County Supervisors Again Argue Over Proposal for Jail Site

SCHOHARIE COUNTY - A proposal to replace the former Schoharie County Jail with an apartment building has proven to be a persistent point of contention among some county Supervisors.

At the Friday, April 17 county Board of Supervisors meeting, Supervisors William Smith of Broome and Donald Airey of Blenheim again went back and forth, with Smith arguing it doesn't make sense to put an apartment building on a site that was flooded by Hurricane Irene in 2011. The old county jail at 157 Depot Lane in the Village of Schoharie has been unusable since and the Jail was relocated.

Rehabilitation Support Services has an agreement to buy the property from the county, and through its development consultant CSD Housing has proposed a three-story 60-unit apartment building for the site that is under consideration by the village's Planning Board.

At the April 17 BOS meeting, Smith read from a 2014 letter from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and 2016 letter from the county Flood Recovery Coordinator to support his case.

"It is also important to keep in mind that no matter how high you raised the jail, or whether or not you install floodgates, the structure would still be an 'island' surrounded by a sea of water during the event of a flood," read the 2016 letter from the flood recovery coordinator.

The FEMA letter from 2014 states that "I am concerned that rebuilding the facility (jail) in the same location exposes the county to potential future damage due to severe storms and flooding. I am also concerned that a future flood could have a larger impact on the county's emergency preparedness as the county would have to evacuate all inmates and interrupt their emergency operations."

While Smith continues to assert that constructing an apartment building on the site would not be safe, Airey counters that the matter has been thoroughly researched and discussed and there is a sound plan to lift the new apartment building out of the flood plain.

"We should not be putting the public in harm's way," Smith said at the April 17 BOS meeting. "It does not make sense to me to build apartments in a place that would put people in a dangerous situation."

Airey responded "I don't think I will debate this issue endlessly at every meeting. This decision was not reached in five minutes. I get it, you don't want this project. (But) we have a sales agreement and a contract to redevelop that site. There is a plan before the village Planning Board that includes mitigation."

County BOS Chairman Bill Federice joined in the argument briefly to tell Smith he was "getting repetitious."

When Smith responded that he has a right to speak, Federice agreed.

Supervisor Philip Skowfoe of Fulton reiterated his point that he did not support the apartments proposal and felt the Depot Lane property could have been utilized in some fashion by the county Department of Public Works.

In other actions from the April 17 meeting, the BOS approved a resolution entering into a PILOT (Payment in Lieu of Taxes) agreement between the county, the Town of Blenheim and the Power Authority of the State of New York for a 15.48-acre residential parcel in Blenheim known as 102 Avenue of the Stars.

Also approved was a resolution authorizing the county Treasurer to create a reserve account from money the county receives from a settlement with the e-cigarette maker JUUL. The county is scheduled to receive a total of $255,547 to be paid in eight equal installments. It received $95,830 last year which equals the first three distribution amounts, and the remaining five payments will be distributed annually over the next five years.

The approved resolution states that the county Health Department "will oversee the use of these funds for e-cigarette treatment, recovery, and enforcement efforts through Preventing Youth and Young Adults from initiating vaping; supporting community, school, college and university based anti-vaping programs; helping people quit vaping; enforcing vaping laws and regulations; and research and surveillance."