Committee Present: Danny Ross, Chairman; Merwin Armstrong, Vice Chairman; Tom Hartnett, John Troy, Carol Tytler – Absent: Kay Breed and John Steger

Others Present: Scott Schrader, Angie Wyatt, Sandy Price, Dan Dineen, Amanda Barber, Syd McEvoy, Claudia Maki, Corey Preston

The meeting was called to order by Chairman Mr. Ross at 7:34a.m.

MOTION BY JOHN TROY – 2^ND BY MERWIN ARMSTRONG TO APPROVE THE MINUTES OF THE AUGUST 9, 2007 MEETING – ALL PRESENT VOTING IN FAVOR – MOTION PASSES MINUTES ARE APPROVED

RESOLUTIONS:

NONE

DISCUSSION/REPORT

Parent Advocacy & Mentoring Program (PAMP)- Claudia Maki, Cooperative Extension – Ms. Maki explained the program. Cooperative Extension has a contract with Social Services to provide the following services:

They provide supervised visits for children with their parent(s) who are in foster care – these visits are at the Family Resource Center on Main Street.
They make home visits
They provide in home education for child development, nutrition, discipline and hygiene

Mr. Hartnett asked how long it takes for the program. Ms. Maki indicated that it is hard to say – it depends on each case. Ms. Maki further indicated that the program is successful even if the parent(s) lose their parental rights by parental termination. Mr. Tory asked if they only work with Social Services. Ms. Maki indicated that they can only take DSS referrals and everything has to be documented. Ms. Tytler asked if they follow up maybe a year later. Ms. Maki said no and that DSS would be more likely to monitor the individual cases. Mr. McEvoy, Executive Director of Cornell Cooperative Extension of Cortland County advised the Committee that Ms. Maki and PAMP staff meets regularly with DSS staff. Ms. Maki indicated that there are presently 39 families in the program with 11 families on the waiting list. Mr. Ross asked how long the 11 families on the waiting list would have to wait. Ms. Maki will be hiring more staff and some of the currant families in the program will be completing the program so is shouldn’t be a very long time.

Soil & Water Conservation District Update- Amanda Barber – Ms. Barber provided the Committee with a written report which included the following information:

Fieldwork is slowing down. They have completed 9 agricultural engineering projects, 1 large project is under construction, and 2 are ready to go.
Engineering assistance will become even more of an issue as the NRCS Area Engineer is retiring this month. In addition, NRCS has indicated that they will be unavailable to provide engineering assistance to districts for projects funded under Round XIV of the State Agricultural Nonpoint Source Abatement and Control Program Grant.
The Graze NY earmark appears to be in the budget, but has not yet been approved. They continue to work with New York congressional representatives to restore this funding.
They continue to try to move McGraw along with their work. Engineering is complete, but they are waiting on utilities and landowner easements for some of the work.
They continue to move ahead with the aquifer-monitoring program for Cortlandville and Cortland. They had another meeting with the Health Department and USGS to finalize locations for the initial phase and are completing the plan.
The Town of Freetown has begun construction on its ditch stabilization project. Rock is being delivered to Lapeer and the streambank stabilization project will likely start next week. The County Highway Department completed their 2 streambank stabilization projects.
They are working with the County to develop a scope of work to hire a consultant to create a water management strategy and project review and prioritization system.
They are working with the County Fire /Emergency Management personnel to determine locations for dry hydrant repairs or new hydrants. The designs will be completed this fall/winter.
They are almost complete with the revisions and update to the County GIS website.
The River Clean-up is scheduled for this Saturday. They have 9 groups with over 170 volunteers who will be out on various streams in the county removing garbage and litter from the streambeds and banks.
The conservation Field Days will be September 20 and 21, 2007. They will have over 600 elementary students at Cornell Cooperative Extension’s Camp Owahta over the 2 days experiencing and learning about various aspects of nature and the environment.

Planning Sub Committee Report-Carol Tytler – Ms. Tytler provided an overview of the status of the Committee’s activity as follows:

C & S Engineering’s contract was executed on August 20, 2007 and they have 90 days to do a feasibility study of the proposed detention pond
They would like to develop a Comprehensive Plan by pulling together all the studies that have been done.
Ms. Barber, Director of Soil and Water Conservation District will be developing the scope as to what needs to be done. Mr. Thoma of Thoma Consultants will assist Ms. Barber.
They will develop the review tool
They would form a group to review the priorities and critical problems. This group would also conduct an annual review using the review tool(s)
They will be looking for funding streams and anticipate a pool of money to tackle various projects

Ms. Tytler indicated that Legislator Kay Breed has not attended any of the Sub-Committee meetings and would like a replacement for Ms. Breed.

Farm Bureau: Legislator Price advised the Committee that the Farm Bureau Annual Dinner meeting will be held on October 12, 2007 and all Legislators will be receiving an invitation.

Bus Shelter: Ms. Price asked the status of the bus shelter. Mr. Ross commented that no one wants to give up any of his or her land for a bus shelter. Mr. Dineen, Director of the Planning Department advised the Committee that the bus drivers would let them know where they think the shelters are needed the most. With the Holiday Inn Express coming, maybe the Greyground/Trailways bus station could be there or even at Denny’s. Mr. Dineen will forward this issue to the Transportation Committee, which will be meeting again on September 24, 2007 at 10:00a.m.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:20a.m.

The minutes were taken and prepared by Angie Wyatt, Secretary to the County Administrator

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