Ways and Means Committee

Genesee County officials are looking to add more fiber.

Fiber cable, that is. Genesee County obtained estimates from Empire Access for installing one strand of fiber, each, from County Building 2 on Route 5 to Emergency Management Services at 7690 State Street Rd., and from County Building 2 to Genesee County Airport, 4701 East Saile Drive. All locations are located in the town of Batavia.

The county attorney and Ways & Means Committee reviewed the proposal made by Director of Information Technology Michael Burns and recommended the move.

Burns said the cost would be $3,000 for each installation, with two 36-month lease agreements with the Plattsburgh-based company. Each lease is $500 per month and is to take effect from July 1, 2022, through July 31, 2025.

The county’s IT Department will request a total budget transfer of $12,000 ($6,000 to cover each connection) to cover the monthly and installation charges for each of the two strands of fiber, the resolution states.

“The company still has a few radio systems in place for providing Internet service and communication to our data centers,” Burns said.

Harder fibers can “very aggressively pair with running fiber to our buildings,” he said. Empire Access offered solutions for both installations, and for less money than the county was paying last year, he said.

Burns also proposed retaining SpyGlass Group, LLC to audit the county’s phone and Internet system for potential savings. There’s no money required upfront, and SpyGlass makes its money only if it finds and recommends potential savings measures.

“And what they do is they look at the internet consulting contracts that companies or other businesses have in place and refer opportunities to save money,” Burns said. “So what they will do is they're going to look at our past bills and see what we overpaid … they will also then go through our sales to see if there's any possible consequence or the number of bills or things, that we can do better.”

There will be no cost upfront, he said, as the company makes money only if the county adopts any of the recommended strategies.

“Let’s hope they find some savings for us,” Legislator Marianne Clattenburg said.

A TV monitor that scrolls a continuous loop of ads for local businesses and things of interest in the county will soon be found in the Batavia DMV Office.

On Wednesday, the Ways and Means Committee approved County Clerk Michael Cianfrini's request for permission to install an AdMonitor on a wall inside the DMV, at no cost to the county, other than the electricity used to run it.

"I'm really interested in advertising the motor vehicle office, to (encourage people to) renew locally," Cianfrini said. "We found that a lot of people have no idea that if you go online and do your transactions, that the county gets nothing. They assume it's the same whether you do it in an office or out of office. So it's a good way to get the word out."

The system is prerecorded, with the information provided to AdMonitor, which supplies the equipment, services it and replaces it if need be.

The monitor will feature advertising for local businesses and the county will have five ad spots to call attention to whatever they'd like to call attention to -- from reporting welfare fraud and notifying the public of upcoming immunization clinics, to Youth Bureau activities or happenings at the fairgrounds or the county Park & Forest.

"They also intersperse trivia and other little things to keep people entertained while they wait," Cianfrini said.

Wait? What wait?

"The times I've been in your office, I didn't have to wait," said Committee Chairman Bob Bausch. "I think you move us through pretty doggone quick!"

Whatever is displayed can be switched up and changed from time to time, of course. 

"I've seen this in several restaurants. It does grab your attention. Because I like to play trivia, it's kind of cool," Committee Member Ray Cianfrini. "But you may have a captive audience, like the Department of Social Services, where you have a waiting-room situation, and it soothes the crowd."

Committee Member Rochelle Stein asked if there is any opportunity to make money with it.

No, the county clerk said, but by calling attention to specific activities or promotions, there's the potential to increase foot traffic and participation .

More AdMonitors are possible down the road, the clerk and committee members said, possibly at the DSS and the Office of the Aging on Bank Street.

The amount of funding Genesee County will contribute to the local community college is expected to remain the same as last year, for now. The college is planning a $40.5 million budget for 2016/17, up 1.53 percent, and sought a $50,000 increase in the county's share -- a total of $2,586,374.

Last month, the legislature's Public Service Committee tabled a resolution seeking the increase because of concern that there was a lack of communication or consultation with legislators about how much the county could afford prior to the request.

