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300 N. Tioga St (Photo: Casey Martin) County works to finalize purchase of two Tioga Street properties

On Aug. 10, The Downtown Facilities Committee gathered to consider a resolution to acquire the properties at 300 North Tioga St. and 308 North Tioga St. for the future construction of a downtown Ithaca County Governmental Office Building. The meeting, which also considered the environmental impact of eventual construction, comes on the heels of several months of negotiation between Tompkins County and the property owners of the two land parcels.

The purchase of the current buildings on Tioga Street — the Key bank Building and the Ithaca Professional Building — would amount to $2.8 million. Tompkins County seeks to consolidate the County offices into a single location as a way to maximize efficiencies, enhance service delivery to county constituents, and improve environmental efficiencies, among other potential benefits. The project would not exceed 65,000 square feet and would be no more than five stories high.

Before discussing the acquisition resolution, the board considered the environmental impact resolution, assessing the maximum possible impact of construction at the site. Although the project is in its preliminary stages and lacks any concrete construction plans, Jonathan Wood reminded the committee that SEQR case law requires an evaluation of environmental significance.

“You have to do an environmental analysis before you really know what’s going to be there to comply with the law, so you do your best to look at what might have the maximum environmental impact,” he said. “So I wouldn’t look at the environmental assessment as having any real commitment, it’s just trying to do its best to look at what might be the environmental impact.”

After comments of support from some of the members, the committee unanimously passed a negative determination of environmental significance, meaning the construction will not significantly impact the environment.

The committee swiftly moved on to the resolution to authorize the acquisition of property for the proposed project. Several members voiced their support for the new building, welcoming the possibility to consolidate most, if not all, of the county staff into one spot.

Additionally, they responded to some of the main concerns that have been raised about the project. Considering that the county had recently paid $1.8 million for two buildings and a parking lot on the 400 block of North Tioga St., many critics consider the purchase of the 300 block buildings brash and the result of inadequate planning.

Shawna Black responded to this criticism, calling the planned purchase a “once in a lifetime opportunity.” It allows the county to construct a contiguous building with ample space in a strategic location for county staff.

“There are very few times in the city of Ithaca that you are going to have two properties that are older buildings that

continued on page 7

T a k e N o t e

▶ Audrey CooperCommunity staple Audrey Cooper passed away July 29, 2021. She moved to Ithaca when she was 17 and spent the next several decades working at Northside House (the predecessor to GIAC), GIAC, the Dispositional Alternatives Program, Southside Community Center and the Multicultural Resource Center. She helped found the West End Breakfast Club and served on numerous boards and committees, such as Opportunities, Alternatives and Resources, City of Ithaca Affirmative Action Advisory Committee, Ultimate Re-entry Opportunity Program, Hospitality Employment Training Program, Cayuga Lake Water Protectors and many others. A celebration of her life is planned for July 30, 2022, and asks you to honor her by doing “whatever you can do to make this a better place.” An activist mini-grant fund in her honor will be established, with details to come. To read more about Audrey’s remarkable life, visit Ithaca.com to read her full obituary.

VOL.XLI / NO. 52 / August 18, 2021 Serving 47,125 readers weekly FEATURES

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INQUIRING PHOTOGRAPHER

By Casey Martin

YOU HAVE 30 MINUTES TO SPEND $5,000 IN ONE STORE. WHERE WE HEADED?

“TJ MAXX!”

- MaCaleb E.

“Guitar Center. I’ll take a ’66 Fender Tele.”

-Anna P.

“Gamestop. Give me ALL the Switch Games!

-Oz. B

“Crystals. Let’s go to the Crystal shop!”

-Jack L.

“Taco Bell. Give me all of it.”

BUDGET County explores fund balance options as budget season arrives

Interim County Administrator Lisa Holmes (Photo: provided)

The Tompkins County Expanded Budget, Capital, and Personnel Committee has formed a steering committee, made up of three legislators working with county staff, to make concrete funding decisions for the county.

The resolution under consideration at the Aug. 10 meeting proposed the creation of what was originally called the Community Resiliency Fund. The name will change, however, in order to avoid confusion with the Department of Public Safety’s Resiliency Program. While it still lacks a formal name, the legislators referred to the proposed fund as the “recovery fund” during the meeting.

The recovery fund would create a grant program for community recovery projects, funded by the county’s $48 million fund balance. At the outset of the meeting, committee chair Deborah Dawson made sure to point out that decisions about the recovery fund are separate from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) fund spending decisions. ARPA funds have already been allocated to finance county operations.

Members grappled with balancing immediate and future recovery needs. They noted that while many individuals and entities in the county still have yet to recover from the earlier part of the pandemic, the public health crisis is not yet over, so more pressing needs might present themselves in the future. Weighing these short-term and longterm needs, members disagreed over how much money to spend and over what period of time.

