Jamestown Mayor Eddie Sundquist addresses City Council Finance Committee (June 12, 2023)

The City of Jamestown‘s annual audit is being delayed.

Jamestown Mayor Eddie Sundquist said former Comptroller Joe Bellitto has been helping get the revenue information completed for the audit, “We’re now finalizing and finishing up the expenditure side. However, when we spoke with (auditors) Drescher & Malecki, they are experiencing some staffing issues. And, so, they’re not able to get down here physically in terms of scheduling. And, so, they’re telling us that the audit is going to be delayed and they’d rather we do the audit knowing that we’re completely done with the revenues and expenditures rather than start the testing now.”

Sundquist said there will not be any penalties or fees the city will have to pay due to the delay.

Based on a grant report provided to City Council at its December 5, 2022 meeting, only three out of 13 grants received by the City on the list had gone through formal acceptance and authorization by City Council.

Two examples of grants received by the city that had not been formally accepted include a $25,000 grant from the Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Foundation toward improvements of the Johnson Street Playground and a $1.2 million State Environmental Protection Fund Local Waterfront Revitalization Project grant.

According to a staff report on a resolution to purchase new fencing for Johnson Street Park in the agenda for the June 12 City Council work session, the City has already used the grant from the Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Foundation to purchase a new swing set, benches, picnic tables, new hoop, signage, trash receptacles, and repave the basketball court. As of Sunday, June 11, the basketball court with new hoop has been completed, but other new equipment had not been installed.

According to the City Charter, under Article IV, C-31.F for Powers of the Mayor,

“When authorized by the City Council so to do, the Mayor shall execute on behalf of the City all deeds, contracts and other papers to be executed as an act of the City. All contracts, agreements, obligations or other instruments made, executed or issued by order of the City Council or at the direction of the boards provided by this Charter and in behalf of said City or boards shall be signed by the Mayor except as otherwise provided by the Local Finance Law.”

At the Finance Committee meeting on June 5, Corporation Counsel Elliot Raimondo made the comment that per the Mayor, City Council didn’t need to approve a $4,310 grant awarded by the Chautauqua County Partnership for Economic Growth. Finance Committee Chair and Council member at large Kim Ecklund disagreed with that opinion at the meeting.

In a statement by Ecklund, she said she had requested council be updated monthly at minimum about what grants the city has applied for, but that has not been happening on a regular basis.

Johnson Street Playground with newly paved basketball court (June 11, 2023)

She replied to a request for comment on this matter, saying Council should be approving the acceptance of all grants,  “.. just as we would any donation by a group or person. I have no idea why these have not been brought in front of us to do this and it should be corrected. In particular, I do remember speaking about the Johnson Street project at Parks Commission. We have not been aware of any reason why these would not come to a legislative body for approval. I honestly only asked for the grant list in March because of the ‘surprise’ FEMA Grant and had not received a copy again until today because I had to ask for it yet again. The bottom line is there is a lack of communication and honestly these grants and any other financial donation or in kind gift needs to come before the legislative body for acceptance and approval.”

Mayor Eddie Sundquist responded on the issue with a statement saying that, “For many of these grants, we may have been awarded them, but have not yet received a formal contract from the entity. In addition, some grants the City applies for on behalf of entities but the funding does not pass through the City. Many of the state grants, we may have been awarded but have not yet received a contract. ESD and some state agency grants require a pre-application resolution and in that resolution, it authorizes acceptance, if won.”

Council President Tony Dolce said he agreed that Council needs to formally vote to approve and accept the grants. He said in a statement that he had requested the City Clerk and Corporation Counsel bring forth resolutions to Council to approve those grants.

2023 Street Work Map

The City of Jamestown has announced its annual Streets Program for the 2023 construction season.

Jamestown Mayor Eddie Sundquist said the city has received an increase in aid for street repair, “So, there are several pots of money that go into this process. But, overall the city currently has about $3 million sitting in terms of rollover and and new aid that they’re able to use for street repair. We are now starting to say, ‘How do we expand that?’ We recently found out that we can also utilize that aid, as long as we’re doing a street, to reconstruct sidewalks, curbs, and other things. Something that we hadn’t done in the past.”

Sundquist said the plan focuses on the greatest areas of need for the City, and works to improve the City’s aging streets. He said several projects may be added to the list as the season progresses, depending on greater funding availability, as well as weather.

Projects are planned to be completed by the end of the summer or Fall season, depending on the weather, the flow of public funding, contractor availability and the changing price of materials.

View the list of street projects

View the more detailed map of projects

Good Jobs, Great Cities

The City of Jamestown is one of 16 cities nationwide to be selected to participate in the “Good Jobs, Great Cities” Academy.

Jamestown Mayor Eddie Sundquist said the program is through the U.S. Department of Labor and National League of Cities, “The grant in particular sends individuals from the Department of Labor to Jamestown to work with all of our workforce development partners on creating a pipeline for workforce development, that’s aiding our manufacturing, health care, construction, anything else in between.”

Sundquist said American Rescue Plan monies set aside by the city for workforce development will be used for this effort. He did not specify how much would be allocated.

He said there are currently over 300 manufacturers with over 2,000 unfilled advanced manufacturing jobs in the Jamestown area today.

The program will run through 2024.

The event will take place from 8:00 a.m. to noon. People interested in helping should meet on Tracy Plaza next to the Municipal Building at 200 East Third Street.

You can register in advance for the clean-up by visiting jamestownny.gov.

Jamestown Mayor Eddie Sundquist outlines bond proposal as Council President Tony Dolce listens (May 15, 2023)

The City of Jamestown is proposing to bond for $6.4 million in order to do a variety of building improvements and repairs.

Mayor Eddie Sundquist presented the initial bond proposal to City Council Monday, saying the projects were limited to just municipal facilities.

