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HomeMy WebLinkAboutFinal Jan 2026 Newsletter January 2026 Town of Danby, New York 1 Danby Town News 2026 Danby Youth Scholarships/Grants The Danby Youth Commission (DYC) offers grants of up to $100 per child per calendar year for youth to participate in recreational activities of their choosing. Grants are available on a first-come, first- serve basis. A link to the application and eligibility criteria can be found on the Town’s website on the DYC page. Please direct questions to H. Katharine Hunter at hkatharinehunter0@gmail.com or call 607-319-5189 or text 703-304-1146. Danby Fire District Organizational Meeting NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN THAT the Organizational Meeting for the Danby Fire District of the Town of Danby, County of Tompkins, New York, will be held on Tuesday the 13th day of January 2026, at 6:30 P.M. at the Danby Fire Station, 1780 Danby Road, Town of Danby, County of Tompkins, New York. The regular meeting will follow. Pancake Breakfast with the Danby Fire Company! a Winter is cold, but the pancakes are hot! Drive- thru or stop in for a plate of pancakes, French toast, sausage, scrambled eggs, and home-fries all for $12. Join us Sunday, January 18th 8am-11am! Cash, card, check, Venmo, and Apple Pay are accepted. We’ll be doing this on the third Sunday of the month from October 2025 through March 2026 at the Danby Volunteer Fire Company, 1780 Danby Rd, Ithaca, NY 14850. Proceeds to benefit the Danby Volunteer Fire Company. Fundraising targets include improvements to our equipment for managing breathing problems and to our rope rescue equipment. January 2026 Town of Danby, New York 2 Notes from the Town Supervisor Joel Gag non Dan Klein Recognition Gathering- 5-7 P.M. Wednesday, January 14 at Danby Town Hall Dan’s term on the County Legislature ends on December 31 and with it the long and distinguished career of service to both town and county. We don’t want him to depart without an opportunity for us to thank him. Come and be part of it. Finger food and camaraderie will accompany your presence! More Thanks This seems a good place to also express our gratitude to Pat Woodworth and Katharine Hunter, retiring town board members. Their short 4 years on the Board were marked by intense commitment and engagement. They were both instrumental in creating and sustaining this newsletter. Pat’s mathematical background was hugely valuable to us in buttressing the board’s responsibility for financial oversight and Katharine’s social skills and connections helped us key into the concerns and needs of the community. Katharine also led our efforts to update and strengthen our IT resources. Paul Hansen stepped forward to serve on the board when we needed him and when he had to step down Tyler Stein took his place for the remainder of the year. All of them deserve our thanks and all may be present on the 14th . More good reasons to come! Zoning Amendments Move Forward The package of zoning amendments mentioned last month is ready for consideration for passage into law. The amendments have been assembled into a local law for you to look at (the proposal is on the website) and will be the subject of a public hearing in January. The thrust of the proposed changes is to loosen the rules for development in the hamlet core and neighborhood zones. What were requirements have been moved to design guidelines. Except when site plan review is required, they are optional but encouraged. There are several additional tweaks aimed at fixing mistakes and adjusting the rules. Take a look and weigh in if you see something you either like or dislike. Comptroller’s Follow-up Audit Faults Danby When the State Comptroller’s Office audited the Town of Danby in 2021-22, we took it as an opportunity to learn how to better conduct our money management. There were findings, an opportunity to respond, recommendations, and an action plan to address those recommendations. The Comptroller’s Office did a follow-up audit in 2025 to see how well we implemented the plan. If you read the report that resulted (it is linked on the website if you wish to do so), you would get the impression that we failed to implement any of the plans. That is not the case, and it was profoundly unhelpful to have our efforts to improve so mischaracterized. Neither the initial audit nor the follow-up found any misappropriation of funds. The criticism was entirely procedure focused, asserting that we didn’t do our management in the right way. More, it in effect implies that not doing it the right way is not doing it at all and that even if we do it the right way if we don’t keep records of having done it that way that too is the same as not doing it at all. I will admit to falling short of being able to document all that we do, but we did make changes in record-keeping to better the record