Cortland Standard .net

By TYRONE L. HEPPARD
Staff Reporter
theppard@cortlandstandardnews.net
HOMER — The village offices will not be returning to the Town Hall.
The Village Board of Trustees made its final decision during a regular meeting Tuesday evening and it comes at a time when the Homer Town Board was considering spending approximately $5,300 to conduct testing for mold.
The topic was not listed on the agenda for Tuesday’s meeting, but Mayor Genevieve Suits said this morning that newly-elected Trustee Gene Smith raised the issue and introduced a motion against moving back into the Town Hall.
Suits said the board approved by a 3-1 vote a proposal not to move back into the building, with Trustee Kevin Slack opposing the motion.
Both Slack and Smith were unavailable for comment by press time this morning.
Suits said she did not vote, but got the sense from the trustees that after years of considering its options, now was the appropriate time to put the issue to rest.
“We needed to deal with this,” Suits said. “It’s been on the agenda for a long time. This was the board moving forward.”
The village has been debating whether to return to the Town Hall since it left in October 2010 after five village employees complained of adverse health effects from the air in the building.
Town employees continued to work in the building with no reported ill effects.
Since then, the building has been tested three times. Both Polkville-based Microbac and the state Public Employee Safety and Health Bureau, or PESH, tested the building for carbon monoxide in November 2010 and last March, respectively.
The state Department of Health also conducted testing at the request of the Cortland County Health Department shortly after the village first moved out in October 2010.
In addition, the town has spent around $1.2 million in renovating and upgrading the Town Hall, including replacing the building’s furnace and upgrading its heating system, though the project was unrelated to environmental concerns.
Last month, the town and the village held a special joint meeting when it was suggested the town conduct another round of environmental testing at a cost of $5,300 according to estimates from Syracuse-based engineering firm O’Brien & Gere.
Homer Town Supervisor Fred Forbes said Wednesday evening that Suits called to inform him of the village’s decision afterward and the vote did not come as a surprise.
“I think it’s what the town board expected them (the village) to do,” Forbes said. “I think that’s why the Town Board was reluctant to invest in another test.”
The town never wanted to force village officials to do anything they were not comfortable with, Forbes said, adding more renovations to the Town Hall had been discussed in the past and is likely an option the town will continue to explore.
Continuing to look for tenants to occupy the space is another option, Forbes added.
“Obviously the board can go ahead and choose to do some remodeling and making the space available for some other tenants,” Forbes said. “I don’t know what the future is for the town as far as moving forward. That’s a board decision.”
Village Clerk Lou Anne Randall said this morning the village has $272,000 set aside in its reserves for expanding the village building where its offices are located next to the Homer Fire Department or to build new offices all together.
Suits said Smith suggested building on the basketball courts behind the current offices, adding building on property the village already owns and preserving its tax base seems like the best alternative, but every option will be considered.
“It’s all on the table,” Suits said. “We have to decide what we want to do. I’m sure there will be lots of discussion on this.”