The Chemung County Legislature’s Standing Committees will meet tonight (May 28th) starting at 7:00 pm on the Hazlett Building’s fifth floor. The meetings are open to the public and will be live-streamed to the Chemung County Matters Facebook page, found here.

Agendas for the meetings can be found here.

Aviation Committee

At last month’s Aviation Committee the Legislature was advised it would receive a full overview of the Airport Terminal Revitalization project, particularly with respect to the budget and many change orders that have been submitted this year. I am unclear whether this presentation will happen as it is not on tonight’s Agenda.

However, tonight’s Agenda does contain numerous additional change orders related to the project.

Multi-Services Committee

The Municipal Electric and Gas Alliance, Inc. (MEGA) will give a presentation tonight about Gravity Renewables.

According to its website:

“Gravity Renewables is an investor-backed owner, operator, and developer of small hydroelectric power plants in the United States. Gravity Renewables brings long-term, cost-effective clean energy to electricity consumers, helps conserve and restore historical sites, and promotes educational and recreational opportunities in the communities it serves. Gravity Renewables is operating and developing hydroelectric projects across the United States.”

According to an article from 2018 found here, Tompkins County has benefited from its partnership with the company . The article quotes Martha Robertson, Chairperson of the Tompkins County Legislature, as stating that the partnership has exceeded all expectathrough a project in Waterloo. 

“The Waterloo hydroelectric project met 79% of Tompkins County power needs last year, far more than we originally anticipated,” Robertson said.  “We are proud to be a leader on powering our facilities with clean power that is providing economic benefit for our County and the region as a whole.” 

I am not sure what will be presented as the Agenda provides little detail, but am definitely interested to learn more.

Personnel Committee

There are a number of notable matters on the Personnel Committee’s Agenda, including:

• A proposal to combine the positions of Department of Social Services Commissioner with the Director of Mental Heath Director to create the “Commissioner of Human Services”;

• The creation of an Citizen Advisory Committee to look at pending legislation in New York regarding the legalization of marijuana; and

• The creation of a Term Limit Advisory Committee to look at the issue of term limits for people holding office at the county level.

Unfortunately, a number of issues will not appear tonight.

Two environmental matters I had been working on with a group of students from BOCES New Visions will not appear on tonight’s Agendas. One involves the Complete Streets program and the other targets benchmarking as a step toward becoming a Climate Smart Community. My goal is to do whatever I can to insure these matters are taken up when the Standing Committees meet again on June 24th.

Additionally, there still does not seem to be any movement toward the implementation of a process to live-stream public meetings in Chemung County. As I have stated in other posts, I am happy to provide this public service for now, but agree we need to pursue something of better quality that is managed by the county rather than an individual legislator.

–Christina Sonsire