of activity. The Town Board created a committee of 3 (myself as Supervisor, the Bookkeeper Laura Shawley, and Board member Leslie Connors) to pursue the matter further. If the audit is to serve its stated purpose to help us improve our practices, we need to know what we should January 2026 Town of Danby, New York 3 have done that we did not do and how we should be better doing what we do do. We will ask the auditors to sit down with us and work this through to a more satisfactory end point. Help Wanted Those two words would be a good end to the previous item, but for this item they refer to a need for a facilities manager for the town’s buildings. We have routine interior cleaning covered, as well as snow shoveling and lawn mowing. What we need is a Jack (or Jill) of all trades to do repairs and minor improvements. Zach Larkins has been doing this for the town for the last year extraordinarily well, but he has to let it go now that he has been elected to a seat on the Town Board. A retired or scaling- back general contractor would be a good fit, as would any person with basic skills and the knowledge of how to solve problems. Give me a call if you might be interested (607)-227- 4440. Happy New Year! Notes from the Town Clerk Mariah Dillon It’s Property Tax Time! You should receive your Town and County tax bill in the first week of January. If you have a mortgage/escrow account, your tax bill will be sent to your bank. Full payment or first installment is due Monday, February 2. Payments with late fees will be accepted through March 31. After that, delinquent payments would be paid to the County. You can send a check in the full or first installment amount to: Danby Tax Collector 1830 Danby Rd Ithaca, NY 14850 You can also drop off payment in our 24/7 secure drop box near the entrance to Town Hall. You can pay online through our website at danby.ny.gov via the “Pay Here” button on the top menu. but there is a 2.7% fee for doing so. If you have any questions or did not receive your tax bill, please call the Town Clerk’s office at (607)-277-4788. New Town Clerk! Please join me in giving Blake Savoy, our new Danby Town Clerk, a warm welcome. New York State asks a lot from their town clerks: being extremely well organized; tax collection and distribution; taking Town Board meetings minutes; managing software projects; licensing marriages, dogs and hunters; records management; being the face of the town; attesting to Town Board actions; Freedom of Information Law data preparation; taking oaths of office; maintaining the website; tracking committee appointments and resignations; notary duties; listening and responding to town residents’ concerns and complaints; and additional duties assigned by the Town Board. It’s simply not possible to be excellent at all these tasks, but I’m confident that Blake will excel at what he’s good at and put extra effort into learning everything else. Blake has an excellent staff to back him up, including Cindy, the phenomenally exceptional deputy town clerk, Julia, the fantastic accounting assistant, and Mary Ann, records and town historian extraordinaire. My hope is that Blake has about as much enjoyment and satisfaction with the position as I have had these past two years. While I will miss interacting with all of you in the Clerk’s office, please know that I will continue working for you from the Town Board. I hope to bring added transparency and efficiencies to the governance of this wonderful and amazing Town of Danby. January 2026 Town of Danby, New York 4 Notes from the Planner’s Desk Greg Hutnik NYSEG Electric Transmission Reliability Project — Public Comment Open Through 1/29/2026 Representatives from New York State Electric & Gas (NYSEG) spoke at the Town Board meeting on 12/15/2025 about their plan to rebuild the existing 21-mile electric transmission line. The project, known as the Finger Lakes Area Infrastructure Reliability Project (FLAIR), will replace the wooden poles with taller steel poles within the existing right- of-way. More information — including maps, presentations, guides to the process for electric transmission facilities, and opportunity to submit comment — is available on the project website at https://fingerlakesareareliability.com. Danby Seniors Pat Phelps The first 2026 meeting of the Danby Seniors will be Thursday, January 8 at noon at the Danby Community Church. Luncheon will begin at noon. Please bring a dish to share and a serving spoon to serve it with along with your own table service. Drinks are provided. We will be playing Bingo. Dues will be $5 for 2026. Those over 80 are free, but donations are always welcome. All folks over 55 are welcome to join. If the Ithaca schools are closed, there will be no meeting! From the West Danby Volunteer Fire Department We’d like to start by thanking everyone who joined us for our Fall Pancake Breakfast in November. It