Paul Szmal: Auburn City Clerk Chuck Mason is here as we go over the events from last night's City Council meeting. Chuck, good morning. How are you today?
Guest: Good morning, Paul. Good. How are you?
Paul Szmal: Good. Good. Let's jump right in with what's called a SEQR resolution that basically sounds like a statement that the improvements to the reservoir and city water system are not going to have a significant environmental impact.
Guest: That's correct. And so last night, the first part of the meeting was dominated by the next kind of significant infrastructure project that will be taken on for our water system in the city of Auburn, and that is to make repairs out at the city's reservoir, which is out on Franklin Street. So the SEQR stands for State Environmental Quality Review Act resolution, was the first item of business last night. And as you stated there, Paul, basically the city making a determination that there's no significant adverse environmental impact on the project as, you know, the project is going to be a renovation of the reservoir, which is about 100 years old, and then a replacement of some water line. There will be the installation of a new water tank, water tower. However, it's going to be on site and we do not determine that there's any negative environmental impacts due to that installation. So the council last night placed in a unanimous vote in support of the SEQR resolution to move this project along.
Paul Szmal: And that led us right into the financing for the project.
Guest: Bond ordinance number three was on last night, and that would set up the $13,030,000 in serial bonds necessary for the city to finance this project. Now that's not, we're at the very, very beginning of this project, Paul, so it's not to say that it's going to cost city rate payers that much money because we are going to be applying for grants. And in fact, the next resolution on the agenda was authorizing city staff to apply for a New York State Water Infrastructure Improvement Act drinking water grant from the New York state. And all the SEQR resolution, the bond ordinance, and the grant resolution all received unanimous support from council. This has been a topic for the past month at council meetings. We had received a presentation from Seth Jensen, our director of municipal utilities and the engineering company that's contracted for the city. About a month ago, they were on hand to provide a presentation and we're at the beginning. So we're going to hear a lot about this project over the next one to three years, probably Paul, as it comes back before the council for some decision-making. But the financing put in place last night to get things started and the grant applications going in we'll know more about those grants probably this fall. And probably that's when the project will be back in front of council for some additional decision-making probably in the fall or in the spring of 27.
Paul Szmal: And there were a couple of other grant resolutions last night, one for the Stop Violence Against Women program and one for municipal parks and rec.
Guest: That's right. We'll start with the parks and rec grant that has received some attention. That was a grant acceptance resolution. And the good news is we're going to have a renovation of the tennis courts and installation of pickleball courts down at Casey Park thanks to this grant. The city's match on this grant is 10%. And what will happen is the deconstruction of the existing courts will be taken care of by our Department of Public Works. And the value on that work is being put forward as the match on this grant. And then the other half million dollars that the grant will fund will go for the installation of the new tennis and pickleball courts down at Casey Park. So that's an exciting grant. This grant was applied for earlier in the year, just received notification of a couple of weeks ago. And good news for our tennis and pickleball enthusiasts in town as they will have themselves a nice new facility in a couple of years once this work is done. Probably looking at a 2027 construction, but maybe this fall. I'm not sure, Paul. I'll have to double check with people around here to see what they're thinking for the actual construction of that. I know we'll have to put the project out to bid, so it's going to take a little while to get things in place.
Paul Szmal: And then the next was Auburn Police Department, New York State Department of Criminal Justice Stop Violence Against Women grant program.
Guest: And that was unanimously approved just as the pickleball and tennis court one was as well, Paul. So good news on the grant front last night for the City of Auburn.
Paul Szmal: Auburn City Clerk Chuck Mason joining us on FLX Morning. Also a resolution for donation of some property to a not-for-profit court.
Guest: Yeah, kind of a simple transfer here, but we've got some old sets of bleachers down at Casey Park that one of the local organizations involved in youth baseball has asked the city if they could use them at the new veterans park, a renovated veterans park over in Aurelius. And so last night, the council putting its approval on the city, getting rid of these sets of bleachers and basically donating them to the organization. But the organization will be, it's the Cougar Bombers Baseball, and they will be taking care of picking up the bleachers and putting them back in working order at their facility. So that was also unanimously approved by council last night.
