Instead of a legislature, Manny Falcone wants to revert to having a board of supervisors, where leaders of each town joint to run the county.
View full sizeGeddes Supervisor Manny Falcone wears a T-shirt that shows his displeasure at the county-city sales tax agreement.
Editors' note: This story was written by John Stith and Tim Knauss.
Geddes, NY -- The town of Geddes, still smarting from being cut out of a deal between Onondaga County and the city of Syracuse to share sales tax revenue, is asking town supervisors and village mayors to abolish the Onondaga County Legislature and county executive office.
Town Supervisor Manny Falcone said the town board wants to switch back to the old board of supervisors form of government, which ran the county from 1794 until 1968. Locally, Madison, Seneca and Wayne counties are run by boards of the elected town supervisors.
Geddes passed a resolution to that effect May 11 and sent letters to each town and village asking for support. “We feel we weren’t represented fairly in the sales tax issue,” Falcone said Thursday. “Our board feels our county legislator (James A. Corbett) didn’t represent us or at least stand up for us when the vote came down.”
County legislators, including Corbett, said they understand the reaction from Geddes, which was one of the hardest-hit communities in the revised tax agreement. But legislators said they don’t expect much support for a return to a board of supervisors, which would require supervisors to run their towns plus the $1.2 billion county government.
“That would be unusual for a county this size,” said Legislator Robert DeMore, R-Fabius, a former supervisor who served 10 years as president of the Onondaga County Supervisors Association. “It would be unwieldy.”
The county Legislature voted unanimously May 4 to approve a new 10-year sales tax agreement with the city, cutting revenues to suburban towns, villages and school districts from about $87 million this year to $8 million three years from now. The agreement goes into effect Jan. 1.
Geddes — which got $2.9 million — is the only town in the county to use 100 percent of its sales tax money to fund town operations. Next year, the town will get $1.9 million. By 2013, it will get zero. In other towns, sales tax money has been used to offset county property taxes.
Corbett, R-Geddes, said the Legislature had to forge a deal that would cover county expenses while also winning approval from the city, which had threatened to institute its own tax if its share was cut significantly, he said.
Corbett said he sought concessions to help Geddes — unsuccessfully — but in the end supported the new tax deal as the best possible resolution. “I knew that this was going to be a problem for Geddes, and I knew it was going to be a problem for me,” Corbett said. “But if we all look after our own individual little kingdoms, then the people’s work won’t get done.”
Minoa Mayor Richard Donovan, president of the county mayors association, said most village mayors are unhappy with the sales-tax deal and may take an interest in the Geddes proposal. But he’s not sure town supervisors would want to run the county, too.
Elbridge town Supervisor Kenneth Bush said his board received the request from Geddes but took no action. “We laughed,” he said. “It was a good poke in the eye to the county Legislature.”
Onondaga County’s 38-member Board of Supervisors passed a local law in 1966 to change the county charter and create a Legislature. Following voter approval in a referendum, the Legislature met for the first time Jan. 2, 1968.
John Stith can be reached at jstith@syracuse.com or at 251-5718.