Members of the Chemung County Legislature were sworn in on January 1, 2018 following a short organizational meeting. The real work starts on Monday. If the Committee Agendas are any indication, it will be a very busy start to the year.

Schedule

The Legislature usually meets three times per month. Unfortunately the Legislature’s website, found here, has not been updated to show the new schedule, so I embedded it below for anyone who is interested.

All meetings are open to the public. I will livestream them to the Chemung County Matters Facebook page until this service is provided by Chemung County, something I will push to happen soon.

The meetings of the full Legislature, as opposed to the Committee meetings, includes an opportunity for members of the public to appear and address the Legislature on any topic for up to 5 minutes.

The Committees

Even though the first Monday of the month is generally reserved for the Budget committee alone, all of the standing Committees will meet this Monday as there are a number of time sensitive resolutions, including the appointment of County Department leaders and many contracts, that need immediate attention.

I shared the list of Committee members in a prior post, but include the list again below for anyone who may have missed it:

Aviation

  • Tom Sweet (Chairperson)
  • Mark Margeson
  • Christina Sonsire
  • Peggy Woodard
  • Marty Chalk

Budget

  • Dave Manchester (Chairperson)
  • Joe Brennan
  • Mark Margeson
  • John Burin
  • Marty Chalk
  • Bill McCarthy
  • Rodney Strange

Buildings & Grounds

  • John Burin (Chairperson)
  • Tom Sweet
  • Mark Margeson
  • Bill McCarthy
  • Mike Smith

Corrections & Law

  • John Pastrick (Chairperson)
  • Christina Sonsire
  • Scott Drake
  • Mike Smith
  • Rodney Strange

Health & Human Services

  • Joe Brennan (Chairperson)
  • Christina Sonsire
  • Peggy Woodard
  • Bob Briggs
  • Scott Drake

Highway

  • Rodney Strange (Chairperson)
  • John Pastrick
  • Joe Brennan
  • John Burin
  • Bob Briggs

Multi-Services

  • Peggy Woodard (Chairperson)
  • Tom Sweet
  • Brian Hyland
  • Bob Briggs
  • Bill McCarthy

Personnel

  • Marty Chalk (Chairperson)
  • John Pastrick
  • Brian Hyland
  • Christina Sonsire
  • Bill McCarthy
  • Scott Drake
  • Mike Smith

The Agendas

The best way to access the Agendas for all Legislature Meetings is through a program called “Novus Board View”. Anyone is able to use to use it as the program is not password protected.

A link to program is found here.

The best way to view the Agendas using Novus is to click on the HTML version as it will give separate hyperlinks for all supporting documents:

Important topics for Monday night

As I referenced above, many important matters will come before the Legislature on Monday night. Of particular note are the items on the Personnel Committee’s Agenda. Yesterday County Executive Moss announced new appointments to various boards and positions, including Tom Freeman to serve as the Elmira Airport Director, as well as reductions in salaries for many leadership posts. An article by WENY describing the announcements is found here, and a link to the Agenda is found here.

Please let me or other members know if you have questions or concerns about any of the issues set for discussion on Monday night. I will do my best to provide a more substantive post as I work through these Agendas ahead of the meeting.

-Christina Sonsire