{"id":64396,"date":"2015-10-31T09:00:31","date_gmt":"2015-10-31T13:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=64396"},"modified":"2015-10-30T18:00:10","modified_gmt":"2015-10-30T22:00:10","slug":"casino-concerns-confusion-continue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=64396","title":{"rendered":"Casino Concerns, Confusion Continue"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Martha<\/a>
Martha E. Conway<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Martha E. Conway<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

(Town of Sullivan, NY \u2013 Oct. 2015) \u00a0Jeannine Fadely of Bridgeport-Kirkville Road expressed concerns before the Sullivan Town Council over town residents\u2019 not being informed that a casino was being erected in the village of Chittenango. She wanted to know how much money was being removed from the tax rolls.<\/p>\n

Councilman Tom Kopp responded that the tax impact on the schools was about $90,000 and the village lost about $35.<\/p>\n

Supervisor John M. Becker was not in attendance.<\/p>\n

According to Fadely, she lived in Verona and saw firsthand the effects of the Turning Stone. She said it resulted in an avalanche of escalating taxes, and she was seeing the same thing coming in Sullivan.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow the Sav-Ons are going in,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Town attorney John Langey said the town doesn\u2019t have any say in the affairs of the village and that the agreement that allowed the casino was a state issue \u2026 or higher. He asked how her prior hometown handled the matter.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt least we got notice,\u201d Fadely said. \u201cVerona received money for the school, but I felt it was handled badly.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said the school received money for a limited time; it wasn\u2019t an ongoing arrangement.<\/p>\n

Fadely asked why the town wasn\u2019t doing anything.<\/p>\n

Langey explained that the village is a separate jurisdiction from the town, and that what happened in the village caused a lot of people to come to the town board with concerns.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople don\u2019t know when Native Americans purchase property, it comes off the tax rolls,\u201d Fadely said, emphasizing that the town should have notified residents that the casino was coming. \u201cI get numerous notices for sewer, but nothing about this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Village officials reported having about 72 hours\u2019 notice before the Oneida Nation made its formal announcement of the casino\u2019s planned construction.<\/p>\n

Deputy Supervisor Bill Cole said economic development was the only positive thing he could see from the arrangement, and that the state hangs its hat on that; Fadely countered that all the Oneida Nation has to offer is minimum wage jobs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe county issued its objections,\u201d Langey explained. \u201cThe town board has no authority.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mike Keville, resident and participation in government teacher at Chittenango High School, said there is some money being received by local governments as a result of the deal between the counties and the Oneida Nation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s compensatory for our losses,\u201d Keville said, explaining he followed the matter in the news. \u201cThere is a cap to how much they can buy and take off the tax rolls. Cuomo forced the deal and prevented us from completing litigation in which we probably would have prevailed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe town is not protecting us,\u201d Fadely said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will investigate and report on the tax impacts,\u201d said Councilman John Brzuszkiewicz.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think any other organization could shut down Route 5 so quickly,\u201d Cole said. \u201cIt shows how much power they have.\u201d<\/p>\n

Langey repeated that the town board has no authority to negotiate in state and federal agreements, but that all town supervisors met and voted on the matter at the county level.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe casino is in the village,\u201d Langey said. \u201cAre you going to the village with these concerns?\u201d<\/p>\n

Councilman Kerry Ranger said he attended meetings where the state-county deal was discussed, and nothing was mentioned about a casino in the village.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s nothing I could do as a town board member,\u201d Ranger said.<\/p>\n

\u201cJohn Becker was on the front lines fighting that fight,\u201d Langey said. \u201cThe counties were told \u2018this is what you\u2019re getting,\u2019 and teams of attorneys were paid hundreds of hundreds of thousands of dollars in the process.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe casino is completely separate from the agreement,\u201d Keville said. \u201cThe Nation deals directly with the federal government regarding its lands. The village found out when everybody else did and smiled and took it because there was nothing they could do. If you are nice, sometimes you get what you want.\u201d<\/p>\n

Langey agreed, saying the town is not a player at that table.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce it\u2019s taken off the tax rolls, there is no say what they can do with the property,\u201d Keville said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are not transparent about what\u2019s going on in the town,\u201d Fadely said.<\/p>\n

Brzuszkiewicz said another positive impact is the ancillary businesses that will come with the casino.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is the plan to make up for the loss of taxes?\u201d Fadely asked.<\/p>\n

Brzuszkiewicz said the town does three- and five-year plans, and they can\u2019t always forecast.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have a good point,\u201d Brzuszkiewicz said. \u201cIt is going to change Chittenango dramatically, and it will impact taxes.\u201d<\/p>\n

In\u00a0 other business<\/p>\n

Ranger said he had spoken with a Cicero code enforcement officer and hammered out a potential arrangement to have this individual come in at a $300 per diem rate \u2013 a flat fee to perform initial inspection through reinspection and report, including mileage, to handle special cases in the town. The flat fee covers everything except testifying in court.<\/p>\n

Langey said he knows Cicero\u2019s lawyer and will review the potential arrangement and discuss it with their attorney.<\/p>\n

Ranger said it would work under an inter-municipal agreement, like the Bridgeport Fire Department handles mutual aid issues.<\/p>\n

The council went into executive session for the advice of counsel with no action expected to be taken.<\/p>\n

The Sullivan Town Council will meet again Nov. 4 at 7 p.m.<\/p>\n

Martha E. Conway is vice president of M3P Media, LLC, and publisher of the Madison County Courier. She can be reached at 315.813.0124 or by emailing martha@m3pmedia.com. Follow her on Twitter at twitter.com\/marthaeconway or Facebook at facebook.com\/meconway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Martha E. Conway (Town of Sullivan, NY \u2013 Oct. 2015) \u00a0Jeannine Fadely of Bridgeport-Kirkville Road expressed concerns before the Sullivan Town Council over town residents\u2019 not being informed that a casino was being erected in the village of Chittenango. She wanted to know how much money was being removed from the tax rolls. Councilman […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37957,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p43meu-gKE","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/Conway-Martha-092812.jpg?fit=226%2C290&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=64396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64396\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/37957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=64396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=64396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=64396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}