Shawna Black advocated a more cautious approach, proposing to refrain from spending for the next three to six months as the COVID situation evolves, especially with the reintroduction of the student population to the Ithaca area.

“My biggest concern right now is that we are in the middle of COVID and it appears that we are going to have an even harder time than we have had in the past,” she said. “We know in the past 15 months we have spent $27 million taking care of people in our community, and the last thing I would want to do...is spend the funding and not have anything in the bank when we need it in the next few months.”

Mike Sigler disagreed with Black’s reserved approach. He did not see the point in waiting to spend the money, and supported using the funds as soon as possible to meet the immediate needs in the community.

“We are in the midst of COVID,” he said. “The problems are here now, we can hang onto the money for a rainy day fund, but it’s been raining. It doesn’t make sense to me to hang onto this for any longer.”

Dave McKenna agreed with Sigler’s sense of urgency.

“We need to do this because there are various entities out there that are really hurting,” he said. “They need the money. Let’s get it out there and let’s get it done.”

After hearing these opposing viewpoints, many members supported the idea of a compromise. Member Martha Robertson said that with a fund balance of $48 million, the county should feel comfortable spending some money on immediate needs and saving some funds for future needs.

“We have the resources to respond to the continuing crisis and we have the resources to help recover,” she said. “We should put a meaningful amount [of the fund balance] into the community to start working for our residents and also invest in things that are going to pay off in the future whether it be childcare, broadband, housing.”

She stressed the importance of community input in allocation decisions and proposed issuing a call to community organizations to identify needs within the community and propose projects to meet those needs.

Interim County Administrator Lisa Holmes said that the county’s budget process should factor into any recovery fund decisions and suggested working in conjunction with the finance committee. Discussion about the county budget will take place in the next six to eight weeks, which would postpone any concrete recovery fund decisions until then. Despite the pause it would put on decision-making, many members supported the recommendation.

With a projected six- to eight-week decision-making window, the committee returned to a resolution that member Anne Koreman had introduced earlier on in the meeting. She proposed the formation of a separate committee specifically dedicated to ironing out the details of the fund — how much money to allocate, where to allocate it and over what time period. Koreman said that setting up a steering committee, which would be composed of chairpeople from various committees, would be a wise preliminary step for the recovery fund because it would permit a more focused and flexible decision-making process.

The resolution garnered support from several committee members. Holmes, however, surfaced an important consideration, pointing out that county staff — not just legislators — should be involved in the decision making process. They have important expertise because they work on the ground with community organizations in the county each day.

“I fear that legislators doing that in an open session without the context of staffing who work professionally with these organizations on a day in and day out basis — sometimes for decades — may miss some of the subtleties...that aren’t necessarily evident,” she said. “I think that in terms of process and the building blocks and the professional expertise, we have staff in the county that probably should be a part of this process.”

Lane, among other members, welcomed this suggestion, citing the “expertise and institutional memory” of county staff.

In the end, the committee decided to act upon Koreman’s resolution and create a separate steering committee tasked with crafting a detailed proposal to present before the entire legislature. The legislators populating the committee will be members Rich John, Leslie Schill, and Sigler.

Faith Fisher is a reporter from The Cornell Daily Sun working on The Sun’s inaugural summer fellowship at The Ithaca Times.

Ithaca Tenants Union outside Ithaca City Hall on Saturday, July 31 (Photo: provided)

HOUSING Ithaca Tenants Union proposes law to protect renters from eviction without cause

The Ithaca Tenants Union recently proposed legislation which would give Ithaca tenants enhanced protections against evictions. The Right to Renew legislation landed on the desks of the Planning and Economic Development Board last week, completing the first step of the legislative process. The board will discuss whether to approve the legislation for circulation at its meeting tonight, Aug. 18.

The Right to Renew law, also known as Good Cause Eviction, would give tenants who want to renew their lease the right to do so, unless a landlord can prove they have a good cause to evict the tenant. It seeks to protect tenants from landlord retaliation from actions such as organizing with other tenants or demanding repairs.

Under the current law, landlords have three main ways by which to evict tenants. The first is for a tenant’s failure to pay rent. The second is for objectionable tenancy, which could be satisfied, for instance, through a tenant damaging the property, engaging in illegal activity on the property or harassing neighbors. Finally, a landlord can terminate a lease without cause.

“What we’re trying to do is get rid of that third reason, so that landlords have to prove a legitimate legal reason under state law for evicting you,” Genevieve Rand, member of the Ithaca Tenants Union said. “To evict someone, a landlord doesn’t have to prove anything, they don’t have to justify anything, they just have the unilateral power to make that decision for tenants.”

