The Oneida Daily Dispatch (Oneida, NY)
Costs rise for temporary courthouse home
The county will pay more than $1million to renovate the former Oneida Limited administrative building.
WAMPSVILLE, N.Y. » It will cost Madison County more than $1 million to renovate a temporary office space for its court system to use while the courthouse is being renovated.
Renovations to the former Oneida Limited administrative offices on Kenwood Avenue, now owned by Kenwood Community Properties, were estimated to cost about $800,000. The Board of Supervisors approved a modification to the lease agreement for the property to revise renovation costs to $1.03 million.
County Administrator Mark Scimone said the estimated cost of renovating the 26,128 square foot space was based on conceptual drawings. Now that city codes and the fire department have inspected the property and the final plans for renovations are in, that cost has increased, specifically with the addition of a required sprinkler system and additional electrical, plumbing and carpentry work.
The owner of the building, Kenwood Community Properties, will be in charge of the renovations to meet court operation specifications and the county will reimburse those costs. Besides renovation costs, the county will pay $12 per square foot in rent for the duration of the 19-month lease.
Also at Tuesday’s meeting the board approved a resolution directing the county at- torney’s office to draft legislation to impose additional wireless surcharges to support 911. Since 2004, the county has collected a 30-cent surcharge on wireless communication services. The county wants to expand that surcharge to include a similar 30-cent surcharge on the sale of prepaid wireless communications services and devices.
The board also heard a brief presentation by Lystek, a private organics recycling com-
from Canada, as part of its consideration of a biosolids facility at the ARE Park. Several supervisors and county employees are scheduled to tour the company’s flagship facility in Toronto later this month.
If an organics recycling facility were to open at the ARE Park, biosolids from sewage treatment would be processed into liquid fertilizer. If constructed, the facility would take up 13.4 acres of the ARE Park’s 150-acre footprint.
Several Lincoln residents are opposed to the plant. In Tuesday’s edition of the Dispatch, resident Al Szablak wrote a Letter to the Editor urging others to speak out against the project.
“Madison County’s plan will destroy our property values and reduce our quality of life with proj- ects such as this. A fertilizer plant can be built anywhere. It doesn’t need to be in Lincoln,” he writes.
“We would never consider a business that would cause potential harm to the residents of this county,” said Solid Waste Director James Zecca. “Our goal is and has always been to create a complex that is energy efficient, saving tax dollars and creating jobs, and at the same time efficiently handling our solid waste for the next 100 years.”
“We want residents to feel confident in our county officials’ ability to evaluate and make reasoned decisions in regard to the development of the ARE Park and/or any new development slated to launch a new business in this county,” explained John Becker, chairman of the Board of Supervisors.
Szablak’s letter can be read here: www.oneidadispatch.com/ opinion/20170612/let -ters-fertilizer-plantdoesnt-belong-in-lincolncome-celebrate-flag- day
Already in operation at the ARE Park are several energy- producing projects, including a 1.4 MW gas-to- energy system using the landfill’s methane gas, lumber- drying kilns using the excess heat from the gas-to- energy system, a flexible solar cap on the south slope of the landfill, 50 kW solar arrays and a 10-acre solar array being installed on the east side of Buyea Road. The latest solar project is anticipated to supply 60 percent of the electricity needs of the entire county.
Along with the organics recycling facility, the county is also considering a system to convert agricultural plastics into liquid fuels, a program to recover wood, metal and gypsum and an anaerobic digester for organic waste like food scraps and kitchen wastes.