Paul Szmal: Auburn City Clerk Chuck Mason joins us for the usual Friday visit. Good morning. Happy Friday.
Guest: Hey, good morning. And before we get into the events and activities of last night's City Council meeting, we wanted to mention that registration is now open for the summer rec programs in Auburn.
Paul Szmal: That's right.
Guest: The popular summer rec program will start at the end of this month. It's about a month away. Tuesday, June 30th is the first day. And new this year for the program, we are asking parents and guardians of the children to get their children registered during the month of June for participation. We are under some new requirements from the Cuyahoga County Health Department to get the children registered ahead of time. And we need some of the information in the registration forms to meet the obligations of the county health law and New York state health law. So we're introducing for the first time the registration program. The registration forms are online, auburnny.gov slash summer rec. You can also pick them up and drop them off here at City Hall, either in the recreation office down in the basement level of City Hall or right here at the city clerk's office on the first floor. You can pick up hard copies of the application here and drop off completed applications here as well. We're looking forward to another great summer. We've got a great outpouring of support from sponsorships in the business community, which we'll be talking about in a couple of weeks when the council accepts those sponsorships. And then just looking forward to everything summer. We also kicked off the double day season last night down at Falcon Park. Double day's had a first win of the season on opening night. So we're getting closer to the reality of summer, and we're really excited about that. And I just want to get the word out to all the parents that registration will be required for this year's summer rec program, and the time is now, anytime this month before the 29th of the month.
Paul Szmal: The City Council meeting opened with a neat proclamation last night from Mayor Jenna Tino to mark the 82nd anniversary of D-Day and the 299th Combat Engineer Battalion Day.
Guest: That's right. One of the most amazing stories to come out of Auburn history's hometown is the participation of local Auburnians and a lot of people from around, soldiers from around upstate New York that served in the 299th. And they were some of the first on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day. We're coming up on the 82nd anniversary of D-Day, which is tomorrow, June 6th. And Mayor Jenna Tino last night with the proclamation proclaiming Saturday as D-Day, National Remembrance Day, but also 299th Combat Battalion Engineer Day here in the city of Auburn. It is quite a story. 75 young men out of the Auburn schools were taken in their senior and junior years of high school, right out of high school, 82 years ago, 83 years ago to serve in the Army for World War II. And these Auburnians were front and center. And there was five of them that actually made the ultimate sacrifice on that day. And they are in our memories here in Auburn forever. There are monuments in town dedicated to 299th. The one that's directly in front of the county office building on Genesee Street was dedicated about 25 years ago. And it's a story that we always like to roll out at City Council close to June 6th, D-Day, to make sure that these soldiers are always in Auburnian's thoughts.
Paul Szmal: A few items on the City Council agenda last night, we're talking with Auburn City Clerk Chuck Mason here on FLX Morning. One of the final steps before the final vote on the City budget, and that was the vote to override the tax levy limit.
Guest: That's right. And so what happened last night, Paul, was the City Manager Jenny Haynes and our Comptroller Mary Beth Leason were on hand with kind of a final budget presentation for the Council. So the Mayor Genetino had the Council go through that presentation and then have the thorough Council discussion before the vote on the local law. And three, in addition to going over some of the details of how the budget expense and revenue numbers came about and the thought that's behind those specific budget lines, there was discussion about the possibility of putting three different things that were previously proposed as cuts back into the budget due to some of the input that's been received from the public.
The first was school crossing guards. So the Council made a decision last night to in fact, restore about three quarters of the existing school crossing guard program. One of the main reasons why they are able to do this is the additional $2 million in state aid that New York State Senator May was able to get for us. One of the reasons why she advocated for that money for us was for the programs such as the school crossing guards.
The second program that was reinstated into the budget in a modified form was the Casey Park pool. The Casey Park pool will be open for a month this summer and we've received great support from the local YMCA. They will be making a generous donation of contributing lifeguard services to the operation of the pool this summer. And they were also able to secure a $15,000 grant from Wegmans to allow for the pool to get opened up. So the City of Auburn made the decision last night, Council, that the City will do its part and appropriate the funds necessary to get the Casey Park pool open this summer. It's also going to require some repairs to the concrete deck and the railings that go in and out of the pool, the stairwells that go in and out of the pool. And the City is going to take care of those improvements here during the month of June and hopefully we'll have the pool open for the month of July, probably beginning around the 4th of July. So more to come on the exact opening date and hours for the pool, but it does look as though the pool will be back in the budget.