was great to see so many neighbors come together and spend time with one another. Your continued support is always appreciated. We also wanted to share a few updates from around the fire station. Recently, our EMS providers have expanded their capabilities with the addition of Naloxone (Narcan) and Epinephrine to our medical equipment. These important tools improve our ability to respond quickly and effectively to medical emergencies here in West Danby, and we’re proud to continue enhancing the level of care we can provide. We’d also like to extend a big congratulations to two of our members, Jessie Warner and Hunter Wright, who recently completed the Cortland County Firefighter Boot Camp. This intensive program consists of 168 hours of training and includes: Basic Exterior F irefighting, Interior Firefighting, Truck Company Operations, SCBA Confidence, and Firefighter Survival. With this achievement, they are now officially certified in New York State as Interior Firefighters, and they have further strengthened their skills with the department. Please join us in celebrating their hard work and dedication. Lastly, we want to remind the community that we are always looking for new volunteers. Whether you’re interested in firefighting, EMS, or supporting behind the scenes, there’s a role for everyone. If you’d like to learn more, you can email wdchief@danbyfiredistrict.org, message us on Facebook, or stop by one of our meetings on the second Monday of each month at 7 PM at the fire station. Thank you again for your continued support. From our fire family to yours, we hope you have a safe and healthy month ahead. January 2026 Town of Danby, New York 5 Conservation Advisory Council Margaret Corbit The Danby Conservation Advisory Council (CAC) met on Tuesday, December 9 at 7 pm. Here are the highlights of the meeting. The meeting began with a presentation on a new bird banding program run by the Finger Lakes Bird Observatory at the Finger Lakes Land Trust’s Lindsay-Parsons Biodiversity Preserve in West Danby. We were treated to a talk with slides given by ornithological researcher Hummingbird who is heading up this program, under the umbrella of the Braddock Bay Bird Observatory in Hilton, NY. He shared his hopes and goals for the program and the results of the first season’s work. Banding started this year in June focused on the breeding season and continued through migration into early November. His team of trained volunteers conducted surveys once per week. They set up mist nets in the morning, carefully monitoring them during the day and removing them at the six-hour survey. The team recorded 636 individual birds over the season, gathering data for national and regional repositories. Hummingbird hopes that the site at Lindsay-Parsons will continue for decades and his success will lead to opportunities to establish other sites in the Finger Lakes. After the presentation, Brittany Stein shared her farewells. She will be returning to graduate school in January. She will be missed. She handed over her work on the abatement of local taxes that will lead to better information on the CAC site, including an example that calculates savings provided by an easement. She also updated us on the Sherman Easement, which is nearing completion. Our next meeting will take place on Tuesday, January 13 at 7 pm in the Town Hall. We hope to welcome at least one new member. Community members are welcome to attend. The meeting will also be streamed via a link on the Danby website. Seeking Volunteer Monitors for Closed Danby Landfill Many Danby residents are unaware that we have a former landfill in town. The landfill was closed in 1992, and has been monitored by Tompkins County ever since. Ongoing data shows that the environmental protection efforts put in place are working. At this point, the landfill is tested annually, and a group of volunteers meet once a year to evaluate the testing report. If you have some background in chemistry, hydrology, or geology, please consider volunteering for the Hillview Road Landfill Citizens Advisory Committee. For more information about what the committee does, please contact Joel Gagnon at (607)-227-4440 or joelpgagnon@hotmail.com or Dan Klein, danbydan@hotmail.com. To apply for the position, complete a Tompkins County Advisory Board Application form. The form may be obtained from the Clerk of the Legislature at 121 E. Court Street, 607 -274-5434, or by downloading the form from the County’s website (search for “Advisory Committees”). January 2026 Town of Danby, New York 6 Update from the WDWD Advisory Committee The West Danby Water District has begun the process of planning significant improvements to our community’s drinking water infrastructure. Last month, the Advisory Committee issued a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) seeking engineering firms to conduct a comprehensive