition to the town clerk that contained 56 signatures out of 79 homeowners in Champlain on the Lake
While some residents of the area voiced their opposition, Councilor Jon Karp reasoned that roughly 71 percent of residents wanted the lights.
“I believe a request for streetlights in a residential housing development is a reasonable request. By my math it is 70.8 to 71 percent,” said Karp, according to the Oct. 11 minutes. “It is difficult to define what a clear majority [is]. Fifty-one percent is not, but I think 71 percent is.”
Councilor Becallo voted no, calling the cost of the streetlights an “undue burden” on residents.
Some residents, however, are willing to pay an even higher price for more decorative streetlights. Venesky said the town has received a second petition advocating for streetlights that would cost $120 per year. He said this petition received fewer signatures than the first, but that the board would entertain the proposal with a public hearing, as it had done with the first proposal.
The public hearing has been set for Nov. 8.
