Island Dispatch, 1999-03-26

              Island DISPATCH Complete Community Coverage Changing of the Guard Pa_£3  Hop, Hop, Hop Page 5 Standing tall Animal Antics Page 8 54 Years As the Voice of Grand Island Award Winning Newspapers The Official Newspaper of the Town of Grand Island and the Grand Island School District MARCH 26. 1999 24 Pages -tj 8 page Tab 65c Vol. 54 No. 50 (716)773-7676 Sixth annual Shadow Day held on Grand Island by Rick Forgione Over 200 Grand Island students participated in the Sixth Annual Shadow Day sponsored by the Grand Island Central Schools/Business Alliance on Thursday. The program gives senior high school students (mostly junior and seniors) the opportunity to spend half a day in a designated business watching and working with an employee who has a job in the student's area of interest. School Superintendent Dr. Paul Fields said that this year's program broke the participation record as "so many more kids and businesses participated." In total, about 50 businesses played host to the students including Adelphia Cable Communications, Channel 7, Holiday Inn Grand Island Resort, Marine Midland Arena and WEDG 103.3. The day's most hectic experience went to senior Bill Schultz who had the difficult task of shadowing Town Supervisor Peter McMahon. "I couldn't believe how really busy Mr. McMahon is," said Schultz, referring to the numerous phone "By exploring careers firsthand with designated businesses, students can observe valuable information about the job that cannot be found in books," said Fields calls and people that poured into McMahon's office throughout the day. The day began with students enjoying breakfast at the Holiday Inn followed by an overview of the program by Dr. Fields. Fields said that the program is designed to personalize the career exploration process for students in high school. "By exploring careers firsthand with designated businesses, students can observe valuable information about the job that cannot be found in books," said Fields. "We want students to 'feel' what it's like to work in the workplace. A shadowing program not only gives students the valuable exposure to the world of work, but it also helps them in selecting their future course of study. Shadowing is part of preparing our students to be productive members of the work force. The program ended at about 2 p.m. allowing students to go home, kick off their shoes and think about the valuable experience they have gained, and be thankful to go back to their "school work." on Friday. SHADOWING THE SUPERVISOR - Grand Island High School Senior Bill Schultz had the opportunity to find out just what Town Supervisor Peter McMahon does in an average day as part of the Sixth Annual Job Shadow Program. His response: "I couldn't believe how really busy Mr. McMahon is." School board puts $18.5 million capital improvement plan out to voters by Rick Forgione On Wednesday night, the Grand Island Board of Education approved a resolution to put an $18.5 capital improvement project for the district out to the voters of Grand Island. The project will represent hundreds of mandatory repairs and program improvements the district needs to address in the upcoming years. "We have made a good fiscal decision and a good program decision," said Board President Richard McCowan. The cost of the project, bonded over a period of 15 years, is expected to cost the average Grand Island homeowner about $40 or $50 extra in taxes a year. Superintendent Dr. Paul Fields said Thursday morning that since interest rates and other banking factors have not yet been determined, it is impossible to report the exact increase but the $40 to $50 range is a good estimate. Fields pointed out that due to the fact that almost 90 percent of the entire project will be state aided, the district is getting a lot of essential work done that the school's need for a relatively small tax increase. McCowan agreed with Fields' assessment saying that the timing is no better. "The need (for improvements) is not going away," McCowan said. "It will just be deferred and cost more in the future." Four months ago, the Grand Island School District appointed Cannon to conduct a Song range study looking at the school district's needs. On Tuesday night, representatives from Cannon - Hans Kullerkupp, Tom Ritzenthaler, Annette DiNicola and Jim Singer — took on an "advisory role" and presented the board with a proposed $33,354,000 capital improvement development plan. Such a project would correct every single one of the school district's repair and program needs observed by Cannon while visiting the district's five public schools: Kaegebein, Sidway, Huth, Veronica Connor Middle School and the High School. Each issue Cannon felt the district needed to address was compiled in a thick report given to the board during the presentation. Every item was categorized by what school it was at and given a priority of one through five with one being the most essential to address. The entire report was compiled with the help of the district Shared Decision Making team, site teams and administrators. At Wednesday's meeting the board voted unanimously to address $18.7 million of the project with Trustee Michael Dlugosz abstaining due to the fact that he is a vice president at Cannon and it would be a conflict of interest. However, he did tell the board that he fully supported the project after the vote was taken. Despite the fact that the board did not discuss any details in the report that would be addressed as part of the project, they were in agreement that the all of the number ones, which Cannon labeled as "life priorities" will be dealt with properly. Trustee Jeri Schopp, who stood by the board's decision on the final figure, unsuccessfully made a motion earlier in the meeting to reduce the total amount of the Town explores consolidating building and zoning positions by Deanne Bartha With an eye toward consolidating building and zoning positions, the Supervisor's Committee on Government Reorganization met Tuesday night to discuss the possibilities.The biggest problem the two departments face, Supervisor Peter McMahon said, is communication. Currently, the dual jurisdiction tends to produce more than one answer for the same project. McMahon believes that the dualism should be eliminated as well as the lack of jurisdiction and unclear jurisdiction. "Our goals were making sure we get effective enforcement and make it more efficient and save money," McMahon said. 'The opportunity presents itself because Sam (Long) is retiring and there's a vacancy from last year. Clearly, there are things that we can fix." Citing previous overlap problems when the two departments were separated on paper in 1991, Building Inspector Doug Learman advised McMahon in December that "With the announced retirementretirement of the current Zoning Officer, Dr. Long, as well as the proposed up-dating of the overall Town Code, the Town Board has the opportunity to blend the building and zoning departments back into one department, as it should have been all along. The consolidation of the departments would result in improved efficiency, increased accessibility, and ultimately, better service to the public." "It is my belief that with the proposed 're-uniting' of the two separate departments, one more efficient department will emerge, that will be better able to serve the public, while at the same time providing the code enforcement services that are mandated by the various codes that our community must recognize," Learman noted. In December, however, Dr. Sam Long sent a memo to McMahon that conveyed his disapproval for any consolidation. Long pointed out that although the duties of Zoning Officer entailed 19 hours a week, it was not a nine to five job. Many of the functions were completedcompleted evenings, nights, Saturdays or Sundays. He questioned why the town would consider combining it with the Building Department. "In my opinion this again will result in chaos and I would hope a lesson would be learned from the action taken in 1983," Long wrote, referring to the abolishment of the Zoning Officer position. "I feel after being involved for 27 years with the local government, after being the Zoning Officer for 12 years, the Zoning Department should be a separate entity." Long cites that the action taken in 1983 led to several problems that manifested into incidents of "character assassination." McMahon believes that cost and convenience dictates the necessity of combining the positions. Duties of the Zoning and Building enforcement are very similar, McMahon said. Out of 12 towns surveyed on the matter, 11 have Zoning and Building Departments that are combined. The committee will meet again on Friday, May 18. continued on page 4