study of the system. Multiple firms submitted proposals, which the Committee has reviewed, and we will be interviewing selected firms in the coming days before recommending one to the Town Board to undertake the study. Much of the District’s water system was built in 1968 and relies on aging asbestos- cement and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) mains connected to a single well source, pump house, and a 90,000-gallon storage tank installed in 2015. The system currently serves roughly 150 residential connections and includes three fire hydrants and several flush hydrants. While service has remained reliable, the age and material of the original watermains present increasing maintenance challenges, and several components no longer meet modern standards for longevity, capacity, or fire protection. The current hydraulics also limit fire flow, meaning the system cannot provide sustained water flow for firefighting operations. The upcoming study will evaluate the condition and remaining service life of the existing watermains, identify options for upgrading undersized or deteriorated lines, and investigate the feasibility of adding a supplemental or secondary well source to improve system resiliency. It will also examine the replacement of aging hydrants and explore ways to improve fire service capability within the District. In addition, the study will explore potential system expansion, including extending service north toward Slators Lane and addressing issues with the long private service lines on Station and Brown Roads that serve multiple homes. Changes could improve reliability, simplify maintenance, and provide more consistent service for affected residents. In addition to this project, the Water District has taken an important step in improving its operations by officially moving into a dedicated office space this month. The new office is located at 46 Sylvan Lane, directly across from the fire station. This space will serve as an administrative hub for district operations. While it is not a walk-in public office, residents may schedule appointments with the District Clerk for assistance with payments or questions. Once completed, the engineering study will result in a Preliminary Engineering Report outlining recommendations, priorities, and phased alternatives. It will also help the Town and District identify and pursue state and federal grant opportunities aimed at upgrading rural water systems—an important step in reducing the financial impact on customers as we plan for the future. While the exact project timeline will depend on the results of the study and the availability of funding, the Committee is committed to keeping residents informed as major milestones are reached. January 2026 Town of Danby, New York 7 Danby Youth Programs Jorin Clougherty New Year, New Youth Programs! Rural Youth Services provides free programming to Danby residents in 4th- 8th grade. To sign up, visit: https://bit.ly/danbyrys Questions? Contact Program Manager Jorin Clougherty at jc3842@cornell.edu Programs will run from Jan. 5th-Feb. 14th. Beat the Board-om (4th and 5th grades) Mondays, 2:30 – 5:00pm Come play games at the Danby Town Hall! We'll try a variety of board games, card games, and field games -- everything from classics like Uno and Monopoly to new games we've never tried before! Fun snacks will be served at every program. Photo Hunters (4th and 5th grades) Tuesdays, 2:30-5:00pm Join us in the woods to explore nature and learn to take photos! We'll spend each week photographing a different section of Dotson Park. Students will learn how to use a digital camera and find their own creative style. This program will culminate with an art show open to friends & family to show off our photos and celebrate! Dungeons & Dragons / Magic the Gathering (6th-8th grades) Wednesdays, 3:30 – 6:00pm Join this afterschool club to play TTRPGs and board games. Join a campaign or start your own! New players are always welcome – no experience required! Middle School Printmaking (6th-8th grades) Thursdays, 4:30 – 6:30pm Printmaking is an art form which is thousands of years old. This program, geared towards older students, is an introduction to the process of printmaking. We'll make prints with rubber, potatoes, and even the sun! If you like art, shadows, ink, or any combination, this is the program for you! This program will culminate in an art show open to friends & family where we can show off our prints and celebrate! Danby Youth Commission Patty Van De Bogart The Town of Danby is always looking for dedicated residents who are willing to serve their community. Four years ago, the Town created the Danby Youth Commission (DYC) to serve as its planning and oversight board for youth activities. This includes oversight of the Rural Youth Services program, which is contracted through Cornell Cooperative Extension of