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The Tompkins County Legislature has announced $207,800 in grants for programs encouraging people to visit and spend money in the county.
Recipient of the biggest grant is the Finger Lakes International Dragon Boat Festival. The event draws approximately 500 people from outside central New York every year, and about 4,000 people total, said Ithaca Asian American Association President Siv Somchanhmavong. The festival received a $15,000 grant.
A group of state senators has written to Gov. Andrew Cuomo asking him to petition the federal government for disaster declarations for the Finger Lakes and Wayne County areas.
Recent high temperatures followed by low temperatures have led to many farmers losing part of their crops.
The issue of noise pollution came up during Monday’s meeting of Elmira City Council.
Patricia Fitzgibbons, a resident of St. Patrick’s Apartments in Elmira, told the council that exhaust fan noise from the nearby Evergreen Express Chinese restaurant is constant, unbelievable and terrible.
“It goes early in the morning to late at night. There’s just something wrong with their exhaust system,” she said, noting others share her complaint. “I think it should be addressed.”
Palmyra Township residents will vote Tuesday, May 8, on the proposed industrial wind turbine zoning ordinance passed by the township board in October.
Voting will take place at the Palmyra Township Hall, 4276 Rouget Road, between 7 a.m. and 8 p.m. A “yes” vote would uphold the ordinance amendments and a “no” vote would repeal it.
Schuyler County would be divided into eight legislative districts under a redistricting plan supported by most county legislators Wednesday night.
The county currently has three legislative districts, but updated population figures and a desire to change confusing voting laws are necessitating a change.
County Planner Rocky Kambo reviewed four proposals. Two plans proposed eight districts, one proposed seven districts and one was a design for five local districts and two at-large districts.
Senator Chuck Schumer is urging the federal government to get involved in a crackdown on counterfeit wine, according to our news partners at the Messenger Post.
Schumer will talk about the issue at 3:15 p.m. Thursday at Sheldrake Point Winery in Seneca County. He says China is marketing a fake version of ice wine and it’s much cheaper than what’s sold in the United States.
According to Schumer, wineries in the Finger Lakes region that make high-quality ice wine are now having trouble competing. He wants the federal government to put pressure on China to stop the sale of counterfeit wine.
Neighbors in Schuyler County experienced a documentary Tuesday night about the impact heavy industry has had around the nation and what kind of impact it could have on you.
As Schuyler County and surrounding towns review comprehensive plans on hydro-fracking and gas storage facilities, many neighbors are asking law makers and citizens to be mindful of its impacts to the environment.
Tuesday, in Watkins Glen, The Finger Lakes Sierra Club group and Gas Free Seneca co-sponsored a screening of the documentary, “Living Downstream.”
The Tompkins County Legislature is set to decide on a resolution that urges a constitutional amendment revoking corporate personhood.
The legislature will vote on the resolution during its meeting at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Tompkins County Courthouse, 320 N. Tioga St.
According to the resolution, “The authors of (the Constitution) clearly intended ‘people’ and ‘men’ to refer to human beings who are citizens of the United States and not corporations or other entities.” The document goes further, saying, “The founders of our nation could never have anticipated the degree to which the wealth and technology available to corporations in America today have made it possible for a single corporation to drown out the voices of millions of people.”
Mitt Romney dominated voting among Tompkins County Republicans in the presidential primary Tuesday, receiving 55 percent of the county’s total four-way vote and nearly tripling the number of votes received by his nearest competitor, Texas Congressman Ron Paul.
The results reflect reports from all but two voting districts. The final two districts’ tallies are expected late Wednesday morning, according to the Tompkins County Board of Elections, which did not specify which districts’ results were missing.
At their meeting April 9, the Board of Public Works continued the discussion of whether the city would want to pursue conducting a traffic study on the implications of changing the sections of Cayuga Street and Aurora Street that are currently one-way streets to two-way streets. The discussion has come up multiple times in the last 20 years, according to Superintendent of Public Works Bill Gray. The current discussion was spurred at a previous meeting by a discussion of the proposed detour for the Clinton Street Bridge/Prospect Street project. While it is too late to change the traffic directions for the bridge project, board members expressed interest in looking at what would happen if the streets were made two-way in the future. City Transportation Engineer Tim Logue recommended that the board define its goals for a traffic study before conducting one. The goals for the study could range from looking at the effects on travel time, economic development and tourism improvements, or simply the effects on loading zones in the area.
