Cornell City Council - Seat vacated by Smith remains up in the air

By Ginna Young

After the untimely and unexpected passing of Cornell City Council alderperson Terry Smith, his fellow council members needed some time to digest the absence felt, before thinking about filling the vacant seat. However, now that it has been a month’s time, the matter was discussed, April 15, at their reorganization meeting.

Council president Steve Turany questioned what has been done in the past, when someone has left the council for various reasons. Dave DeJongh, city administrator, shared three ways to fill a seat that he’s seen happen: the council can conduct interviews of potential candidates; the council can appoint an individual; or the council can leave the seat vacant for a period of time.

“I feel like we should have more time to think about this,” said council member Bill Kvapil, adding that it will give any interested people an opportunity, if they want to throw their hat in the ring for consideration.

It was agreed to wait until the next meeting (May 1), to give the council time to mull over what they want to do. If filled, Smith’s term would be until the spring election next year.

Dan Osborn, who was on this spring’s ballot, but was not voted onto the council, put it out there that he is interested in the position, which was backed by newly elected member David Hoel.

“Personally, I think he should be under consideration to fill it,” said Hoel.

The council did decide to go ahead with the July 3 fireworks display proposal from J& M Displays, as some donations came in to pay for the increase in cost. DeJongh reported that enough funds came in to ensure that Cornell has the same amount of shells as last year’s display.

But, DeJongh also said that with the recent tariffs that have been imposed on goods coming from China, A.K.A. fireworks, the city will have to likely come up with a larger amount next year.

“It’s going to really get spendy,” said DeJongh. Osborn suggested selling $100 cash raffle tickets, as he knows of at least one organization who does so and does quite well at it.

“It raises quite a bit of money,” he said. “I know we’ve talked about a lot of fundraisers in the past. People like to win money.”

Members also approved Resolution 25-7, authorizing commitment of match funds and certification for a CDBG- PF application, to complete the Bates Street reconstruction. The project has an estimated cost of $1.7 million, with the city’s share of about $700,000.

They also approved a Class A Beer and Class A Liquor license application, for Karen Birch, agent, at Cornell Oil 600 LLC on Bridge Street, which was formerly Mega Coop. Mega closed their doors around a month ago, when Synergy went bankrupt and while their other store locations remain closed, Cornell was unique, as the store was owned by an outside party.

That means a new entity was free to move in and set up shop.

During the meeting, council member Deb Semanko reported the police records that were stored in the library basement have been removed to the police department, as well as a lot of city records.

“That’ll be an empty room that we’ll (library) be able to use,” said Semanko.

DeJongh is going through the many records, to see which ones must be kept, with the rest shredded, for privacy.

“They stored everything in that library basement…from day one,” said DeJongh. “It’s a huge accumulation of stuff that should have been dealt with years ago.”