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HOMES EVERY WEEK! April 13, 2019
Valley News
suncommunitynews.com
• EDITION •
E-L-W decides on building use
Lawmakers decry plan to close state prisons
Elementary grades K-5 stay put; middle school at Westport building, high school at Elizabethtown
Essex County supervisors cite ‘devastating economic impact’ By Elizabeth Izzo STA FF W RITER
MORIAH | Essex County lawmakers are asking that the state allow two correctional facilities here to remain open. The county Board of Supervisors’ request came a few hours after the state legislature authorized Gov. Andrew Cuomo to close up to three state prisons by Sept. 1. The board passed a resolution April 1 expressing their opposition to any closures here, and outlining what they characterize as the “devastating economic impact” the closure of any state prison would have in Essex County. Cuomo has not yet identified which facilities may be chosen for closure. “I feel confident that if there are closures, they won’t be in Moriah,” Moriah Town Supervisor Tom Scozzafava told The Sun last month. “But we have to be vigilant.”
By Kim Dedam STA FF W RITER
ELIZABETHTOWN | The merged Elizabethtown-Lewis-Westport School Board formally approved a 2019-20 building use plan last Monday. It wasn’t the popular choice of many Westport students, but it does keep elementary school children -- grades Kindergarten through 5 -- in familiar buildings, at least for next year. The district will put merged high school students — grades 9 to 12 — in Elizabethtown’s facility and the combined middle school -grades 6 to 8 -- in Westport’s school building. The existing Pre-Kindergarten program, run in cooperation with Adirondack Community Action Programs, will keep its current classrooms at Elizabethtown. » Building Use Cont. on pg. 2
‘DEVASTATING ECONOMIC IMPACT’
In the resolution passed last week, supervisors argue that Essex County has in the last 50 years experienced a “sharp and extreme loss in industry due to the closure of mills, mines and other heavy and light industry.” That decline, paired with “stringent conservation laws,” the creation of the Adirondack Park Agency, and the lack of developable land with such a vast swath of landmass being designated as “Forever Wild,” has left the county to rely on local
For Scozzafava, who has served as a supervisor for more than two decades, the threat of more prison closures hearkens back to 2011, when Moriah Shock had been on the chopping block. “We went through a possible closure,” he said, “and we studied the economic impact that would have here. It was significant.”
» Economic impact Cont. on pg. 3
State audit finds AVCS did not recoup costs for Special Ed service provided Total $54K not charged to Medicaid from 2016 to 2018 By Kim Dedam STA FF W RITER
Creamery and dairy production are important aspects of farming in the Adirondacks. Cows here are part of the dairy herd at Sugar House Creamery in Jay where farmers produce local milk, cheeses and many other products. Photos/Kim Dedam
AUSABLE FORKS | The state Farm Bureau and farmland conservation groups found good news in New York’s State Budget. The $175.5 billion spending plan for 2020 was approved on time early last Monday. State Operating Funds, excluding Federal resources, allocate $102.1 billion and hold spending growth at 2 percent. Farm conservation groups said an $18 million line item for farmland protection in 2020, part of the Environmental Protection Fund, will help foster a new
generation of farmers. Samantha Levy is New York’s policy manager for the American Farmland Trust. “These funds will help farmers reinvest in their family businesses, while aiding retiring farmers in transitioning their land to the next generation,” Levy said in a news release. The Farmland Trust also applauded funding for climate change mitigation research on New York farms. A total $4.5 million will go to the Climate Resilient Farming program which supports emissions reduction research, resiliency and soil health.
» AVCS Audit Cont. on pg. 2
Essex County waives civil service exam fees County to offer job exams free of charge for rest of 2019 By Elizabeth Izzo STA FF W RITER
ELIZABETHTOWN | The Essex County Board of Supervisors has authorized the county Personnel Office to waive all exam fees for civil service positions through the
end of the year. In the past, people looking to get a job in areas like law enforcement and social service were required to pay $15 to take the exams. The county will now foot the bill for those exams, which may result in a loss of revenue of around $2,000, county Personnel Officer Jennifer Mascarenas told supervisors last month. But the hope is that the change will encourage more people to apply for jobs here. “We’re having difficulty recruiting applicants in every field,” Mascarenas told The
Sun. “By waving the fee, we’re hoping to get people in to apply for these jobs, and have more applicants to choose from.”
APPLICATION SHORTAGE
The county Personnel Office has tried to encourage applications by advertising in local newspapers and posting notices on social media, but to no avail, according to Mascarenas. “We’ve even started going to job fairs to try to increase our applications that way,” she said. “We’ve had difficulty fi lling all positions, really.”
Last year, the office received a total of 670 applications. That’s compared to Clinton County — the county legislature waived exam fees this year, while also facing a lack of applicants — which received 790 in 2018. What that translates to is either a position left vacant for a long period of time, or a smaller labor pool to choose from, according to Mascarenas. When a correction officer position recently opened up, for example, the pool of candidates was just seven people, she said. » Civil Service Exam Cont. on pg. 3
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