Mayor, Supervisor Weekly Update
The Avon Nursing Home appears to be a COVID-19 hot spot and the Lima Town Supervisor explains why this might be so. Events are now being cancelled all the way out into June, but our community’s Mayors and Supervisors have some great ideas on how we might show our respect the Memorial Day.
John Moffitt, Supervisor, Town of Mendon: “We’re going to remain closed to the public. We are going to start brush pick-up with our usual highway crew on Monday, April 27th. A lot of people have been off, they’ve been putting out their brush. That should keep them busy for probably three weeks by the time they get from one end of Town to the other. They start on the east side of Town and work West.”
“We had our Board meeting last Monday and that went off successfully on Zoom. We did decide not to hold any public hearings at this time on any kind of platform like that. For the time being, we’re going to sit through June 1st, the date they recommended. We’ve got some applications, but we don’t have anything that pressing and the applications we do have they can’t open right now, anyways.”
“One way a lot of community members can honor Memorial Day is, because we’ve got a lot of parents home teaching their children, have them go to the cemetery, find a veteran (because the flags will be on the grave), and do a paper on that veteran. It’s hard to say who didn’t return from war, which is really what Memorial Day is all about. It might be a good exercise for parents looking for some homework projects for their kids.”
Eileen Hansen, Mayor of Scottsville: “Our DPW is working 4-5 hours a day. We only have 5 people – that’s our normal number. They are able to distance themselves. They are wearing masks out in public. The things they are doing are brush pick-up, yard debris and brush pick-up as well as garbage and recycling. They’ve started mowing. Because there’s more they can do outside now, they’re starting to pick up more of those kinds of things.”
“We have two public hearings scheduled for Tuesday, April 28th, one for our budget, so we can get that finished up, and the other one to release monies from the reserve for some fire truck repairs.”
“I see a lot of people using the Greenway. I see a lot of people walking in the Village. Everyone’s keeping a good social distance.”
“Our high school is doing something for the graduating class. The PTA has bought yard signs for every senior. They’re going to be out delivering them sometime in the next week or two.”
“The Legion has cancelled the Scottsville Memorial Day parade and has asked people for a moment of silence in the Village at 11am. I’d like to see people fly their flags that day, if kids are home, have them decorate their window, do something in honor of veterans. At least maybe the Legionnaires can do a drive through the Village on their own and see the flags up and see what the families have done to honor them.”
Mike Falk, Supervisor, Town of Lima: “The Livingston County Department of Health has a Nursing Homes Ticker. As far as cases at the Mount Morris Campus, a bunch of folks have tested positive.” Regarding Nursing Homes taking back COVID-19 positive patients: “It’s an issue all over the state. New York State is requiring you to take back patients whether they test negative or positive. However, the guidelines they are then placed under, which is they’ve got to be in their own area with their own staff attending them, for smaller nursing homes that’s a bit of a stretch. Folks at the state level seem to have picked up their monitoring in the last week or so. They’re actually out there looking at the actual nursing facilities. Livingston County did make a more formal request to New York State for assistance with the Avon Nursing Home.”
“The Town of Lima Clean Up Days are going to June 19th & 20th. Everybody needs a ticket. They can bring their larger stuff over to the Highway Garage, the larger junk that they can’t throw out. Everyone can either get their tickets by calling the Town Clerk at 582-1130 or emailing her at Clerk@TownofLima.org.”
Francis M. Dalton Post 282 of the American Legion has cancelled the Memorial Day Celebration and Parade. The Annual Lima Crossroads Blues Festival is still planned for July 31st – August 2nd.”
“The Village of Lima did the Light Up Lima last Friday night.”
“The fireworks celebration in Lima that is a joint venture between the Village and the Town is still on for the Fourth of July.”
