Local Forum - Cayuga Nation receives $367,991 grant

Cayuga Nation receives $367,991 grant

Seneca County Supervisors Protest Housing Grant for Cayugas

1

6/29/2013 6:13:04 AM

By Tiffany Collinsworth

The Seneca County Board of Supervisors is less than pleased with the Department of Housing and Urban Development.  In a letter to HUD, Chairman Bob Hayssen made the Board's sentiments known about the nearly 370 thousand dollars awarded to the Cayuga Indian Nation for housing activities.  Hayssen tells HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan, the Cayugas owe Seneca County over 900 thousand dollars in unpaid County, Town, and School taxes.  The board is asking that the award be reconsidered or for HUD to acknowledge the unwilling subsidization of the Cayuga Indian Nation housing by Seneca County taxpayers.

This has been a long time argument between Seneca County and the Cayuga Indian Nation.  According to a news release, Seneca County is currently engaged in a suit pending before the United States Second Circuit Court of Appeals to recover unpaid real property taxes owed by the tribe. The United State Supreme Court ruled in their decision in City of Sherill v. Oneida Indian Nation, that such taxes are lawfully payable by the tribe, but a previous ruling by the Second Circuit Court in Oneida Indian Nation v. Madison County, determined that the County lacks any means of forcing the tribe to pay those taxes.

The Seneca County case is set for argument before the Appellate Court in New York this Fall.

Here is a copy of the letter sent to HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan:

Ontario County seeks to unload its health clinics

Ontario County seeks to unload its health clinics

Read more: http://www.mpnnow.com/topstories/x1806112883/Ontario-County-seeks-to-unload-its-health-clinics#ixzz2Xe9lW8wF

Canandaigua, N.Y. —

Ontario County is currently seeking a private entity to run its Turnings Substance Abuse Clinic, and plans to later this summer seek proposals from providers to run its Mental Health Clinic.    

 County Public Health Director Mary Beer said the Mental Health Clinic serves some 800 people annually. Of those, about 150 are clients in Turnings. Proposals to run the outpatient clinic focused on prevention and treatment of substance abuse are due July 8.

As with the county seeking to sell its nursing home, this move is also driven by finances.

“Last year, during the budget process, (the county’s Financial Management Committee) identified areas of the county that are not mandated and not faring well financially,” said county Board of Supervisors Chairman Jack Marren, the Victor supervisor and chairman of the county’s Health and Medical Committee. The goal is to find a provider that can run those programs as, or more, effectively than the county does, he said.

Because services provided by county employees more costly due to civil service benefits, others “are able to provide the same services at a lower cost,” said Beer. If other providers can offer the service, she said, “it allows our residents to receive the same high quality of care without increasing the tax burden.”
Beer said “proposals will be reviewed and if there is a provider willing to perform the services, the clinics will be transferred.”

The process is coordinated with the state Mental Health Department or state office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services, she said, and would involve a transition plan. The requests for proposals (RFPs) “encourage proposals to include offering positions to current county staff,” Beer added. “We do not know who would respond to the RFPs until we receive the proposals, however, they are required to currently hold licenses to operate clinics in New York state.”

Meanwhile, county officials are reviewing two bids received for the sale of the county nursing home in Hopewell, the 98-bed Ontario County Health Facility. County Administrator John Garvey said earlier this month the county had interviewed representatives of Centers for Specialty Care Group LLC and Bleier, Peckman and Bain, which submitted bids of $2 million and $2.7 million, respectively,
County representatives also planned to visit facilities operated by the two firms.

Ontario County’s nursing home went on the market in March after the county hired brokerage firm Marcus & Millichap Real Estate Investment Services in December to market the sale. A subcommittee of the county’s Health and Medical Services Committee, comprised of Naples Supervisor John Cowley and Phelps Supervisor Norman Teed, was formed to review the bids for the facility, along with county representatives.

Read more: http://www.mpnnow.com/topstories/x1806112883/Ontario-County-seeks-to-unload-its-health-clinics#ixzz2Xe9lW8wF

Geneva has become quite a town for foodies

Rooted in farming, Geneva now is a place to savor pig-roast dinners, artisan breads and gourmet chocolates

Video

GENEVA — Geneva is a food town, and its food roots run deep.

No matter from which direction you approach this city that anchors the northwest end of Seneca Lake, you’re bound to see a lot of food in the making. Dairy farms, orchards, family-run vegetable operations, livestock grain and, increasingly, vineyards make up the landscape hat surrounds this small city and surrounding town of about 16,300.

It sounds quaint and bucolic, but Geneva is also headquarters to one of the country’s most prolific agricultural and food science research institutions. Cornell University’s New York State Agricultural Experiment Station has been studying ways to improve farming and food production since 1880. Without its various breeding programs, we would live in a world without Empire and Cortland apples, nutritionally superior orange cauliflower, the habanada pepper (a habanero that won’t make your head explode with heat), virus-resistant beans, and the Whitaker, a summer squash able to resist three viruses and a fungal disease.

If Geneva is where new apple types are created, it’s also a place where many of the world’s oldest apple varieties are grown and studied. The National Apple Collection at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Plant Genetic Resources Unit is off limits to tourists and the general public, but researchers and industry insiders look to ancient apple varieties from Central Asia and other parts of the world to unlock secrets that will improve the apples of the future.

“A lot of the produce that people use here (in restaurants) was developed at the Station at one time or another,” says Susan Brown, an apple breeder at the Experiment Station who assumes the associate director role next month. Producers, researchers and consumers have an interconnectedness that makes Geneva’s foodscape unique, she adds.

If it weren’t for the research of viticulture trailblazers such as the late Nelson Shaulis, who developed a vine trellising system known as the Geneva Double Curtain that has been used throughout the world, and Robert Pool, who founded Billsboro Winery, there would be no Finger Lakes wine trails and wine industry as we know it, Brown adds.

“Bob (who died in 2006) was the ultimate foodie,” notes Brown. With some help from contractors, he and his son built the outdoor brick oven where Billsboro’s current owners now hold their popular Pizza on the Patio events during summer.

Brown herself exemplifies that intertwining. As a Cornell scientist and Geneva resident since 1985, she has ushered in several new apple and cherry varieties to the market, and knows the history and lore of just about every restaurant and food store in town.

What has pushed Geneva from a food town to a foodie town? Wineries, says William Schickel, general manager of Geneva on the Lake, a century-old villa resort and restaurant where celebrities from Simone de Beauvoir to members of The Grateful Dead have dined and slept.

Post-harvest food production is also a firmly rooted part of Geneva’s economy, from the Seneca Foods facility where vegetables grown in surrounding fields are canned and sold under various brand names to The Technology Farm, where entrepreneurs such as Stony Brook WholeHearted Foods discover innovative ways to use waste products, such as making delicious culinary oils from seeds that would otherwise be discarded from pre-cut squash.

Geneva is also where a significant chapter in the history of institutional dining took place. When the Hobart College cafeteria teetered on bankruptcy in 1948, junior William Scandling of Rochester took it over with a couple of buddies. His senior year encore? Doing the same at Hobart’s sister school, William Smith College.

The trio went on to form the Saga Corp., a vanguard in college and hospital food service. (The Saga Corp was bought out by Marriott Corp in 1986; Scandling died in 2005.)

FAST FOOD CHALLENGE - Catrific