More specifically, the Right to Renew law would require landlords to cite a specifically enumerated violation before a court in order to proceed with eviction, rather than denying lease renewal to a tenant without explanation.

“If a tenant has done everything right — paid their rent on time, maintained their property, provided access to the landlord when the landlord requests — they should be entitled to renew your lease, and to have that lease renewal be done at a reasonable rate of increase,” Common Council member Cynthia Brock said. “I fundamentally believe regardless of whether you live in Ithaca or elsewhere, I think that this is a fundamental right, that that everyone deserves.”

If a landlord fails to articulate a cause for an eviction case, they must wait until the end of the lease before asking the tenant to move. According to Rand, many landlords will make use of month-to-month tenancy agreements— as opposed to yearly agreements— to give themselves more leniency when ending lease terminations without cause. According to Rand, “there’s basically no downside” for a landlord to make month-tomonth agreements due to the flexibility and authority it confers upon them. “If you put [a tenant] on a monthto-month tenancy, you give yourself the right to evict them almost whenever you want for no reason because on a month-to-month tenancy, the lease has to be renewed every month,” she said. “So rather than saying ‘I won’t renew your lease at the end of this year’ you can say ‘I won’t renew your lease next month,’ and so they can kick you out literally whenever they want with zero explanation or justification.”

According to Seph Murtagh, Common Council member and chair of the Planning & Economic Development Committee, lease terminations without good cause have been an issue in the Ithaca area.

“[Good Cause] is designed to prevent the type of situation where there might be retaliation, or if somebody is asking for repairs and they don’t get their lease renewed because of that,” he said. “I’ve had complaints about that over the years, so I think this potentially addresses an important problem in the community.”

Even though month-tomonth agreements and terminations without cause were common before the pandemic, they have become more prevalent since its onset, especially with the eviction moratorium. The moratorium protects a tenant from eviction for delays in rent payment due to financial hardships generated by the pandemic. Rand said that as a way to get around the moratorium, landlords have “instead been opting to just not renew people’s leases.”

The New York State eviction moratorium is slated to expire on Aug. 31. The Ithaca Tenants Union and other tenant organizations across the state have been lobbying to extend the eviction moratorium to comply with the federal expiration date of Oct. 31.

An extension of the moratorium through October would potentially allow for the good cause eviction legislation to be passed into law in Ithaca before the moratorium expires. The earliest date by which Right to Renewal could be passed in Ithaca is Oct. 6.

In order to become a law, the Right to Renewal legislation must pass through a series of legislative steps. First, the legislation has to appear on the agenda of Ithaca’s Planning and Economic Committee (PEDC), which has already happened. The committee would then have to approve Right to Renew for circulation, which would entail one month of public comment. After public comment closes, the PEDC would vote on whether to pass Right to Renew on to Common Council for a final vote. Finally, Common Council would vote on whether to codify it into law.

The City of Albany passed a Good Cause Eviction law last month, making it the first municipality in New York state to do so. Just like the bill being proposed in Ithaca, the Albany legislation entitles tenants to lease renewals, protects tenants against rent hikes, and requires that a landlord substantiate a specifically enumerated good cause for eviction. The law lists nine specific potential causes which include, for example, failure of rent payment and a tenant’s unreasonable refusal to allow the landlord access to the unit. It also requires receipt of prior consent by the tenant to vacate the unit at least five months prior to the vacate date.

Brock said she supports using the Albany legislation as a model for the Right to Renew legislation in Ithaca due to its specificity and applicability to the local municipality.

“I think that the Albany model is protective of both tenants and landlords,” she said. “I think [the Albany law] goes into greater detail. They provide protections for smaller units, and that I think is more appropriate for our location. I would really like to see a version of the Albany law implemented here.”

In addition to listing specific causes for eviction, the Albany Good Cause law has

Ups NHL players and Cornell legends came to Lynah Rink last Saturday to play in a friendly hockey game to support programs for children with disabilities in Ithaca. Downs Active COVID-19 cases continue to grow in the county. On August 17, there were 16 new active cases, bringing the county total to 108. Get vaccinated and wear your masks!

HEARD&SEEN

Heard On Thursday, Aug. 19, Noon Fifteen will perform at the Bernie Milton Pavillion in the Ithaca Commons as part of the 2021 CFCU Downtown Ithaca Summer Concert Series. The free performance will take place on the Commons, and it begins at 6 p.m. Seen Steward Park will continue its 2021 Movies in the Park Series this Friday, Aug. 20, with a free showing of Disney’s Aladdin. The event starts at 7 p.m. Before the movie showing, there will be fun activities, live music, and food for purchase from Serendipity Catering’s food truck.

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