On Wednesday afternoon, Genesee Community College President James Sunser assured the Ways and Means Committee that henceforth dialog will begin much earlier so that an update can be forthcoming as early as March, well before any funding requests are made.

The Ways and Means Committee voted to recommend approval of the funding request as previously submitted, with no increase in the county's share. (The county share, mandated by state law, can't be reduced below the prior year's share.)

They also set a public hearing on that at the Legislature's next regular meeting, the evening of June 8.

Sunser said he and Legislator Marianne Clattenburg spoke and they have an idea to help get information to county representatives earlier, starting next year. They would like to set up a meeting to talk preliminarily about budget matters, to ask what the county might be able to do to support the college.

That way, even though hard figures would be absent, there would be a working blueprint to go forward with, two months before May when things are being finalized.

He said attendees should include himself, the college's CFO, chair of the board of trustees, chair of the college trustees' Finance Committee, and the chair of the Legislature, chair of the Ways and Means Committee, legislature-college liaison Clattenburg, and the County Manager.

"Obviously, that would predate having solid information from the state," Sunser said. "But we would look at multiple scenarios and have different ideas and make adjustments -- kind of the same way we are now -- but a little earlier on. Hopefully, that helps. That way we get some county input and that will be before we go to the board of trustees of the college for approval, and hopefully, we could have a more solid sense of where the county could be (in terms of its funding ability).

"I'm open to doing whatever I can do as frequently as needed to keep the county in the loop on what our thinking is and our current plan," Sunser said.

Earlier talks would be beneficial, said Committee Member Ray Cianfrini.

"I think it's a great idea that we have the opportunity to get our discussion started earlier," Cianfrini said. "I mean, that's something that can only be helpful. Again, with the understanding that the college and the legislature are kind of handcuffed, at that early stage because you're not going to have figures; it's certainly an early stage for us to even being thinking about where we stand with our budget.

"But if you've got any insights you can give us, some direction you think you're going in, that's helpful. I do agree that opening the discussions early is a good way to do it."

Sunser replied: "I'm happy to do that. And again, I think one of the things that we can do is...I know it's a very busy time when you're dealing with the whole county budget in the fall...but even if it's through communication (by) e-mail or memo to say 'This is how things are looking at this point' and 'This is what we would be thinking about for the next year.' Because we'd be toward the tail end of your actual fiscal year when we're receiving these funds. So if that helps, we're happy to try to do that as well."

The college has until July 1 to present its final budget to SUNY administrators. Full-time students will pay $1,975 tuition per semester during the 2016-2017 year, up $25 from the current rate.

Meanwhile, the county can mull what it might be able to approve, and find out whether, legally, it can allocate more to the college later in the year when it adopts its own 2017 budget. (One issue previously cited is that the college and county budget calendars are out of sync: The college operates on an academic year; the county on a calendar year.)

From there, it was asked about the progress of the building projects at the Batavia campus.

The 18,748-square-foot Student Success Center will be located adjacent to the Conable Technology Building. The 56,614-square-foot Richard C. Call Arena will be located at the northwest end of the parking lot. The Arena will house the largest expanse of flexible, open floor space in the Genesee-Livingston-Orleans-Wyoming county region.

Sunser said good progress is being made and said the biggest thing people are talking about is the amount of rock (under the construction areas), especially by the Arena, where they've had to do some blasting to create retention ponds, a real sight to behold from the Thruway. That got a laugh from the committee members.

The footers have been poured for the student center. The goal is to have the new facilities 90-percent enclosed by November when cold weather starts to set in and then they can continue working through the winter. Both buildings are expected to be completed in early summer 2017.

An independent film company today asked to film in and around the old Genesee County Courthouse for a movie titled "Marshall" about the early legal career of Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. 

A resolution recommending that filming be allowed was approved unanimously by the Ways and Means Committee, which met at Genesee Community College this afternoon. The Legislature will have to approve it first however.