He said the list of projects is just a draft because he wants Council to discuss the proposal. Sundquist said $3.15 million would go toward improvements and repairs at City Hall, including a $1.8 million roof replacement and façade work, “We had hoped that the patching we did on the roof was going to hold. We are still seeing leaks within the building on that roof and so it’ll need to be replaced. As a reminder, the building opened up in 1971.”

Sundquist said security improvements and HVAC upgrades are also part of the project. He added that 17 windows need to be replaced for a cost of $350,000.

Council member Marie Carrubba suggested that the city should be considering replacing the current gold-filmed windows, which she says are not energy efficient, “When you talk about climate action, these (windows) are horrible. Go down to the second floor and half of the windows you can’t look out of. I don’t know if they’re on the list to be replaced, but I can’t even imagine. I haven’t counted all of the windows in this building. But, I almost feel like we’re throwing good money after bad to keep trying to get these windows, which are very hard to get, they’re very expensive, versus trying to begin a process of replacing these windows in a manageable fashion.”

Sundquist said it was something the city could look into.

The replacement of the Fenton Roof at a cost of $2 million is also included in the bond proposal. Sundquist said the historic mansion is owned by the City and needs a new rubber roof due to leaks that are impacting the Fenton History Center‘s collection. He added that the $2 million price tag may get reduced if the city is able to find grants for the project.

Other projects that would be funded under a proposed bond include $250,000 to fix the roof at 145 Steele Street and $500,000 for a new water line at Bergman Park.

Sundquist said $500,000 is also included as gap funding for the Fleet Maintenance Building on Washington Street. An information sheet said this funding is due to increased labor and material costs that could not be foreseen when the project was initially budgeted. Sundquist said the city has applied for a $1 million reimbursement from New York State.

He added that the city is able to “comfortably” borrow up to $12 million, “We’re very low on our actual debt right now as a city and so we wanted to confirm with them what we think we can borrow. The other thing I’ll point out is that we still have ARPA funds. I didn’t include it in here because I think it’s a discussion for everyone. There is still $1.7 million in ARPA funds that could be applied toward this should the council wish. That obviously for some further discussion which would lower that debt level.”

Council member at Large Kim Ecklund requested information on other bonds the city has in addition to how a $6.4 million bond would impact the city budget.

Tree on electric wires following storm (photo by Jamestown BPU – April 16, 2023)

Gusty winds and hard rain caused trees and branches to bring down some power lines around the area Sunday night.

The City of Jamestown put out a notice that there were some power outages in the Board of Public Utilities’ area. They cautioned that some discolored water was reported, but that is expected to clear by today.

National Grid had only a couple dozen residences in their area without power in Chautauqua County this morning after news reports said around 1500 lost power last night.

Former Deer Management Group member Tom Nelson addresses Jamestown City Council (April 10, 2023)

A former member of the Jamestown Deer Management Group is questioning what the City of Jamestown is doing in regards to the city’s deer population.

Former Council member and current County Legislator Tom Nelson questioned council members about what’s been done, what’s going to get done, and if a committee has been formed regarding deer in the city, “I know many times you get people coming to council meetings complaining they don’t have a solution. I think many of you know I put forward a solution in September of 2021 which was rejected by many members of this council. So, my question to you is, you didn’t like that plan, what is your plan?”

Council had voted down a proposal 2 to 7 at the September 2021 voting session that would have allowed 8 bow hunters to receive licenses with the two sites for hunting limited to Jones Memorial Park and the wooded area behind the Allen Park Ice Rink. This was the proposal suggested by Council member at large Jeff Russell to replace an initial proposal to allow 15 licensed hunters to take down up to 4 antler-less deer between November 1st and December 31st in five designated areas of Jamestown.

Mayor Eddie Sundquist said he still supports efforts to reduce the deer population in the city, “Typically, some kind of hunt.. that is the recommendation from the DEC (State Department of Environmental Conservation). Can’t do sterilization because it has to be tied to a university and program, and other methods are just way too expensive or not going to be allowed by the state. So, whatever you guys want to do, let me know. I remain steadfast in supporting reducing the deer population as a resident of Ward 6 who sees a lot of it, and now we’re hearing from Ward 5 and others.”

Councilmembers Randy Daversa, Andrew Faulkner, Russell, and Brent Sheldon had mentioned at the October 3, 2022 City Council work session that they had met with each other to discuss the issue, but no follow-up meetings were ever announced.

Council member at large Kim Ecklund said on Monday that whatever that work group moved forward with should be a multi-pronged approach, “When Andy Liuzzo was on council, he was adamant about a deer program and actually worked with the town of Ellicott to issue more permits. I never heard the result of that. We never got a ‘Did it work? Did it not work?’ But, living on the edge of the town, there are more deer. There’s a lot of reasons why there is more deer and you can ask many hunters. There’s less people hunting. There’s more posted property for people to not be able to hunt on.”

At the October 2022 meeting, Council member Marie Carrubba said the deer group should include not just city council members but an attorney, people in favor of a hunt, as well as people with other options for handling the deer population.

Vehicles should park only on the odd-numbered side of the street during odd-numbered months and only on the even-numbered side of the street during even-numbered months.

Vehicles should be moved at 10 a.m. on the first day of each month.

The rule will remain in effect until the end of September.

The City of Jamestown, the Chautauqua County Chamber of Commerce, and Collaborative Children’s Solutions are hosting the free event along the Riverwalk in Brooklyn Square.

Kids activities will begin at 10:00 a.m., featuring games, tie dye, face painting, and more.

At 11:00 a.m., Jamestown’s own Lucky Leprechaun will Turn the River Green.

Kids activities will continue until noon with a Downtown Scavenger Hunt taking place from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Entry forms will be available at the river event.