And then there was only, in the end, thanks to the existing vacancies and some of the people that took early retirements, the budget only ended up impacting two full-time equivalent job positions. And those two positions were within the Auburn Fire Department and the City Council last night making the decision to take some of the $2 million of additional assistance that came in from New York State, thanks to Senator May, and fund those two firefighter positions. So three additions made back to the budget last night, and then the vote was cast for the local law and the local law passed with a 4-1 vote. Mayor Genetino, Councilor Overstreet-Wilson, Councilor Cuddy, and Councilor Clarke voted yes, and Councilor Diego cast his vote as no, but the vote for the local law does pass 4-1. So that is set for next week's final budget vote, next week, Thursday, June 11th. The Council will be back, and the major item of business will be to finalize this budget process and get ready for the new year, fiscal year, here in Auburn, it's July 1st.
Paul Szmal: There was also a resolution to authorize what's called an inter-municipal agreement with BOCES for the Auburn Conservation Corps Summer Camp.
Guest: That's right, and this will be part of summer camp offerings that are made out at the local BOCES. However, the City of Auburn does have some USDA, United States Department of Agriculture, forestry money in which support for educational components, educational things such as the Conservation Corps Summer Camp is allowed, so the City entering an agreement last night that it'll be able to take a small portion of that USDA grant and help support the Conservation Corps this summer. The students will be learning environmental things such as issues pertaining to our local watersheds, and planting of trees, and studying of the forests in the area, and so the City last night, it's an $8,000 amount, and the Council unanimously approving that. This is something that Councilor Terry Cuddy's been very involved with. He is actually a teacher out of BOCES, but he was able to help make the coordination happen so that this can become part of the BOCES summer curriculum, but also receive the support from this City grant that we got. The overwhelming majority of the City grant that we got, USDA forestry grant, is going towards the maintenance of our urban forest, our trees here in Auburn, and also a considerable amount of new trees being planted over the last couple years and for the next couple years, so just some positive news on that front. It'll be a nice program being offered out there for middle school age students this summer.
Paul Szmal: It seemed like the recurring theme of last night's meeting was appointments because you had a movement on appointments for the Civil Service Commission, the Awasco Lake Watershed Management Council, and the Board of Assessment Review.
Guest: That's right. We had a whole bunch of appointments come up at the same time. Civil Service Commission, we'll start with that one. Jack Hardy, who has been on the Commission for the last 18 years, will be reappointed for another five-year term, and Jack is the chairperson, and we appreciate his service very much. He's in and out of City Hall every week, and he does a lot of great work for the Civil Service Commission and helping people that are applying, especially, learn the system and learn the process. Joining him will be Stephen Rich, a new appointee. Stephen, local resident of Auburn, will be filling a vacancy. Michael Zank, who has been on our Civil Service Commission, resigned from the Civil Service Commission due to changes in his work obligations, so we thank Mr. Zank for his service. Stephen Rich will be taking a five-year term on the Civil Service Commission, and then the Awasco Lake Watershed Management Council will be officially receiving support from Ginny Kent, former City Councilor Ginny Kent. Now, she is no stranger to City Hall or to the Awasco Lake Watershed Management Council, but she served for the last four years while she was City Councilor and has continued to serve for us for the last few months since she's no longer on the City Council, but after discussions with the mayor, was willing to remain on for another term of service for the City of Auburn as the City of Auburn's representative to the Awasco Lake Watershed Management Council. That appointment last night received a unanimous vote from Council, and then Ms. Colleen LeCastro, who has been a Board of Assessment Review board member for the last five years, was willingly reappointed. She's done a great job for us on that Board of Assessment Review, and she was more than willing to be reappointed, and we appreciate her service as well. I will note that all three of those four appointments were unanimous. The vote for Mr. Rich for Civil Service was a four-to-one vote with the mayor, Councilor Cuddy, Councilor Clarke, or Councilor Overstreet-Wilson voting yes, and Councilor Diego voting no.
The complete meeting video is online, auburnny.gov. You can always watch our videos after the fact to see what happened and get the full story for yourself. I do my best to kind of summarize it for you here every Friday morning, Paul.
Paul Szmal: And of course next week, as you mentioned, will be the vote on the final version of the city budget.
Guest: That's right. June 11th, 5 p.m. here at City Hall, and one of the most major decisions the Council makes on an annual basis. It'll put everything into place for the new fiscal year, which starts on July 1st, 2026. So thanks for your time, Paul.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, much appreciated, Chuck, and we'll talk to you next week. Have a great weekend, everybody.