The courthouse will be a stand-in for a courthouse in 1940s Oklahoma, when Marshall was working with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). At that time, the great grandson of a slave born in the Congo traveled throughout the United States defending African-Americans in often controversial cases. The case depicted in the film to be partially shot here -- for one day, perhaps slightly over that -- is based on the case of a black chauffeur who was accused of the rape and attempted murder of a white woman, according to the film company's location manager, Michael Nickodem, who attended the Ways and Means Committee meeting.

"I think it's a fairly worthwhile project," said Committee Member Marianne Clattenburg.

It will take of lot of work and planning by a lot of people to create historic realism for the film, and our old courthouse may wind up with only five minutes, or less, of limelight in the finished product.

County Highway Superintendent Tim Hens and another county employee are assisting as need be; the state Department of Transportation will need to sign off on temporary road closures and then a crew of about 80 people will descend on Genesee County and the triangular swath of real estate at Ellicott and Main streets sometime in the first week of June. Law enforcement is also in the loop with the project. Parking, including handicapped-access parking, will be temporarily blocked for the project.

Of these crew members, about 40 to 50 people will be inside for courtroom scenes, and perhaps 10 to 20 outside; Nickodem wasn't sure.

There will be about 50 extras, too, Nickodem guesstimated.

"Everybody get out your SAG cards," quipped County Manager Jay Gsell, referencing the Screen Actors Guild.

It will indeed be a union operation, including Teamsters, too.

"Camperland" will be set up close by. That's what they call the grouping of trailers for the stars, hair and makeup artists, etc.

Most of the film locations for "Marshall" are west of here in Buffalo, other places in Erie County, and Niagara County. Genesee County is affiliated with the greater Rochester-area film commission, although Nickodem acknowleged he should call them "because they probably don't know anything about this."

The old Genesee County Courthouse was found by a production designer who works with Nickodem.

"He's got a great eye," Nickodem said. "The challenge for the entire movie is finding places (where) we can shoot."

The location manager told the Ways and Means Committee that in scouting for the stand-in for a 1940s-era Oklahoma courthouse, once they saw Genesee County's building "It spoke to us...it read as more rural." Although it was built around 1843, it was thought to be a sublime choice for this indie film's purposes.

But that will require "adjustments" -- none at the county's expense of course, and anything done will be undone and put back the way it was once filming wraps up. A crew was at the Old Courthouse today and the list of "adjustments" that will be needed include disguising or covering emergency exit signs and lighting, putting a fake door in front of the elevator doors, and otherwise air-brushing out or working to eliminate evidence that it's 2016 -- the view of Wendy's across the street, ditto the Mexican restaurant on the opposite side.

Gsell promised "no action scenes, no superheroes, nobody jumping out of cupolas."

Also, when asked about the impact on regular work going on inside the facility -- in offices adjacent to the courtroom -- it was emphasized that normal operations will not be impeded by the film project.

Nickodem said the historical film is not considered what it is referred to as "ultra low budget," but it is low budget, though he couldn't provide a budget figure. (For indies, it is standard practice to name the production company -- created specifically for the film -- after the movie. Thus, it is known as Marshall Film LLC in Los Angeles, but since a different name is required for New York, they chose Marshall Movie, Inc.)

"Marshall" will probably be released by year's end and then be screened at Indie fests like Sundance in the hopes that it will be optioned by a big motion picture studio.

The star is Chadwick Boseman who played legendary baseball great Jackie Robinson in the Warner Bros. movie "42" opposite Harrison Ford as Brooklyn Dodgers' General Manager Branch Rickey. Other casting is still under way.

The county is keeping it local with the purchase of snow and ice control devices under terms of a resolution passed by the Ways and Meetings Committee this afternoon.

Companies in Oakfield and Corfu were awarded the bids.

The highway department will use state grant money to purchase an 11-foot stainless steel hopper spreader at a cost of $9,500 from Viking-Cives, 2917 Judge Road, Oakfield.

The second purchase is two 8-foot stainless steel hopper spreaders at a cost of $5,575 each from Unicorn Specialties, 2141 Main Road, Corfu.

Bids were received from six vendors for the road salt spreaders.