Frank Castiglia Jr.: Finally, An Answer

by Contributor | August 5, 2021 8:52 am

To the Editor,

Finally !
Two months of waiting and asking for a second time the answer finally comes.
At the June Common Council meeting I asked the Mayor of Fulton about the $1.25 million dollars that the City was about to receive and why and what she had planned to do with that money.
In an open forum the Mayor finally admitted that the City has been awarded $1.25 million dollars, and that there were designated areas that the monies could be spent.
At the June meeting I did say that I knew there were restrictions. At that meeting I requested that a committee be formed to seek both Grant money to supplement the awarded monies and see where best to spend the money.
At Tuesday’s meeting I requested that the money not be spent on Trees like Syracuse was doing and also not to waste any on more jackhammering of concrete down at the Nestle site.
I would suggest that the City look into more Grants for infrastructure couple them with some of the $1.25 million and do sidewalk and curb work throughout the entire city. There is going to be more money coming from the Federal Govt. and there are State grants also. Our city sidewalks and curbs are in deplorable shape. A project like that would last at least 10 to 15 years. Well worth the money.
The Mayor had suggested spending monies on electronic signage instead of asking the State to use theirs during the time we are doing road work. That type of equipment would last maybe 2 or 3 yrs. Everyone remembers the signage we use to have over at the War Memorial telling of different events. Well where is that now. It lasted maybe 3 yrs. Not a good spending of money. There maybe a grant out there to buy one of those but not with any of the $1.25 million.
The Mayor kept saying on Tuesday that she didn’t want to rush into spending the money. I never said we had to rush into anything I did say a committee had to be formed to choose what and when the money was to be spent on. Not a pet project but one that will benefit the whole city.
I also made mention again to the Mayor about getting out of the Sales Tax agreement with the County. It is time and I made a suggestion that we should be looking into getting all the sales tax money from sales in the 13069 zip code. I told her that the County is getting between 2 and 3 million sales tax dollars above the $6.1 Million we receive thru the sales tax agreement, that should be coming to the City.
We need the money.
We will see what happens now that the word is out.

Frank Castiglia Jr.

Source URL: https://oswegocountytoday.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/frank-castiglia-jr-finally-an-answer/

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