CAZENOVIA — During the July 5 Village of Cazenovia Board of Trustees meeting, Mayor Kurt Wheeler reported that as of that evening, negotiations were still ongoing between the Cazenovia College bondholders and the New York State Police, which are intending to lease “the lion’s share” of the college campus as a location for a temporary, secondary training academy.
The mayor informed the board that the June 15 deadline for the state police has been extended to Aug. 1 and that David Bergh, Cazenovia College’s most recent president, said he is optimistic that the negotiations will wrap up prior to that date.
“They are still working towards a consensus on the terms of the lease, so he is still optimistic that that is going to happen, but the timing is going to be tight between when they take over the campus and when they want to start training cadets,” Wheeler said. “We still anticipate that as being the outcome, but I will believe it for sure when I see the signed contract.”
According to Wheeler, the police are currently seeking to lease the central village campus, the Stephen M. Schneeweiss Athletic Complex at the end of Liberty Street, and a couple of other buildings. They do not plan to lease the Jephson/South Campus on Albany Street or the equine education center outside the village on Woodfield Road.
Lauren Lines, executive director of the Cazenovia Area Community Development Association (CACDA), noted that the police are not currently interested in leasing the Catherine Cummings Theatre on Lincklaen Street, but they have gone back and forth on that particular property.
Wheeler stated that because negotiations are ongoing and the specific buildings included in the lease might change, it would be unwise to make too much headway on any of the community’s campus planning initiatives until a contract has been signed.
“You don’t want to waste people’s time by getting to third base on some very detailed planning effort and then pull the rug out and say, ‘Oh, sorry, you’re not even allowed to be in that building,’” Wheeler said.
Wheeler also reported that the offer submitted by Cazenovia Community Vision, LLC, is still on the table.
The entity was formed by local investors seeking to raise money to secure the campus property to allow time for local planning.
The group’s goal is to gain local control of the real estate and then work collaboratively with local government, CACDA, and other agencies to find the most suitable use for it.
Cazenovia Community Vision initially made an offer to purchase the bonds. After the property was officially listed with a realtor, the group revised its original offer to purchase the real estate.
“I think they are very much still engaged and would love to be part of the solution, but you can’t negotiate with yourself,” Wheeler said.
Another local group, Reinvent Cazenovia Campus, Inc., remains very interested in seeing the campus transformed into a cutting-edge workforce training center, concentrating on innovative and rapidly growing fields like semiconductor manufacturing, applied artificial intelligence, ag-tech, and biotechnology.
According to Wheeler, Reinvent Cazenovia Campus has not made an offer on the real estate.
“They purposefully said, ‘We don’t want to have conflicting offers; we would rather work together,’” he said. “The common denominator is they are all people who care about the community [and] want to see a good use for the campus. . . What [Reinvent Cazenovia Campus is] providing is some more technical expertise and some very good contacts in the high-tech world.”
Lines added that the non-profit Cazenovia Heritage has been exploring the idea of using the campus as a site for training/workforce development in the preservation trade and that that use could be compatible with another use.
“A lot of those [ideas] are going to take one to two years to develop anyway, but if there are portions of the campus that the police do not plan to lease, there could be an opportunity to get a head start in some spaces that are [unleased],” said Wheeler.
Water Pollution Control Facility project
Following the discussion of the college campus, Wheeler attempted to clear up any misconceptions that might be circulating in the community regarding an upcoming town-led infrastructure improvement project at the nearly 50-year-old Cazenovia Water Pollution Control Facility.
“It was built in the 70s; there are a number of things that just have to be upgraded,” he said. “I made the analogy of, ‘You buy a beautiful house, but at some point, you’ve got to replace the roof on your house.’ That’s kind of where we are with the wastewater treatment facility. There are also going to be some updates in terms of what the expectations are from the [New York State Department of Environmental Conservation] in terms of purification and things like that.”
The town, which runs the facility through its sewer board, is in the process of applying for grants for the project. According to Wheeler, doing so requires the applicant to list the maximum possible dollar amount that could be expended to complete the work.
“There was a figure thrown out of $26.5 million,” the mayor said. “That’s worst-case scenario [where we do] every possible thing that could ever need to be done on the plant and we receive no grant funding whatsoever. Well, we clearly wouldn’t do that. That would not be an affordable option. [If it’s] really, really scaled down [and we’re] doing only what absolutely had to be done and we get substantial grant funding, we could be as low as $4 million, and that would be bonded over 10 years for all the ratepayers.”
Wheeler explained that his concern is that people might see the maximum expenditure number and assume that is what the project will end up costing.
“They have to go out with the biggest possible number for the purposes of the grant applications, but that clearly will not be the number in terms of what the local expenditure would be,” he said. “It would be something substantially less than that.”
The project is in its very early stages, according to the mayor, and there will be multiple opportunities for the public to be involved in the process and learn more about the proposed work and why it needs to be done.
“This is like step three out of 50 steps for this whole project,” Wheeler said. “I want people to understand that it’s a long, complicated process, and one of the most important steps is obtaining external funding to make it affordable for the local community. That’s where we are now.”
In other news
At the start of the meeting, Wheeler and Thomas Tait were sworn into their positions as mayor and village trustee, respectively. Both officials were elected on June 20, 2023.
Wheeler noted that Trustee Cindy Bell, who was also elected but was not present at the meeting, would carry out the official act of signing the village code book at another time.
The board then approved the appointments for 2023.
Trustee Maureen Fellows was appointed deputy mayor, police commissioner, and court liaison. She will also serve as the CACDA representative.
Bell is the village public works commissioner and the employee health insurance consultant. She will also serve on the Lake Watershed Committee.
Trustee Kathy Hahn is the commissioner of water and sewer, the fire commissioner, the sustainability/climate action plan coordinator, and the United Climate Action Network liaison.
Tait is taking on the duties of parks and rec commissioner and tree commissioner, and he will serve on the Lake Watershed Committee.
In addition to his role as mayor, Wheeler will serve on the College-Community Planning Committee.
According to Wheeler, all the appointed members of the planning board, zoning board of appeals, and the Historic Preservation/Architectural Advisory Review Committee have agreed to serve another term.
A complete list of the 2023 appointments is on file with the village clerk-treasurer.
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.
