River Area Visioning Economic Summit
Author: mdietrich
LED Lighting Meeting
On January 29, 2020, there was an update given to the 16 municipalities that are looking into going with the New York Power Authority for their street light conversion to LEDs. An update of the project was given by Kevin Luteran (NY Power Authority), Ilya Kholodenko (NY Power Authority), and Kurt Blemel (Wendel Consulting). Currently, the goal is to have the 90% design done by April for review and for construction to start July 2020.
The group of 16 municipalities received about $291,000 through a grant with the NYS Department of State Local Government Efficiency Grant program. This grant was for smart controls on the LED street lighting. The group of 16 municipalities are the towns of Adams, Champion, Denmark, Lyme, Martinsburg, Wilna, and the village of Adams, Carthage, Castorland, Copenhagen, Croghan, Deferiet, Lowville, Lyons Falls, Sackets Harbor, and West Carthage.
Community Choice Aggregation Workshop
On January 21, 2020, RACOG, along with the NYS Tug Hill Commission, sponsored a Community Choice Aggregation Workshop. Javier Barrios (Good Energy), Louise Gava (MEGA), and Mike Gordon (Joules Assets) were all presenters on that panel.
UPDATE – At the last RACOG board meeting on February 19, 2020, the board approved to have all three organizations present again at a future date.
Complete Street Projects Underway
On January 16, 2020, Janet Zando, mayor of the village of Deferiet and Mickey Dietrich, River Area Council of Governments Municipal Management Consultant, made a trip out to the Jefferson Lewis BOCES Charles H. Bohlen Jr Technical Center. They had the opportunity to see one of the metal benches that are being constructed by BOCES students as part of the complete street projects for Deferiet.
Three RACOG member communities have adopted the Complete Street Policy, which promotes walkable community concepts. The villages of Carthage, Copenhagen, and Deferiet have all adopted this policy. These communities were able to access grant funding for projects like bike racks, benches, picnic tables, kiosks, boardwalks, etc. They decided to partner with BOCES to have the students at the Charles H. Bohlen Jr Technical Center and the Howard G. Sacketts Technical Center construct the projects.