Patrick Remains Fulton Council President for 2019

FULTON, NY – The Fulton Common Council met for its first meeting of 2019 on Tuesday (Jan 8.)

Third Ward councilor and council president throughout 2018, Donald Patrick Jr. was nominated and unanimously approved by fellow councilors to serve as council president for a second year.

“I’m very happy to continue in this role, I really enjoy it. I think we’ve done a lot of good together as a council, we work well together. I’m at (City Hall) mostly all day every day, I treat this as a full-time job and it’s my duty as president to keep others informed and on track. It wouldn’t have changed, I’d still be doing what I do every day, but I am very pleased to continue as president,” Patrick said.

He noted that city officials laid a lot of groundwork in 2018 to continue building upon in 2019.

Specifically, he is excited to see to fruition the development of the city’s first splash park – an idea initially erected from Patrick himself.

He will remain focused on work aimed at improving neighborhoods and keeping lines of communication between constituents and city officials open through the means of quarterly ward meetings.

A new goal, however, Patrick intends to work with the common council and city department heads to develop a “five-year plan.”

“We’re going to start putting together a five year plan for the city. I’m going to see what everyone’s priorities are and put together a plan that’s not day-by-day. For too many years I see us living day-by-day, we need to really focus and look ahead. We need to know what we’re going to do and how we’re going to pay for it,” he said.

Mayor Ronald Woodward Sr. has his sights set on continued goals for 2019 as well.

“There’s a lot of things I look forward to. I look forward to rehabbing houses, putting them back on the rolls and bringing new families to Fulton. I look forward to the trail grant. I look forward to the challenges we have ahead like trying to do something with the roads, we’ve got to figure out how to pay for them. We do get CHIPS funding each year, but that doesn’t go far. With the Nestle site finishing clean up, I look forward to redeveloping that site. I’ll be bringing in retired long-time Nestle employees because we saved one building at Nestle and we’re going to make it a museum, I think that will be good for Fulton and good for tourism. And of course, it’s election year, so we have to see what will happen,” he said.

Woodward did confirm he has undoubted plans to run for re-election in 2019.

In other business:

The common council amended city code to allow the official city newspaper to operate its business outside of city limits after the Valley News moved its office to Oswego.

Despite Oswego County Today being a locally owned news publication with a primary business location within city limits, New York State law restricted the city’s option to utilize OCT as the official city newspaper.

The Valley News will continue to serve as the city’s official newspaper for the duration of 2019.

DOT Publishing, Inc. was awarded a $15,000 contract to assist in the city’s publicity.

A resolution to adjust the city’s tax levy was approved after an error in the city’s taxable value was noticed.

“We’re going to take some money from capital projects that are closed with remaining money, transfer it to debt service to pay debt service to make up the difference of what happened,” city clerk/chamberlain Dan O’Brien said.

The tax rate, however, will remain unchanged.

Mayor Woodward also received approval to sign Supplemental Agreement #4 with New York State Department of Transportation in regards to additional funding for the rehabilitation of the North Sixth Street bridge.

Several routine yearly contractual agreements and administrative tasks were approved as can be found on the meeting’s agenda, posted on the city website.

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