To The Editor:
Thursday night (2/18) in the city of Fulton the mayor of Fulton along with the Greater Oswego/Fulton Chamber of Commerce hosted a roundtable meeting about economic development in the city of Fulton.
The members of the Fulton Common Council along with the mayor, Joe Fiumara (Fulton CDA-Community Development Agency), and Greg Mills (host, Greater Oswego/Fulton Chamber of Commerce) were all at the head table.
In attendance in the audience was an assembly of approximately 20 people of the community along with several business owners.
Topics ranged from development of the old 24-acre Nestles’ site and the dredging of the lake to community events and plans for the sale of city-owned property acquired through tax foreclosure.
Upon scanning those in attendance, I couldn’t help but notice the absence of anyone from the Oswego County IDA (the nine members of the Industrial Development Agency), any of the seven member Oswego County legislature’s EDP (Economic Development & Planning Committee), or any of the eight members of the Economic Development & Poverty Reduction Task Force.
It is common practice to have the committee chairman or department head attend these events.
Although I asked to be on the EDP Committee again this year I was not granted that request (maybe I asked the wrong people too many questions).
It is almost impossible to obtain economic development without the presence of industrial development that is why it is imperative that a representative or representatives from the IDA or County EDP committee be sent to any and all round table discussions about economic development.
All of these absences represent the fact that the city of Fulton is furthest from the minds of anyone (other than myself) at the county level for economic development in the city of Fulton.
Maybe there wasn’t any mileage reimbursement money to be had by members of the task force.
Now maybe all 24 members of these committees were out of town or were ill.
We pay county taxes and we deserved to have some type of representation from a member or members of one or more of these committees at an economic roundtable discussion.
Legislator Frank Castiglia
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I laughed when I read they were trying to make Fulton more business friendly, what a joke!
All of a sudden the Mayor who has been running the city off and on for years, wakes up and says where has all the businesses gone? So lets all hold hands, close our eyes and hope they come back!
Fulton needs to consolidate and get rid of these people that are wasting taxpayers money and their time! When the books are finally open and people read what is going on it will be too late.
I thought it was funny when they were telling people about the new houses that were built on City property…that happened last decade and then for the fourth year now “Development of the Nestles site and dredging of the lake” what a joke…the best was when a common councilor at an economic round table meeting brought up cleaning out fire hydrants…that goes to show you they don’t have a clue where they are or what they have to do….so sad …..
When the power is shut off at the Fitz Plant and the high salary payroll stops, I see a tidal wave hitting the county with business failures, payrolls missed, defaults on pensions (local) and huge property taxes for everyone which will start the crash all over again. Shouldn’t we be preparing ourselves for that day instead of having meaningless show off meetings?
mr tt custer hiding behind your screen name the fire hydrant cleanout was added as a side comment by myself when talking about taking care of your property as part of community pride. as usual the normal hiding behind a keyboard instead of trying to be a part of helping our city.
and yes frank you are 100% correct about the absence of those committees, just a reason I will not support the county trying to run our city business because they have no interest.
Not to agree or disagree but I have a hard time figuring out how in hell cleaning out a fire-hydrant works into a round table discussion about economics. If it does in your mind Mr. Patrick how much did my taxes go down because of it? Public safety Yes but nothing to do with Economics ….I do agree with you and Mr. Castiglia about the lack of representation from the county at the meeting but as far as reducing our Gvt. and merging with either the Town of Volney or the county I agree with.