The Village of Medina sees fit to closely scrutinize its energy consumption
and make energy efficiency upgrades whenever feasible. To help us in this
process, the Village sought and obtained grant funding through the New York
State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) to conduct an energy
conservation study. This study, performed by Larsen Engineers with close public
involvement, highlights several potential projects to reduce municipal energy
consumption and, thus, reduce costs to taxpayers. The Village will now be
reviewing the study and considering action on its proposals. The complete study is available for public review, just click on the Energy Study listing on the menu at the left.
Please take time to submit comments after reading/reviewing this
document using the form provided.
The Towns of Ridgeway and Shelby encompass a 97-square-mile area in
the southwestern corner of Orleans County, New York. The Village of
Medina is a 3.3-square-mile area contained wholly within and divided
nearly equally between Ridgeway and Shelby — which creates a complex
municipal structure. About 11,700 residents live in the Towns, with
52% of the population residing inside the Village boundaries.
The Village successfully applied to the state's Local Government
Efficiency (LGE) program for a high priority planning grant to conduct a
"dissolution feasibility study" in cooperation with the Towns. The
Village wants to explore whether dissolving the Village could result in
increased efficiency and cost savings and also assess other viable
options for streamlining government.
Separately the Towns successfully applied for an LGE grant to
conduct a "merger feasibility study" in cooperation with the Village.
The Towns want to present residents with information on merging the two
Towns — with or without dissolving the Village — and also assess other
viable service delivery options.
In early 2010 the municipalities engaged the Center for Governmental Research (CGR) to
conduct a project combining the objectives of both grants into one
study. The study will include opportunities for public engagement. The
anticipated completion date for the study is year-end 2010.
CGR met twice with the boards of the Village and Towns to discuss
the study and initial baseline information that had been gathered. In
April 2010 the boards agreed to appoint a 12-member citizen-based
committee to oversee the project, meet with CGR, and make
recommendations to the boards. Appointments to the Committee were
completed in May. Committee members are:
Medina
Ann Bunch
Don Colquhoun
Charlie Slack
Adam Tabelski, Mayor
Alternate: Andrew Meier,
Deputy Mayor
Ridgeway
Maureen Blackburn
William Hungerford
Rosalind Lind
Jeffrey Toussaint, Board member Alternate: Robin Gardner, Board member
Shelby
Merle Draper, Supervisor
Lawrence Fox
Nathan Pace
Howard Watts Alternate: Ken Schaal, Board member
First Draft Edition of the Village of Medina General Code
Check under the NEWS button on the menu for the 2009 Annual Water Quality Report for the Village of Medina
Medina Central School tries for a Pepsi Grant for Pine Street Park Improvments
Students at Board Meeting April 5, 2010
left to right: Austin Brown, Max Owens, Jason Hellwig, Jeremy Olejniczak, and Aaron Feltz
They have been working on creating a service learning project to enhance/improve Pine Street Park. The plans include a new playground, basketball/pickball court, and improvements to the baseball field. They are writing a Pepsi Refresh Grant that the community can help vote for starting May 1- May 31, 2010...the top ten vote getters win the grant!! Details will be posted soon!
Information, observations and musings on preservation, history and other related topics by the staff of The Landmark Society of Western New York, Inc.
Note:
While the writers of the Confessions of a Preservationist blog are on staff at The Landmark Society or affiliated organizations, their posts are their own, and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of The Landmark Society of Western New York.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Magical Medina!
In The Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America, wonderful humor/travel writer Bill Bryson expresses his disappointment with his difficulty finding healthy, handsome small American towns. He does this in a witty and often downright hilarious way (e.g. describing his terrified scramble across a busy mall parking lot just to get to the only restaurants--of the chain variety--left in a town), but beneath the humor I can feel his palpable dejection about his elusive struggle to find the ideal, idyllic small American town.
Like Bryson, I'm sadly used to seeing small town Main Streets suffering from the siege upon them by big box retailers on their periphery, so imagine my pleasant surprise--and downright giddiness--when I walked about a village downtown in my region that is not only surviving, but thriving.
Medina, New York: a village in rural Orleans County on the Lake Ontario plains, between Rochester and Buffalo, and obscure and even unknown to even many western New Yorkers. This photogenic Erie Canal village hosted the Landmark Society's annual preservation conference on May 2.
What struck me immediately about Medina (population 6,415)and gave me hope for other older small towns in Western New York and beyond--is the volume and variety of independent goods and service businesses open on its core streets. Businesses downtown include Rosenkrans Pharmacy and Gift Shop; Garlock Office Products; Lockport Optical; Main Street TV and Appliance; The Book Shoppe; Hahn Hardware; Donna Bushover Insurance; Baughn's Shoes; Blissett Bridal and Clothing; Shirt Factory Café; The Red Cross; The Medicine Shoppe Pharmacy; Travel Horizons; Case-Nic Cookies ("Cookies Made the Way Grandma Used to Make `Em!"); and more. Mayor Adam Tabelski pointed out proudly at the conference that there are only three ground-floor commercial vacancies presently on the main streets of the Village.
Although beautiful and functional now, the Village of Medina does not rest on its significant laurels. Village government (led by Mayor Tabelski, who might be a few years over thirty, and a deputy mayor of the same recent vintage who is also restoring the Newell Shirt Factory downtown into what will be a stunning, stellar mixed-use building) is prioritizing work such as downtown façade improvements, and even a comprehensive study investigating the pros and cons of consolidation with the two towns that the Village straddles.
The previous paragraph starts to answer the "how did they do it?" question. There surely are many more policy, process, and politics explanations for Medina's main street prosperity. You owe it to yourself to walk the streets of Medina and talk to proud residents and the proprietors of the downtown businesses. Call on Deputy Mayor Andrew Meier at the Newell Shirt Company building, site of the Shirt Factory Café: he'll tell you why he's high on Medina, why and how he's investing in the renovation of the Shirt Company building, and why exactly downtown Medina has become a great place to inform and inspire your own work to restore the beauty and vitality of our small communities.
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