Fulton Council Hits the Brakes on Sharp’s Pond

by Contributor | May 30, 2019 9:11 am

by Randy Pellis

FULTON, May 29, 2019 — Having heard the uproar of public outcry, the Fulton Common Council will reconsider their decision to demolish the dam at Sharp’s Pond after an engineering study determines what it would cost to save it.

A resolution ordering that study will be presented at the upcoming council meeting, Tuesday, June 4.

Originally thought to cost $1 million to fix the dam versus $150,000 to demolish it, the council voted at their May 21 meeting to demolish and thereby reduce the 100-plus- year-old Sharp’s Pond to its original free-flowing creek. At a public meeting Tuesday evening, attended by all six councilors, the mayor, the Commissioner of Public Works, a county legislator, a number of mayoral and council candidates, and other members of the public, no one was able to say where the $1 million figure came from.

“I made a bad vote,” said Fifth Ward Councilor Tom Kenyon of his May 21 vote in favor of demolition. “But I was looking at just dollars. I looked at $150,000 to take it down, and I don’t see where we had anybody quote us a million dollars to fix it. I don’t see it. But, I wasn’t thinking to ask to see it. So, I put $150,000 over here and I’m saying ‘Oh, it’s going to take us a million dollars to fix it.” So, that was my vote, and I should have voted the other way.”

That pretty much summed up the rationale behind the entire council’s unanimous vote to demolish the dam. The realization their vote was based on unsubstantiated information led them to call for the information they truly need to make an informed decision. Depending on the results of the engineering study that will provide that information, the council’s May 21 resolution may be rescinded, giving way to a call that it was said is coming from the community and grew in intensity throughout the meeting: save the pond.

During the course of the evening, the history of the pond, the dam, its maintenance, the intentions of common councils over the past 44 years, and more recently, the past 11, especially in relation to the DEC (state Department of Environmental Conservation), and the costs involved were all in contention, though well-laid out by Commissioner of Public Works Charles J. (C.J.) Smith.

After inspecting the dam a number of times over the last 11 years, failing it, requesting information from the city, and being ignored and stalled, the DEC finally gave the city two options in a June 2017 letter: either fix the dam or demolish it.

“They gave us two options in that letter,” C.J. Smith explained. “It’s either reconstruction or rehabilitation. If we were to go forward and put a new dam in, that’s reconstruction.
It’s beyond rehabilitation. That dam is circa 1890, early 1900s. It’s beyond rehab. It

needs full reconstruction. In doing that, you still have to deconstruct the dam that currently exists.

“What we’ve voted on in the last two-and-a-half years is decommissioning the dam. Any meeting we’ve had concerning Sharp’s Pond has been talk of decommissioning the dam.

“My thought process (on this) is, this has been around since 1900. Throughout those years, Fulton has been way better off financially, and we have not maintained (the dam) to the level it should have been. In recent years, it’s never been inspected where it was said, ‘Oh, that’s in good shape.’ So, we’ve been a lot better off monetarily over the past 50, 60 years and we haven’t found the way to maintain it. So, my thought process is, we’re in worse financial condition now than we ever were before, how do we expect that we’re going to be able to maintain it now moving forward after it’s rebuilt?”

The complete reconstruction of the dam will be a very involved regulatory process, according to Smith.

“This isn’t just throw a couple guys in the water, throw some concrete blocks up and mortar. This is permitting that’s involved through New York State DEC Fisheries, New York State DEC Section 10 Rivers and Harbors permitting, New York State DEC Dam Safety, and on a federal level, the Army Corps of Engineers, that’s assuming that it’s under a Section 404 nationwide permit. So you have to go through and get all these permittings from every regulatory agency just to do any work on this.

“I’m in a position where I have to act on regulatory agencies on a daily basis,” Smith said, “and throughout discussions leading up to today, it has been the decommissioning of Sharp’s Pond dam. So, I’m reacting to what we’ve decided and going forward with it, and saying I’ve got to get this, this, this, this permitting, this done, the engineers have to do this, this, and this. So, that’s what I’ve been doing in the last two years acting on it.
And so then today, we’re at a point now where we’re talking about having a public discussion about it, and I get your concerns. And I’m not the sole driver of ‘No way, nope, we’re not rebuilding the dam, we’re deconstructing it, we’re making a creek.’ That’s not where I’m at. This was a group decision at the time, and that’s what was decided on. It’s completely up to the Common Council and the mayor.”

Over the past two years Smith has been working with an engineering consulting firm, at a cost of $56,000, toward demolishing the dam and re-creating “a naturally-flowing continuation of the creek.”

The total cost to demolish and re-create came as a surprise to a council that expected to hear a price tag of $150,000.

Using city workers would be “the most cost-effective way of doing it,” said Smith. “It would be about $250,000 all together to remove (the dam and re-create the creek).”

Hearing this, Second Ward Councilor Dave Ritchie reacted, “We went from $150,000 to $250,000 already.”

A portion of a 2017 bond was meant for demolition of various city properties, Smith explained. It was not specific, but part of it was intended for Sharp’s Pond.

“At that time,” he said, “Nestle’s demolition was the priority. So, this took a back seat at that time. Since then, I have not had the money to move forward for the project. So, that’s why last week we bonded for additional money for it. In 2017, it was intended that we were going to be in the neighborhood of $250,000 for Sharp’s Pond. Then some of that money was utilized. Now we needed more money to actually do the project. That’s what you bonded for last week was the $150,000.”

