Prior to taking office as the new mayor of Jamestown, Eddie Sundquist was one of several individuals who addressed the Jamestown City Council during its Nov. 25 voting session. Sundquist said he was simply making a request that the council table the annexation resolution until after the new year when he and a new council take office.

FALCONER – Jamestown Mayor Eddie Sundquist recently joined officials from Falconer in meeting with County Executive PJ Wendel and State Senator George Borrello to discuss the potential annexation of the Board of Public Utilities Dow Street Substation property in Falconer.

According to the Jamestown Post-Journal, Falconer Central School District superintendent Stephen Penhollow commented on the meeting during Tuesday night’s Falconer School Board meeting. Pennhollow said the group met on Monday to have a general conversation about the annexation – which would involve the substation property being annexed into the city of Jamestown. If that were to happen, the village of Falconer, Falconer School District and Town of Ellicott would all lose tax revenue from the property.

“We started conversations, which is something that we asked for when we attended the November city council meeting to look at areas of conversations versus litigation,” the paper quotes Penhollow as saying. “I feel confident that conversation will be had. We will make every effort possible to listen to what the city and the BPU have to say.”

Sundquist did not mention the meeting when during the public portion of Monday night’s Jamestown City Council work session, although he and the council did go into executive session to discuss several matters, including litigation. Executive sessions are not open to the public and as a result the specific details of what was discussed is not made public.

The annexation effort already stalled out once when the Jamestown City Council voted in favor of annexation in the summer of 2017, only to have it challenged by Ellicott and Falconer in the state supreme court appellate division. The court eventually ruled against Jamestown on a technicality, claiming the city failed to file paperwork for the case in a timely fashion.

On Nov. 25, 2019, the city council again voted to pursue annexation and a public hearing on the matter took place on Dec. 30. However, the city council has to yet to formally vote again on whether or not to annex the property and its not known if or when that will occur.

Former Jamestown Mayor Sam Teresi was in favor of the annexation, saying it was in the best public interest of the entire BPU service area. Falconer and Ellicott officials disagree and have said it is nothing more than an attempt by the city to shift revenue away from the affected municipalities.

Sundquist, who was sworn into office just a week ago, has said in the past that he has reservations about proceeding with the annexation without first sitting down and meeting with the other parties involved to see if a more amicable solution can be found.

FALCONER – The Falconer School Board has selected the resident who will fill a recently vacated seat.

Falconer resident Tracy Schrader will serve as the interim-board member for the remainder of the school year, ending in June. She will fill an empty position that was vacated early November.

Schrader was selected from three candidates who expressed interest in filling the seat. The board met with each of the candidates earlier this week and selected Schrader following an executive session.

She will be officially appointed to the Board and sworn in at the Dec. 18 regular meeting.

During Tuesday’s board meeting, board members and other school officials heard from the three women interested in filling the seat vacated last month by former Falconer board member Jennifer Olsen.

The three board prospects are Tracy Schrader, Laurie Reynolds and Marcella Centi. Each had submitted letters of interest for the open seat. Each candidate has some background in education and are residents of Falconer.

The school board will consider the candidates and open one of them to fill the open seat during the December or January board meeting. Once the seat is filled, that person will then serve until the next school board election in May.

Also during Tuesday’s meeting the school board approved the merger of Boys Varsity Football with Cassadaga Valley Central School for next year.

A map depicting the BPU substation property (in red) that sits adjacent to the border between Jamestown and Village of Falconer/Town of Ellicott.

JAMESTOWN – The cost of the Annexation issue between the city of Jamestown and town of Ellicott, Village of Falconer and Falconer School District is costing taxpayers and local utility customers more than $450,000.

At issue is the city’s effort to annex a piece of property owned by the city, the Jamestown Board of Public Utilities Dow Street Substation, which sits in Falconer near the city line. The city claims it is in the public’s best interest to have the property annexed into the city, while the neighboring municipalities and school district claim it is simply a money grab for the city in an effort to avoid paying taxes on the property. The matter is currently awaiting a review and ruling from the State Supreme Court Appellate Division, Fourth Department in Rochester.

On Monday the BPU increased the amount of money it will likely spend on legal fees in the annexation case by $110,000 – bringing the new total for the city’s share to $280,000.

WRFA has since reached out to the Village of Falconer, Town of Ellicott, and Falconer School District to learn how much each of those three municipalities have spent.

Falconer School District superintendent Steve Penhollow tells us the district has committed $112,930 to this point.

