Legislature withdraws support for performing arts center

SCHUYLER COUNTY--The Schuyler County Legislature passed a resolution Monday, June 13 to withdraw support for the performing arts center at the old middle school in Watkins Glen. Although the project had already been awarded funding to further develop the space, that money will now go towards another Downtown Revitalization Initiative project.
The resolution specifically states, "the legislature directs the planning director to execute program amendments to re-allocate the $250,000 in funding originally allocated for the performing arts center, and...[the] legislature fully supports the re-allocation of those funds to enhance Clute Park."
Legislator Mark Rondinaro, who was the lone vote against withdrawing support, explained the difficulty in creating a new DRI project and highlighted the constraints of grant timelines.
During the administrator report, Fonda Chronis continued the trend of reporting very strong sales tax numbers.
"For May we are up $294,000 compared to previous year which is an increase of 34 percent," Chronis said.
Chronis also announced that despite being a few weeks earlier compared to years past, he has already started the 2023 budgetary process.
"I have kicked it off and I sent to departments a budget guidance document... and I also identified a couple of priorities as budget officer if finances allow," said Chronis. "The first being a levy reduction if possible and we need to address the EMS service challenge in our county."
Chronis also said that department heads will have their own list of items they are interested in receiving, something legislator Phil Barnes said he was very anxious to see.
"In previous years we didn't always find out about everything the department heads were asking for and we kind of took the brunt of the blame for that," said Barnes.
Legislators praised Chronis for not only starting the process early but for also codifying budget guidance in an official document instead of through verbal directions.
Barnes also gave a brief update on the proposed multi-million dollar sports complex in Schuyler by saying the county is still awaiting results of a request for proposal recently put out by Hunt Engineers.