By Lauren Young

Staff writer

Villages “are the heart of our suburbs,” said County Executive J. Ryan McMahon II, and a county cannot succeed with “sick villages and a healthy city.” This is why McMahon, along with the chairman of the Onondaga County Legislature David Knapp and Fayetteville Mayor and President of the Onondaga County Mayor’s Association Mark Olson, recently announced a plan to address the growing need to strengthen villages by allocating $5.25 million toward village investments, made available starting Jan. 1, 2020.

The plan, announced Wednesday, Dec. 12 at the county legislature’s office in Syracuse, will increase its allocations to $5.5 million in 2023, $5.75 million in 2026 and $6 million in 2029, said McMahon. The program will run for a period of 10 years, and the funds will financially assist villages within Onondaga County with various investments and improvements. The county legislature will also receive status reports on village projects throughout each calendar year.

For the last several years, the current allocation has been $4.5 million, according to a press release.

“This is a big deal — it sets the stage for the next 10 years,” said McMahon. “Our local village centers serve as the hub for many small businesses and play an important role in our local economy. That is why Onondaga County is committed to enhanced investments into our villages and that is exactly what this program does. I appreciate the collaboration and partnership of Mayor Olson, Chairman Knapp and all of their colleagues in putting together this program.”

“Whether someone lives in Fayetteville, Fabius or Baldwinsville, our local villages offer a great quality of life — the character, services and most importantly economic vibrancy of each village contributes to the overall success of Onondaga County,” said Olson. “I applaud County Executive McMahon and the County Legislature for recognizing that and agreeing to an enhanced village improvement program.”

Olson said the village now has a “good structure” to move forward with in its budgeting process and to support more village infrastructure, quality of life initiatives and strengthening local businesses.

“This will help with many different construction projects,” said Olson. “Right now, we have a street we have to pave, we just can’t afford to pave the whole street — it’s $100,000 and would use all of our CHIP funding.”

Olson said the plan gives the village an additional $80,000 for projects like this and has noticed a trend of people moving into suburbs, rather than out. For example, there are 17,000 homes in Fayetteville, but only nine are for sale, he said.

“The reason we have that type of housing market is because we’re able to provide a quality of life that maybe a town or city [can’t],” said Olson.

The county legislature, said Knapp, has a “strong history of making smart fiscal investments, and one of those is investments is in our local villages.”

“Creating an enhanced program that allows our local villages to make many of the improvements they need to drive economic development and growth is just common sense and I appreciate County Executive McMahon’s leadership on this issue,” he said.

The county legislature will vote on this plan Dec. 18.