The history of the city’s maintenance of the dam and its dealings with the DEC appear to be little-known by the general public, and the council’s seemingly sudden vote to demolish the dam, though discussions of it have actually gone on for years, seemed to many in the community to be overly hasty.
Fifth Ward candidate for Common Council, Audrey Avery expressed that view. “What is the urgency in this (demolition) being done by the end of the year?,” she
asked. “It’s been there for how long? What is the urgency right now? Why can’t we wait, let our council rescind the resolution to destruct and wait for the next administration to take care of it? I mean, there’s no urgency. There’s no urgency. That’s what we want.
That’s why we’re here. I’m not speaking for myself. There’s hundreds of people in the city that are disgusted. This should not have happened. We should not have voted yes just to vote yes. Let’s save it. Mayor really, we want to save it.”

Councilor Ritchie then added this bit of history he’d found in old newspaper clippings:

“It was 1975 when they blew it up to rebuild it,” he said. “One of the reasons they did that was to preserve it because it was supposed to be a historical site. So why do you want to ruin a historical site already?”

Audrey Avery responded, “Right. We don’t want to do this. Why did you all vote yes then? We don’t understand. That’s why we’re here.”

C.J. Smith jumped in. “I’m not looking to act on this by the end of the week,” he said. “I was looking to act on it two years ago when I had four constructive meetings about this with the councilors and the mayor.”

Again, Councilor Ritchie: “This started in 2010 when it was supposed to be inspected. I wasn’t here then.”

Fifth Ward Councilor Dennis Merlino then responded, “That’s the exact question we’re addressing. Why wasn’t this done then? Why wasn’t this done then? As a councilor, I

hear that question more than any other: why wasn’t it done then? That’s why we’re doing it now.”

Audrey Avery: “It’s natural beauty. It’s something that people want. We don’t want it destroyed. We should be fighting for it.”

Councilor Merlino: “We don’t want it destroyed. We want this incarnation of a fishing stream, a safe fishing stream that our kids can enjoy. You go there now, it’s an atrocity.”

Audrey Avery: “Because we let it deteriorate. When you let things deteriorate, that’s what happens.”

In case you can’t tell, by this time, emotions were heating up rapidly. Yet, a movement to rebuild the dam seemed to be growing throughout the room.

Fourth Ward Councilor Sam Vono summarized that feeling well and was first to initiate an actual community-wide action plan.

“What I’m hearing from the residents,” he said, “is to restore or rebuild but not lose it. So, that being said, why can’t there be some sort of a movement that says, ‘Save the pond.’? Get everybody in Fulton on board with this. Get businesses on board with this.”

Councilor Merlino voiced his support. “If it’s a historical site, and we can get the private money, I’m all in,” he said.

Councilor Vono added, “The Fulton Historical Society is well-aware of what’s going on and is interested in helping with this project.

“And I still think,” he went on, “regardless of what’s happened before, it’s all water over the dam. You’re wasting time. Just get to the point. Do we want to restore or not? Do we want to get a movement that says, ‘Save the pond’?”

Councilor Merlino urged this decision be slowed down.

“I would like to delay the decision,” he said. “I want to do every bit of research before changing the plan. We have two months until we have to revisit this vote. The bonds don’t go out until the end of July. So, a decision doesn’t have to be made until we’re about to bond for the work. We have two months to find out is it (the pond) on the registry (of historic places), is the public interest there, are we going to get private investment, do we have grants available, what kind of money can we get before we do that? So, we make this vote right now to take the whole project off the table, then that leaves us in complete limbo. We can continue this process, getting more information along the way, and then make a decision after we found out. I’m all for saving it if we can.”

Finally, Mayor Ron Woodward seemed to have had enough of the back and forth. “Do you want to restore it or not?” he asked and polled the council.

The desire to restore the dam was unanimous. With that, Councilor Ritchie threw a $100 bill onto the table as the first donation to the “Save Sharp’s Pond” fund.

The mayor again took charge of the meeting.

“We need the council to authorize C.J. or somebody to get an engineer in here to do a study and say what it’s going to cost to rehab it,” he said. “I’d like to do a resolution on that.”

It was then agreed such a resolution would be presented at the June 4 meeting of the Common Council.

County Legislator Frank Castiglia recommended the mayor name a commission to save the pond and voiced his support for the bonding reconstruction of the dam would require.

“The city is in an uproar about this,” he said. “At some point in time, you have to not look at dollars and cents. I’ve always been against bonding for equipment. The thing that I agreed with you on bonding for was the Nestle site because it was going to give you a return on your dollar. You bond for this pond, you bond for this dam, you’re building on something that’s going to give you a return on your dollar, because I can guarantee you, if people come to this city, and we’re doing everything we can to bring people into this city, and they come and they see what they have, and what you have for recreation and something for them to take their kids and learn how to fish in, something to walk around, a trail to walk around for exercise, they’re going to want to come here and live here.”

C.J. Smith ended with these words of caution: “Moving forward,” he said, “if you reconstruct the dam, we have to be better at maintaining it. We have to allocate x amount of dollars in those years for the maintenance that’s needed. So, when it comes to budget time and we’re like ‘how are we going to dwindle this budget down?’, we can’t just say ‘let it go’ because we’ll be in the same position we are right now.”

Lastly, mayoral candidate Deanna Michaels wanted it to be clear for all to understand just what the council had decided that night.

“The vote is not to save it (the dam),” she said. “The vote is to look into the cost that it would take to save it.”

All agreed and the meeting was adjourned.

Audrey Avery was named treasurer of the newly-founded “Save Sharp’s Pond” fund and will be accepting donations. Donations can be sent to her at 204 South Fourth Street,

Fulton, NY 13069. She can be reached by email at [email protected] or by phone at 315-345-0482.

Source URL: https://oswegocountytoday.com/news/fulton/fulton-council-hits-the-brakes-on-sharps-pond/

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