Paul Szmal: There was also a couple of resolutions related to some of the road construction and bridge construction programs.
Guest: That's right. And the road construction is probably what people are most interested in at this point in time. We've already been out there with our contractor and gotten one portion of Lake Ave done, but the good news is they have started this week on the portion of Lake Avenue from Swift Street up to the city line by the high school. Pretty significant portion of Lake Avenue where it's a divided highway with medians in the middle, quite a bit of asphalt that's going to go down up there, but we are embarking on that. You'll probably see some milling happening up there on Lake Ave next week. But between now and basically Labor Day, you're going to see Lake Avenue under construction and being repaved. The city's been up there this week and in previous weeks, along with NYSEG contractors replacing some underground infrastructure. The contractor has been on site this week making some adjustments to the utility holes and stored storm drains and things like that. And over the next couple of weeks, you'll see that area get milled for repaving. Probably try to get that project done during the month of August. It is a pretty significant stretch of roadway. Each side of the road has two lanes and it's probably close to a mile long in its length, so that's going to be quite a project. But I know that there's many, many people, because of the fact that that road leads up to the Auburn High School, there's many people that travel that road, especially when school is in session, and many people looking forward to the fact that this road is finally going to receive repairs that it's desperately in need of.
Paul Szmal: And then the second half of the summer or the end of the summer and early fall will be conquering the rest of the road program.
Guest: So the council last night authorizing a change order that was going to help to fund what has already been decided we're going to do this year, but also select some alternate streets that will be able to come back in the first thing in the spring of 2027, thanks to this change order that they adopted last night, and do some roads right out of the gate next spring in 2027. So thanks to the state of New York, we did receive an additional $75,000 in CHIPS money this year, so that's part of the change order had to do with that, receiving a little extra money, and the council last night putting its unanimous approval on this road work, and I know that we're all excited and anxious to see this stuff get started, so that we can get these roads done while the weather's still good.
Paul Szmal: And there was one thing that we reported on earlier this week that was also on the council agenda, and that was a discussion about creating what's called a traffic garden where the skate park is at Casey Park.
Guest: That's right, so this would be, this is a project between the city and the Kew County Health Department, but this would be a reutilization of the old skate park area, which is basically right next to where the new skate park is. So it's a paved, big paved square area, so the city will conduct some repairs to get that section of pavement into place, and then the county is going to be taking some grant money that it has received and install a traffic garden for young children. Now people might ask what a traffic garden is. It's basically, you would paint the lines and paint the surface of an asphalt area so that children can learn how to bicycle safely, learning rules of the road and things like that, and not putting themselves in a dangerous environment of actually being on streets. So what they will do is they will mark this whole area out, they'll pave the map of streets around, basically like kind of in a circular manner, and the kids will learn proper techniques of bicycling on this new traffic garden. So a nice little joint partnership between the city of Auburn and Kew County Health Department, and I know that when they bring the kids on wheels safety program to summer rec, it's always very popular, the children will bring their own bikes and tricycles to summer rec and they'll learn some new stuff as part of this program, but now it'll be nice to have a nice little new area where it's specifically identified that the kids can do this, and it'll be nice, brightly painted, brand new colors, and great little project and great addition and repurpose of that old skate park area down at Casey Park.
Paul Szmal: And we do want to make note that is the fifth Thursday of the month coming up next week, and that means no City Council meeting.
Guest: That's right, we take a break on the fifth Thursdays, so we will be back in a couple of weeks on Thursday, August 6, 5 p.m. at City Hall, and Paul, thanks, have a good couple of weeks off.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, absolutely, appreciate it sir, we'll talk to you in a couple of weeks. Thank you Paul, have a good weekend.