Tompkins County. The DYC meets on the 2nd Thursday of the month via Zoom. The DYC: • Monitors programs serving local youth • Offers scholarships • Discusses community needs • Makes recommendations to the Town Board on how local tax dollars should be spent to support youth The next meeting via Zoom is on Thursday, January 11, 2026, from 7:30–8:30 p.m. If you are interested in learning more or considering joining the Danby Youth Commission, please reach out to Patty Van de Bogart at pvandebogartstc@gmail.com. January 2026 Town of Danby, New York 8 Danby Community Groups Danby Community Library Contact: Cindy Parlett library@danby.ny.gov Open Tue 1-3pm, Thu & Sat 10am-12pm Danby Food Pantry Danby Community Church Contact: Joan Barber Open: 3rd Thur 4-6 pm Danby Food Scraps Pickup Every Sat 9am – noon behind Town Hall Danby Community And Park (DCAP) Website: dotsonpark.org dotsonpark@gmail.com Thu 12/7 at 7pm Danby Rural Cemetery Contact: Sharon Boda Sharonboda@gmail.com West Danby Community Association (WDCA) Contact: Pat Curran pc21@cornell.edu Danby Seniors Contact: Pat Phelps patriciaphelps2.0@ gmail.com Luncheons: 1st Thur at noon Danby Tosspot (Open Alcoholics Anonymous Meeting) Wed 7pm - virtual Danby Library News Cindy Parlett Welcome to 2026! A new year with new books to enjoy: The Dark Wives - Ann Cleeves The Girl from Devil's Lake: A Brady Novel of Suspense - J.A.Jance A Pair of Wings - Carole Hopson Wayward Girls - Susan Wiggs The Lies They Told - Ellen Marie Wiseman Sonora- Jenni Walsh The Song of the Blue Bottle Tree - India Hayford The Spectacular - Fiona Davis Rednecks - Taylor Brown The Girl in the Triangle - Joyana Peters The Secret of Secrets - Dan Brown Happy New Year from the Danby Town News! We’ve recently redone our mailing list. If you’d like to opt-out from physical mailings, please email townnews@danby.ny.gov along with your address. The newsletter is always online at danby.ny.gov/current-town-newsletter. We’ve heard interest in an email mailing list again. Keep your eyes out for any updates on that! January 2026 Town of Danby, New York 9 Monthly Meeting Schedule At-A-Glance Group Day Date Time Call-in by Phone Meeting ID Town Board* Mon 1/5 6:00pm 1-929-205-6099 882 2697 6101 905098 WDWD Wed 1/7 5:00pm In person West Danby Fire station CAC* Tue 1/13 7:00pm 1-929-205-6099 835 4940 5296 879507 FD Tue 1/13 6:30pm In person Danby Fire Station DYC Thur 1/8 7:00pm Online- kshanks@tompkins-co.org Town Board* Mon 1/19 6:00pm 1-929-205-6099 847 9505 5187 308958 PB* Tue 1/20 7:00pm 1-646-876-9923 893 3897 1114 956288 BZA* Tue TBD 7:00pm TBD 817 1432 4705 398041 FD Tue 1/27 6:30pm In person at the Danby Fire Station See the Danby calendar for the final, most up-to-date details. (Acronyms in the above schedule are identified below.) *These meetings are hybrid (i.e. both online and in-person at the Town Hall) Boards & Committees Planning Board (PB) Chair: Kelly Maher planningboard@danby.ny.gov Meets: 3rd Tuesday at 7pm Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA) Chair: Earl Hicks bza@danby.ny.gov Meets: 4th Tuesday, as needed Conservation Advisory Council (CAC) Co-Chairs: Anne Klingensmith Jonathan Zisk cac@danby.ny.gov Meets: 2nd Tuesday at 7pm Danby Youth Commission (DYC) Contact: Patty Van de Bogart pvandebogartftc@gmail.com Meets: 2nd Thursday at 7pm Fire District (FD) Secretary: Sharon Gaden secretary@danbyfiredistrict.org danby.ny.gov/depts/danby-fire-district Meets: 2nd & 4th Tuesdays at 6:30pm Danby Volunteer Fire Company (DVFC) Chief: John Gaden jgaden@danbyfiredistrict.org danbyfiredept.org West Danby Fire Department (WDFD) Chief: Robert McCray rmccray@danbyfiredistrict.org westdanbyfire.com West Danby Water District (WDWD) Contact: Scott Wendt swendt@danby.ny.gov Meets: 1st Wednesday at 5pm January 2026 Town of Danby, New York 10 Town Officials Town Supervisor Joel Gagnon supervisor@danby.ny.gov Town Board Meets 1st Mon and 3rd Mon Leslie Connors E Mariah Dillon Zachary Larkins Mark Pruce townboard@danby.ny.gov Town Clerk Deputy Town Clerk Hours: Mon–Fri 11am–4pm Blake Savoy Cindy Katz clerkoffice@danby.ny.gov Highway Superintendent Deputy Highway Superintendent Hours: Mon–Thu 6am–4:30pm Keith Shipman highway@danby.ny.gov Jack Shawley jshawley@danby.ny.gov Town Justices Court Clerk Hours: Mon-Wed 8am-11am Garry Huddle Theresa Klinger Diane Gair dgair@nycourts.gov Town Planner Hours: Mon–Fri by appointment Greg Hutnik planner@danby.ny.gov Code Enforcement Hours: Mon-Fri by appointment Steve Cortright code@danby.ny.gov Documents/ Historian Mary Ann Barr mbarr@danby.ny.gov Bookkeeper Laura Shawley lshawley@danby.ny.gov Danby, New York From: 1830 Danby Road Ithaca, NY 14850 PRST STD U.S. Postage Paid Permit No.428 Ithaca, NY 14850 Phone: 607-277-4788 https://danby.ny.gov Welcome to the Danby Town News! Questions? Email us at townnews@danby.ny.gov January 2026 Town of Danby, New York 11