CAZENOVIA — On July 6, the Village of Cazenovia Board of Trustees approved the village appointments for 2022-23.
Prior to opening the discussion on the proposed appointments, Mayor Kurt Wheeler swore in Kathy Wooster Hahn and Maureen Fellows to the office of village trustee.
Hahn, who was newly elected on June 21, has filled the seat of former trustee/deputy mayor Dave Porter, who stepped down after 12 years of service to the village.
She has taken over Porter’s duties as commissioner of water & sewer and fire commissioner. She will also serve as the sustainability/climate action plan coordinator and United Climate Action Network liaison.
Fellows, who has served on the board since 2016, has taken over as deputy mayor and will continue her duties as police commissioner and court liaison. She has also taken over as the village’s Cazenovia Area Community Development Association (CACDA) representative.
Wheeler also swore in Rhonda M. Youngs as acting village justice.
“[Youngs] is the consensus recommendation from the greater Cazenovia legal community to fill the position of acting justice,” said Wheeler. “She comes highly recommended from our current justice, former acting justice, and village attorney, who all spoke very highly of her.”
According to the approved list of appointments, Trustee Justin Fuchs will continue his primary duties as public works commissioner and serve as the employee health insurance consultant. Trustee Cindy Bell Tobey will serve as parks & recreation commissioner and tree commissioner. Both Bell Tobey and Wheeler will serve on the lake watershed committee.
Wheeler noted that the village is fortunate that all the individuals in appointed positions such as village engineers, water superintendent, zoning board of appeals chairman and superintendent of public works, agreed to serve another term and have been reappointed.
The board also approved its annual resolutions, making the following designations:
The official day and time for regular board meetings is the first Monday of each month at 7 p.m.
The official newspaper is the Cazenovia Republican.
The official depositories are Key Bank, M&T Bank, Chase Manhattan, HSBC Bank, and Community Bank, N.A.
The official mileage for the year 2022-23 is 62.5 cents per mile.
Mill Street Dam and backflow issues
During the meeting, both Wheeler and CACDA Executive Director Lauren Lines reported on the ongoing issues associated with the Mill Street dam.
One of two dams at the south end of Cazenovia Lake, Mill Street dam, referred to as the “lower dam” or “creek dam,” controls the water level in the old canal that runs along the Willow Patch and once helped regulate the water levels of the Erie Canal.
The second dam, referred to as the “upper dam” or “lake dam,” is located near Carpenter’s Pond and controls the level of the lake. Chittenango Creek flows into the canal just east of the upper dam.
Wheeler explained that during large precipitation events, water pours into the Chittenango Creek watershed and fills the canal area between the two dams like a bathtub.
According to the mayor, the water level in the canal has always been regulated by opening the lower dam’s sluice gates, which are raised vertically to allow water to flow through the opening at the bottom.
If the gates are opened too much, almost all the water pours out, leaving a “muddy mess” and very little water.
If the gates are then closed to refill the canal and there is a big storm event, the water gets too high and backflows over the upper dam and into the lake.
Ideally, Wheeler said, the water should flow from Chittenango Creek, which is coming from the Rippleton Road area, and then turn the corner by the upper dam and continue down Chittenango Creek towards Chittenango.
“When it gets so high, it actually goes over that upper dam and flows, along with a whole bunch of silt, right into the lake and causes all kinds of damage to the lake,” he said.
During her report to the board Lines said she was waiting on a grant application to study the backflow and lower dam issue.
According to Lines, the Cazenovia Lake Association has contracted with a firm to conduct a limited feasibility study on a couple of options regarding the dam.
“If that’s done in time, then I can apply for funds to do a further and more complete study of that,” Lines said. “In that case, we would be asking the village to be the applicant. . . The deadline is July 29, and I don’t really have anything to go on quite yet, so it’s going to be a little bit of a crunch.”
Lines added that she also plans to explore New York Environmental Facilities Corporation’s Green Innovation Grant Program.
According to Wheeler, the ultimate solution is a stream restoration, which would involve removing the lower dam to make the stretch of water from the upper dam down to behind the library look like the rest of Chittenango Creek. Instead of the wide, slow-moving body of water that was artificially created nearly 200 years ago as part of the Erie Canal system, that section would be rocky and faster moving.
As a short-term solution to the problem, the New York State Canal Corporation has left the sluice gates almost entirely open to allow rapid drainage in a storm event and added “stopper logs” in front of the dam to retain a base level of water in the canal but also allow any excess to pour directly over the top of the logs.
“They said we can look at it, and if we want to add another [log] to bring it up another six to 12 inches, [we can],” said Wheeler. “I’ve been tracking it, and I think we are getting close to a level that is optimum that allows lots of capacity if we get a big storm event, so we don’t get the backflow into the lake, yet still maintains a relatively healthy environment for the fish and other species that are in there.”
Wheeler concluded that he believes the Canal Corporation’s solution will help create a satisfactory interim situation while the village and its team of partners work towards a permanent solution.
In other news
The board approved updates to the village’s procurement policy to ensure that it is consistent with current New York State law.
Additionally, the board set a public hearing for Aug. 1 at 7 p.m. regarding the proposed addition of chapter 130, a purchasing chapter, to the village code.
“It provides a provision for municipalities to not necessarily have to take the lowest bidder, but to go through an analysis and select the good or service that is the best value,” said Wheeler. “Sometimes, for instance, we will put out a bid for a new truck or a new fire apparatus, and the person may have the lowest bid, but they didn’t satisfy every aspect of what we wanted; therefore, it is not a good value because it’s not doing everything we wanted. Or one might be slightly higher [in cost], but it’s going to last longer and be a better product. . . Our goal, of course, is always to provide the best value for our taxpayers, and this actually enhances our ability to do that, and this is consistent with changes to New York State law.”
A second public hearing was scheduled for Aug. 1 at 7:05 p.m. regarding a proposed revision to chapter 169 of the village code to set an objective standard regarding towing illegally parked vehicles within the village.
The Village of Cazenovia Board of Trustees typically meets on the first Monday of each month at 7 p.m. in the Village Municipal Building, 90 Albany St.