Gerald Kusse, Supervisor, Town of Rush: “The Rush Highway Department continues to work with a full crew. They’re going to start the town-wide brush clean-up this week. Where appropriate they’re given masks to wear, but being outside and being able to distance, it’s a little bothersome to be wearing a mask and doing the work they do. I think all the snow fences are cleaned up. They’ve gone around and repaired all the turf damage from plowing, so this week they’ll start on the brush pick-up.”
“The Town Hall continues to run with a skeleton crew. We just couldn’t seem to avoid that with the mail coming in and all the other things that don’t stop even if you have a pandemic. We continue to have no recreation activity, no library activity, and our Memorial Day Parade was cancelled. That event was significantly downsized this year because of the age of the participants. They were going to have a Memorial Service at the Town’s Veteran’s Memorial across from the Creekside Inn but we cancelled that also because we didn’t want a lot of congregation there. We tend to get quite a few people. We didn’t want to put anybody at risk.”
“Yesterday my young son and his girlfriend bought new kayaks at Oak Orchard Canoe and Kayak Center. We rode out with them to pick up their new kayaks and we had to sit with them in the garden store across the street waiting because there were so many people there picking up new kayaks. I couldn’t believe it. I just couldn’t believe it. We actually had to sit and wait until they called him on the phone and said, “OK, you can come and pull over now. It was remarkable that there are people coming out and doing things.”
Rick Milne, Mayor, Village of Honeoye Falls: “We’re still pretty much like everyone else. Our Village Office remains closed to the public but open by appointment only. We do have a skeleton crew there as well. We’re doing a really good job as far as everyone communicating with one another and finding out who’s coming in when so they can socially distance within the office.”
“We do have a limited supply of surgical masks and hand sanitizer – which we’ve posted – if anybody needs any they can email the Village Office and we can set up a time they can stop by. A couple of the businesses did reach out and we were able to give them some for their anticipated reopenings, when that comes.”
“Same situation with our DPW. They’ve been split into two crews, but because of mowing, they are going to be busy with mowing. We’ll probably going to have the whole crew working full time before long. We’re trying to work out ways to keep them separated as best we can.”
“As silly as it sounds, this COVID-19 pandemic probably helped out on the fire this week. We called in everybody because of the situation and they did a great job. Every truck from every other department that was coming came with a crew of six. Quite often you get two, maybe three. You don’t always have people around. This week, because of the situation, there’s a lot of people around so it really benefitted us.”
“We cancelled the Father’s Day music. The Community Concert Band won’t be ready anyway. We’re taking our Tuesday night concerts week-by-week. These weren’t going to start until mid-June. We’re going to keep that going for now, but, we’ll see.”
“John Moffitt and I have been talking about our Memorial Day Parade. John and I had a couple of conversations about that and we both struggled with cancelling the Memorial Day events. With the support of the Legionnaires and the veterans we’re doing that. I’m going to try to come up with a couple of ideas to somehow recognize on Memorial Day those who have passed and our veterans in general. We’ll have a couple of things around the Village to show our support.”
“We had our Monroe County Association of Villages executive meeting this past Thursday. One of the topics of conversation was the recent postings on the Canal not being open for a period of time. Pittsford and Fairport and Spencerport and Brockport are very concerned about that. There’s an awful lot of people who say you can kayak down the canal and down the creek and stay plenty distance away from other people. That’s a real concern that I think will probably ramp up in the news before too long because they really want the canal to be opened up.”
“When we have these County-wide meetings every day – and Livingston and Ontario are doing the same – it’s a good thing but you keep hearing we’re about a week out, we’re going to see a big rise, and then a couple days later you’ll hear Dr. Mendoza say, ‘The numbers didn’t hit where we thought’ – which is a good thing. I’m starting to hear more from people while I’m walking, ‘the information is good and I’m glad we’re doing this, it’s very important, but I’d like to see things loosened up a little bit.’ And I’m also hearing that they’re getting a little bit overwhelmed with the: every single day from Cuomo; every single day from the County Executive; every single day from the President. Obviously, you can turn them off, but I think some people are getting a little overwhelmed.”
