BATAVIA
Merger of city and town envisioned
BATAVIA — “A Vision of One Batavia,” strongly slanted toward a merger of the city and the town of Batavia, has been presented at a joint meeting of the City Council and the Town Board during a 45- minute session in Town Hall.
The presentation Monday by Charles Zettek Jr., vice president of the Rochester-based Center for Governmental Research, was a prelude to a multistep civic engagement process that will continue with public forums June 18 and June 30. Then the issue would go to the voters of both municipalities in November.
The final draft would be subject to the approval of voters in each of the two jurisdictions. It apparently will call for the elimination of the city that is surrounded by the town. Involved are 54 square miles and more than 22,000 residents.
A consolidated government, according to research funded by a state Shared Municipal Services Incentive grant, would lead to reduced costs, new state revenues and improvements in services.
To allay the concerns of town residents who pay no real property taxes, the proposed plan would keep city and town levies unchanged and would not shift city debt or other costs to the town. The plan envisions $943,000 in additional funds from savings and new revenues.
City police and sheriff’s deputies, as well as Batavia and Pembroke volunteer fire departments, would remain unchanged, but city and town highway operations would be merged. Refuse collections — a city service but provided by private contractors in the town — would be unchanged, as would water and sewer costs where the town has several water and sewer districts paid for by users.
Any consolidation would not affect the city school district, which also covers the Town of Batavia and part of the Town of Stafford.
Zettek noted that any consolidation would be “proactive as a first and a cutting edge” in the state’s plan to push mergers of small local governments.
Facing the public for the first time, the study committee members are: Lynn N. Freeman, president of the Genesee County Chamber of Commerce; Sally A. Kuzon, assistant Batavia city manager; Steven C. Lockwood, vice president of the Genesee County Economic Development Center; Beverly Mancuso, executive director of Genesee County Cornell Cooperative Extension; Jason R. Molino, Batavia city manager; Steven J. Mountain, Town of Batavia engineer; and Jeffrey Scott, a city resident and systems analyst for a Buffalo firm.
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