According to Ellicott Town Clerk Mike Elrlandson, the town has spent $12,060 to date on the annexation.

Meanwhile, Falconer village clerk Anna Fales says village has spent $51,997.34 through the end of may, though additional costs are expected once the village is billed for the months of June, July and August.

Combined with what Jamestown has committed through money from the BPU electric Division, the total amount in legal fees spent on the annexation issue is $457,000, with more expected to be spent before the process is over.

More than 200 people were on hand for a joint public hearing on the proposed annexation of the BPU’s Dow Street Substation Property. The hearing was held at Falconer Central School Monday night, June 12, 2017.

The city has retained the law firm Bond, Schoeneck, and King as its outside council. The side fighting the annexation has retained the law firm Harris Beach PLLC.  The law firms were not only brought in to help prepare for a June 2017 Public Hearing on the matter, but have also been retained to assist with the matter as it proceeds through the court process.

SAVINGS FOR BPU, LOST REVENUE FOR CITY’S NEIGHBORS ON THE LINE

While some argue the ever-increasing legal fees connected to the case is an exorbitant amount, even more money is on the line when it comes to the possible outcome of the annexation.

According to a 2017 report from the Post-Journal, of the $322,090 the BPU paid in annual property taxes, $153,852 went to the Falconer School District; $68,789 went Falconer; $67,217 went to the county; and $32,232 went to Ellicott. The totals are all less than 1 percent of the total operating budget for each, except for the village of Falconer, where the total BPU tax payment comprises just over 5 percent of the total revenue for the village’s operating budget.

If the Appellate Court were to rule in favor of the annexation proceeding, the BPU would save around $160,000 a year because it would no longer be making property tax payments, with the city and the Jamestown School District receiving a tax equivalency payments of around $80,000.  Over the next decade, the BPU would save more than $1.6 million. The city of Jamestown and Jamestown School District would also see an additional $800,000 each over the next decade.

Meanwhile, the Falconer School District would be the biggest loser, with over $1.54 million lost over 10 years. The village of Falconer also stands to lose an estimated $688,000 over the same time period and Ellicott would lose $323,000.  That lost revenue would have to be made up for through cuts in local services and/or increased taxes for the local property owners.

AN OUTCOME TWO YEARS IN THE MAKING

It was in January 2017 when it was first announced the BPU would be looking into the annexation and the Jamestown City Council unanimously voted to annex the property in August 2017.

In early September 2017 the Falconer Village Board voted against the annexation and the Ellicott Town Board did the same. As a result, the matter has to be settled in state appellate court.

The court in Rochester has yet to set a date for when oral arguments in the case will take place, but Jamestown Mayor Sam Teresi said Monday night that things are moving forward with preliminary meetings and a hearing schedule for September and October. All that will be in preparation for oral arguments before the Rochester-based appellate court, likely in November.  After that, the decision from the Appellate Court could come by the end of this year or in early 2019, two years after the process got underway.

In addition to all budgets passing, all of the other propositions that appeared on the ballots for each respective district were also approved, with the only exception being a proposition in the Pine Valley School District to reduce the seats on the board of education. That proposition was defeated with 125 “no” votes to 71 “yes” votes.

• VIEW UNOFFICIAL RESULTS FOR EACH DISTRICT

JAMESTOWN VOTERS APPROVE BUDGET, SCHNARS RETURNS TO SCHOOL BOARD

In Jamestown, voters approved an $85 million budget by a vote of 504 to 106. That spending plan included no tax increase and also had no layoffs or staff reductions.

In the school board election race, incumbents Paul Abbott and Shelly Leathers won reelection. The third seat will go to Christine Schnars, who was previously on the school board for several years, up until June 2012 when she failed to receive enough votes in that year’s elections. Incumbent Tom Pope chose not to run for reelection this year.

JPS VOTE TALLY

• *Paul Abbott:  459
• *Rachelle “Shelly” Leathers: 376
• Christine Schnars: 343
• Frank Galeazzo:  249
• Fannell Leeper:  247
  * Notes Incumbent

The district’s bus proposition also was approved.

In the other local school board races that featured contested ballots, Jennifer Olson and Tom Frederes were the two top vote-getters in the Falconer School District, were two seats were up for election.  And in the Chautauqua Lake School District, which had three seats up for a vote, the top vote getters were Mary Lee Talbot, Jay Baker, and Deborah Cross-Fuller.