Chalk it up as another potential victim of the shutdown. The rites of summer – summer youth recreation – remains in limbo.
“Summer rec enrollment has been postponed,” says John Correll, Deputy Mayor of the Village of Lima. “It’s kind of on hold at this point. I just don’t know if they’re going to host it or not. Hopefully the Governor’s opening plan will allow the Finger Lakes Region and Bob Duffy to get things opened up sooner rather than later at least on some level.”
“Normally you would have already started registration for summer rec,” says Rick Milne, Mayor of the Village of Honeoye Falls.
“I haven’t heard anything from the Town of Wheatland, I know they’ve been waiting on summer rec,” says Eileen Hansen, Mayor of Scottsville.
“We’re in a holding pattern,” says John Moffitt, Supervisor of the Town of Mendon.
Stay tuned on this matter as the situation remains ever changing.
In other news in our local Towns and Villages…
Eileen Hansen, Mayor of Scottsville: “Things are going smoothly. I’ve been talking with the [Wheatland] Town Supervisor about when we’re going to be re-opening the offices. What we’re trying to figure out is how that will look and how that will work. Right now we’re talking about whether we need to have it that you make an appointment and then you come in. We’re looking to put up glass or plexiglass shields in the offices for serving people.”
“As you know, schools are closed for the rest of the year. Our school [Wheatland-Chili] is having a drive-by, a parade of sorts, this Thursday for the senior class. They’re going to deliver yard signs for all the seniors. They’re trying to figure out how they can do graduation, whether they can do things virtually.”
“We also heard from the governor’s office that the Village elections are postponed to September 15th. That will impact us because we were supposed to have our elections in March. Everyone will remain in office until then We didn’t do anything with the political signs at first, not knowing when things were going to happen, but now we’re asking for all political signs to come down until 30 days before the election.”
“Our next Board meeting is May 12th, which will be done remotely using Microsoft Teams.”
“We were approached by the New York State Department of Recreation and Historical Preservation about leasing a building we have in Canawaugus Park on River Road. They want to use it as their field office for the Greenway Grant they got for the work they’re going to be doing on the Greenway. We just signed that lease. What they’re going to be doing is renovating the building.”
“The County is redoing North Road from the high school to where the light is. Right now, we’ve been having a lot of work done by RG&E on the gas lines. They’ve been working on getting all that done before they start work on the road. As far as I know they’re supposed to be starting that work this month.
Mike Falk, Supervisor, Town of Lima: “This week we had a walk-through with the Town engineers to start the masonry restoration project on the front of the Town Hall. All the things that we can remove have been removed. Now we’re looking to update the project to get the rest of the masonry restoration in the hopper.”
“The Food Pantry drop box has arrived. It is now located outside the Town Hall for anyone wishing to make a Food Pantry donation. Just lift the lid and put the food items inside.”
“We did a handout on Thursday. We received a quantity of masks from Livingston County to hand out. It was well attended, but we do have some left. Any Town of Lima resident, which does include the Village, can call 582-1130 if they missed out and we will make sure they get masks.”
“Livingston County has a push on right now to not be afraid to call 911. If they are having chest pains or symptoms of a stroke or anything else, there’s no reason to be afraid to call an ambulance. All of that medical attention and those things are still operating normally.”
“The Town Board meets on Tuesday via Zoom, no video. The Livingston County Board of Supervisors meets on Wednesday, same thing.”
Todd D Campbell, Supervisor, Town of West Bloomfield: “The Planning Board and Zoning Board of Appeals haven’t met for the last couple of weeks. The Town Board has held its meetings via Zoom. We will have another one this Wednesday and another one next Wednesday. We’ve got a couple of very specific things we need to take care of. We usually meet two times a month, we’re trying to do it once a month via Zoom. This is primarily so we can approve the payment of bills, etc…”
“The Ontario County Board of Supervisors is having all its committee meetings as well as the County Board of Supervisors meetings via Zoom.”
“Our Town Hall has been closed to residents. We have had the Town Clerk and/or myself checking the mail most days and being in there for a couple of hours. We are starting to investigate how we will try to re-open the Town Hall by appointment only. Essentially keeping it closed but still being able to provide the level of service.”
“We have a drop box out front to allow us to process required transactions, things like death certificates. The Town Clerk would have someone come in, put something in the drop box, wait for them to get back in the car, go and get it, process, then stick it back in the drop box for the person to pick up. That’s been very effective for us.”
“We are in a somewhat unique position because we are almost complete with the new Town Hall, which did include sliding windows for the Town Clerk, and the Planning and Zoning Clerk, so we’ve already got some plexiglass windows up and available for them to be able to conduct business from behind if we do have people come in. We working through whether we’d rather continue using the drop box version versus having people come into the building just because it’s a whole other level of disinfecting after somebody comes through.”
“I will tell you that the Town of Bristol, the Town of West Bloomfield, the Town of East Bloomfield, and the Village of Bloomfield have been meeting with the school district that serves those four municipalities about twice a week to make sure we’re talking about things that affect the residents like school lunches. That program carries on with about a 30-40% uptick in the number of folks that are starting to take those meals. This may be more than the school anticipated.”
“Within the Town, the transfer station has been closed, but we’re getting a lot of calls. There’s a little bit of pent up storage, so we’re trying to figure out how we’re going to open that next Saturday. It’s only been for residents, but we can have the attendant have people show their pass from their car and let one car in at a time.”
