November Committee and December 5th Session Update
Commissioner Dan Wears from the county’s Department of Emergency Management spoke to members of the Public Safety committee at their November meeting regarding two resolutions. The first being an update to the county’s Arson Control Plan.
“This is an update to that plan that has been in existence 10+ years” Commissioner Wears told the committee. “There’s no real substantive change as to what has been done or how it’s been done or how it’s being done today.”
The Commissioner says the primary changes were updates to terminology and changes related to training and the certification of fire investigators. New York State requires the county to have this plan in place, and it outlines who is involved in different aspects of a potential arson and their responsibilities.
Those involved include the City of Syracuse fire investigation unit, the Onondaga County fire investigation unit, law enforcement agencies and the district attorney’s office. The Arson Control Plan helps ensure coordination and collaboration in the event of potential serial arsonist.
Chairman Mark Olson (10th District) asked, “Was there something that made you do this update or is it just it hadn’t been done in years?”
Commissioner Wears responded by saying it hadn’t been updated in quite a long time, and there have been significant changes to fire investigation training classes and the requirements to become a certified fire investigator.
Commissioner Wears also spoke about federal grant funds the Department of Emergency Management is looking to accept to help develop and implement plans for improved preparation and response to hazardous materials incidents involving pipelines. He shared that currently, Onondaga County, the City of Syracuse, and Oswego and Madison counties work together to prepare for such an incident.
The $121,000 grant will be used primarily for training. The Commissioner says tabletop exercises will be done in each of the three counties. They’ll look at current pipeline safety, response plans and procedures to make sure first responders are prepared should they respond to a real-world situation. A key goal is to identify any potential gaps in response to, and the handling of, an actual incident before it happens.
The committee advanced the resolution, along with one to appoint Jason Green to the Onondaga County Fire Advisory Board. Legislator Richard McCarron (11th District), a committee member, says Green has a great history with the fire service and will bring a very good perspective to the board.
Another collaboration was discussed at the Health & Human Services committee meeting. It related to a resolution authorizing an Intermunicipal Agreement with the City of Syracuse for Outreach Workers for persons in crisis.
Amy Cunningham, Commissioner of the county’s Department of Children and Family Services, explained that the plan is that the City of Syracuse and Onondaga County will collaborate to provide and staff a diversionary response program whereby persons in crisis who call 911 will be routed to a diversion service staffed by a team of people trained to best assist them.
“This will be a portal for referral and some outreach and then these outreach folks will work with the individual and identify some longer term programs or services that could be beneficial” the Commissioner told the committee.
This particular resolution covers the hiring of two workers that will work primarily within the City of Syracuse, and the City will reimburse the County annually for the cost of hiring, training, and supervising them. Commissioner Cunningham said that 911 handles many mental health or person-in crisis calls and this program will help reduce response by police and fire/EMS.
Committee Chair Colleen Gunnip (4th District) said, “I was thinking the City would want to continue to do this as it’s saving them money from deploying an emergency crew when it’s not necessarily needed.”
Currently, the county contracts with Helio Health, St. Joseph’s Hospital and Liberty Resources for similar person-in-crisis services.
“There’s so much subjectivity of being on the front line and answering the phone for things like this, do we have best practices, objective criteria to help people get the services they need but also mitigate some of the liability on the county side as well?” Legislator Cody Kelly (14th District), who serves on the committee, asked. The Commissioner said yes, and that it’s all through our current 911 center.
“I really think this is heading in the right direction with mental health issues in our community” Chair Gunnip added.
The Environmental Protection Committee discussed a resolution which would authorize the County to enter into a Utility Work Agreement with the New York State Department of Transportation for highway and bridge improvements. These agreements happen when New York State does a road, right-of-way or improvement project and needs to move utility lines owned by the County. This particular one involves a project on Henry Clay Blvd. in the area where it crosses 481 over Mud Creek. The state will do the utility work being done and pay for it.
The November Ways & Means committee meeting had a full agenda, but most was routine County business needing to be done.
One item was the mortgage tax apportionment. Here's how it works: a 1% mortgage tax is collected by the Onondaga County Clerk whenever a mortgage is filed, based on the mortgaged amount. The money is then apportioned out with half of it going to towns, villages and the City (in proportion to the amount of tax those locales generated). The other half is split evenly between CENTRO and the State of New York Mortgage Association.
Onondaga County is one of the only counties in the state to return this money to the towns and villages and the City. This apportionment totals $5,124,834.04 and covers April – September of this year.
The committee also advanced to Session nearly 20 resolutions relating to the Onondaga County Sanitary District and the Bloody Brook, Bear Trap – Ley Creek, Harbor Brook and Meadowbrook drainage districts.
“All of these dollar amounts are already approved as part of the budget” Director Donald Weber of Onondaga County’s Department of Real Property Tax Services explained to the committee. “This is just apportioning the amounts due among the towns and the City and establishing the tax rates for drainage, water and sewer districts.”
Other resolutions also advanced included the approving or denying the correction of certain errors on tax bills, and giving the county’s Chief Fiscal Officer the authority to approve corrections to tax bills under $2,500.
At the December 5th Session, all of the above items were approved by the full Legislature.
At the beginning of Session, former Majority Leader Richard Lesniak was remembered and honored by the Legislature. He passed away earlier this year. Click the video to watch Leader Brian May speak about Mr. Lesniak, who represented the 1st District before Mr. May did.
A second December Session will be held on December 19th. This happens every year as the Legislature’s term is ending and allows the Legislature to complete any unfinished business.