Administrator provides March county update

YATES COUNTY--The following update was provided by Yates County Administrator Nonie Flynn for the month of March.
-Finance
• Planning board - There is an opening for a representative from Middlesex on the county's planning board. Contact Yates County Planner, Jeff Ayers, if interested.
• Agricultural district review - This review is required every eight years. A mailing will be going to residents that are currently in the agriculture district to notify them that their parcel is in the district and if it is no longer an appropriate classification, the parcel can be removed.
• Household hazardous waste day - The county will be hosting this again this year, most likely in September.
• PaintCare - They will be in our county office building parking lot on July 1 to take in old paint cans.
• Recreation and natural resources grant allocations - The county awarded $38,600 to the village of Penn Yan for tennis court upgrades, $36,300 to the town of Potter for park improvements and $7,600 to the town of Middlesex for Vine Valley beach improvements. The funding for these grants is from the county's collection of occupancy tax.
• Board of Assessment Review - There is still one vacancy in each of the towns of Potter and Torrey. Please contact the Yates County Real Property Director if interested in serving.
• Broadband ReConnect 1 grant - First Light continues construction with the buried cable. The work is at 50 percent completion for buried lines and soon will start hanging cable for Phase 1A. Construction of Phase 1B, which is the beginning of connecting the premises to internet, is expected in late spring. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) approved the change of scope for Phase 1B. This took almost ten months.
• Broadband ReConnect 4 grant - The application was submitted on Nov. 2. Because more funding is available for this grant, there is not a 25 percent match requirement. This is for service to the remaining 680 households in the county that are either unserved or underserved. The county requested $9,087,389 and received letters of support from eight NYS representatives. Grant awards could be announced as early as March 2023.
• Supplemental funding - The USDA is allowing for requests for additional funding for recipients of ReConnect 1. The county submitted for this on Dec. 5 for $3.8 million. The USDA field representative is confident that we will get at least some of this requested funding.
• Governor's proposed budget - The New York state senate and assembly did not approve the proposal to no longer share federal Medicaid funds with counties. This would have cost Yates County an additional $543k per year. The final NYS budget should be approved by the beginning of April, and officials hope the final budget does remove this. The "in rem foreclosure" that would have required counties to return proceeds from foreclosure sales to owners also was rejected by both houses of the state legislature.
-Government Operations Committee
• Bicentennial year - There are twelve "2023 Bicentennial" signs that have been placed along various NYS roads entering the county by the highway department. The next celebratory event is the Arbor Day tree-planting ceremony on April 28 at 1 p.m. This will be at the history center and will feature a planting of the Wagener apple tree, named for Abraham Wagener, who first propagated the trees in Yates County two hundred years ago. These trees will also be available for sale to the public.
• Historic markers - The highway department is going to replace eleven of the markers at various locations throughout the county once they are refurbished.
• Community project - The county is working on a project in collaboration with community and employer partners to improve work-based learning and work shadowing. Department heads are looking for opportunities for high school student shadowing.
• Governor's proposed budget - The change in the percentage of fees to be retained by counties will be from 12.7 percent in office and 3.25 percent online to a flat 10.75 percent for all transactions. This has passed through the Senate and Assembly prior to budget adoption.
-Human Services Committee
• Veterans' transportation - $17,500 from community agencies was raised toward a van that has been purchased by the Disabled Veteran Service to be available for use in Yates County. The expected delivery is early fall. It will be owned by DAV and kept at the American Legion. This will complement the existing service that the Veteran's Services office offers to veterans that need transportation to medical appointments.
• Vietnam Veterans' Day Recognition - There will be a ceremony at the flag pole on March 29 at 10:00 a.m. This is a recognition of fifty years ago when the last combat troops were withdrawn from Vietnam.
-Public Works
• Highway building project - The six bids (sitework, demo/abatement, general construction, mechanical, plumbing/fire protection and electrical) on the project will be opened March 23. They will be presented to the public works committee at the April 3 meeting.
• New York State Department of Transportation - An engineering firm is conducting a study on NYS roads and slow-moving vehicles.