“The Memorial Day Parade that is in the Town of East Bloomfield that both towns participate in has essentially been cancelled. We’re working through ways on how to do more of a virtual parade, with people on their porches or something like that. This includes possibly doing the speeches that are usually down at the park virtually via Zoom.”
Gerald Kusse, Supervisor, Town of Rush: “No big changes in Rush. The Town Hall continues to be staffed by a skeleton crew. There was concern about not being there for mail and phone calls. There was concern that once somebody got there, the task of answering all that stuff would probably be as burdensome as the virus. So we allowed the Town Clerk and a helper to go into the Town Hall and deal with the mail and the phone calls.”
“We did have plexiglass shields put in the Town Clerks office and the Assessor’s office.”
“If you talk to the population here, there’s about 80% that wants to open. They’re anxious, antsy… There’s about 20% who say, ‘No! No! No! We don’t want to get sick.’ Where that will go, I can’t say. Fortunately, there have been only a couple of cases in the Town of Rush. So, as far as the local pandemic goes, it’s not that concerning, but if you think of the bigger picture it certainly is. And I understand with Rush having better than 50% of its residents as senior citizens, there’s certainly a concern because, as we know, they’re more vulnerable than everyone else. I can understand why they wouldn’t want to have things open back up. But, if you also consider senior citizens are probably retired, they’re not laid off from a job, well, you know, it’s a delicate balance.”
“We’re looking for leadership from the County Executive. The Supervisors of the 19 Towns [in Monroe County] said that they would like a synchronized opening all at once on a specific day. I don’t know if there’s been any coordination to allow that to happen. I know that’s what they hope for. We don’t know what the Governor’s going to ultimately decide. It’s like a turkey shoot.”
“A couple of Supervisors didn’t want to be confronted with ‘Why are we open and they aren’t?’ or ‘Why are they closed and we aren’t?’ Beyond that, I don’t know what the reasons for all opening simultaneously were. I just heard those couple of voiced opinions. What matters the most, if the County Executive and his Health Commissioner Doctor Mendoza open on the basis of who’s got the problem more than someone else, it makes sense to allow staggered openings based on the amount of cases. But they don’t want any ‘attractive nuisances.’ Within the County of Monroe, as I’ve expressed, the people have already expressed angst about this, so if they find out that Greece has ‘attractive nuisance,’ will they run over there? I can understand the need for a synchronized or coordinated opening, but I’m not sure the people who know about this know enough to determine whether or not that would be detrimental or a good thing.”
“An ‘attractive nuisance’ is, for example, if an amusement park in one county is open and you live in another county, you might decide to go to that amusement park in the other county.”
John Moffitt, Supervisor, Town of Mendon: “There’s not a lot to report. It’s business as ‘unusual.’ Town Hall is closed to the public, but the staff is continuing to work. The highway department is back to full manpower. They started brush pick-up on the 27th of April. They anticipate they’ve got between 3-4 weeks straight of brush to pick up.”
“Hopefully we’ll be able to have the County roads – that the County pays for – to be refurbished in one way or another. Hopefully the County is able to keep its commitment and pay for those roads. It also brings in revenue for the town and it will keep our crews busy.”
John Correll, Deputy Mayor, Village of Lima: “The Village is really working hard to come up with a solution to host the fireworks. Everyone is anticipating the Governor’s re-opening plan sooner rather than later. We’re excited about getting the downtown businesses open again.”
“One of the more popular things is the ‘Light Up the Night’ parades. I give Rick Milne credit for kicking that off in the Village of Honeoye Falls. The Lima Fire Department asked if we could do one that is Lima specific and I said, ‘Absolutely!’ This Friday night (May 8th) we’re going to be doing our own Light Up the Night. It’ll be posted to the Village website and the Positively Lima Facebook page once we iron out the details with the Fire Chief. Not only is it a good morale booster for the residents, but it’s also a good thing to get our emergency services out and about. It gets people thinking this is a good time to think about others above yourself and serving the community. It’s a great recruitment tool.”
“We’ve been doing the Saturday birthday parades with Honeoye Falls and the kids are absolutely loving those. There’s some great videos posted online of those.”
“Along with what Mike Falk was saying, the Ambulance Chief has been telling me that there is that concern at the County level that people are afraid to call 911. We need to get the word out that 911 is up and running. Our ambulance is actually seeing a substantially reduced number of calls. We certainly don’t want people to be afraid to call 911. We do have staff, we do have ambulances, we do have supplies, all the PPE, so we’re ready to go if they make the call to us.”
Rick Milne, Mayor, Village of Honeoye Falls: “Not a whole lot to update you on. Like John Moffitt was talking about, there’s not a whole lot of change. We did get some masks and hand sanitizer in. We posted that they were available to whoever might need some. There were a couple of business owners that did want some. I’ve delivered some hand sanitizer and masks to a couple people’s homes that were short. Quite honestly, we haven’t had a whole lot of takers on it.”
“Today I was coming back from camp and there was a whole lot of people working in their yards, just carrying on like normal. As ‘unnormal’ as it is, I think most people are just kind of biding their time and doing the things that need to get done. I see a lot of people with masks on. I see a lot of people carrying masks with them as they’re going on walks in the Village. If they come across someone else, they’ll either put it on or will be far enough away, but they have them with them.”
