Finding solutions to unkempt property is an issue that plagues most municipalities. The accumulation of junk can reduce property values, be an eyesore and an attractive nuisance to children as well as posing a health risk. A municipality may choose to adopt regulations that address junk storage, household debris and other clutter. A municipality that chooses not to adopt local regulations may enforce the provisions contained in the state motor vehicle junkyard law as well as the property maintenance section of the NYS Uniform Fire and Prevention Code.

The Local Government Education Committee of Oneida & Herkimer Counties has scheduled a training session to address these issues and possible solutions. The session will be held on Thursday, March 11, 2001 6:30- 8:30 in the Café at Kunsela Hall, SUNYIT in Utica. The training will feature a panel discussion with:

• Ray A Meier, of Counsel to the law firm Bond, Schowneck and King, PLLC.   Mr. Meier serves as the municipal attorney for several municipalities in the area and has extensive private and public sector experience

• Joseph A. Booth who has served at the Director of Codes and Zoning for the Town of New Hartford since 1989. He has provided training on various codes and zoning issues.

• Thomas Romanowski from the NYS Department of State, Division of Code Enforcement and Administration. The regional office located in Utica is responsible for a service area that covers eight counties.

Pre-registration is required. There is a $15.00 charge for the workshop and checks should be made payable to the College Association There is still time to reserve a seat for this workshop by calling 315-866-4671 or by email to gregmved@twcny.rr.com  or jeanne.brown@sunyit.edu . The workshop fee can be paid at the door. Visit the Local Government Education Committee website at http://www.lgec.org/  for more information.

Several communities in the NOCCOG region submitted applications to the New York State Archives office for funding under the Local Government Records Management Improvement Fund (LGRMIF) program. NOCCOG and Tug Hill Commission staff provided assistance in the preparation and submission of three Records Management Grant applications .

The town of Vienna requested $8,953 in grant funds to implement the next phase of their records management program with a state-of-the-art inactive records storage area. If funded, they plan to organize and re-file or purge approximately 180 cubic feet of inactive records and develop policies and procedures to ensure long-term success of their program.

The town of Ava is requesting $12,402 for the construction of a fire-safe storage area for their inactive records. The town plans to transform their current storage area into a more efficient and secure space that will house 105 cubic feet of boxed records on steel shelving units along and 42 cubic feet of large format documents such as maps in a map tower. Included in the project is the organization and re-filing or purging of records and development of records management policies and procedures .

Northern Oneida County Council of Governments (NOCCOG) submitted an application on behalf of five municipalities in Oneida County. The project will improve access to historical records for each of the participating communities. Historical records, many of which have suffered fire and water damage over the years, will be preserved and made available digitally through Ancestry.com. Northern Oneida County Council of Governments requested $23,873 for the project. This project would serve as the second phase of a multi-year project to digitize and microfilm historical records to improve public access. The pilot project targeting four different local governments was funded by the LGRMIF is currently underway.  Nine NYS Archives projects have been written, funded and managed by NOCCOG in the last nine years.

The Records Management Grant applications were submitted on February 1, 2010. Award announcements are expected in June.

The Tug Hill Commission's 21st Annual Local Government Conference registration brochure was mailed out to local officials in late December. The conference will be held at Jefferson Community College in Watertown, New York, on Thursday, April 1st. Registrations postmarked by March 10 will be $50; by March 17 - $75, and $100 at the door. Workshops on a variety of topics are geared toward town and village board members, clerks, planning boards, zoning boards, highway departments, and assessors. The keynote speaker this year is Robert Freeman, Executive Director, NYS Department of State, Committee on Open Government. Please join your fellow local officials in what promises to be a day of educational and instructive information.

To help navigate the myriad of programs available for energy efficiency programs, a website was launched in 2009 to provide information on state-funded energy efficiency programs available to schools, hospitals and local governments, available at http://www.nyserda.org/clearinghouse

There are still a couple of online training opportunities available for Planning Board and ZBA members who have not completed their yearly training require-ments of four hours.

The NYS Department of State Land Use Training Unit is offering its two most basic courses: Planning Board Overview and Zoning Board of Appeals Overview on its website:

http://www.dos.state.ny.us/lgss/OnlineTrainingHelp.htm.

NYS Dept. of State Local Government Services must register each student and assign a UserID and Password (even if only to "preview" the program). To register, you must send an email to:

LocalGovOnlineRegistration@dos.state.ny.us with the following information:

Each course is divided into subject "modules" (similar to traditional chapters). At the end of each module the student is expected to complete a short quiz in order to move on to the next module.

The number of modules and pages varies for each course. At the end of the course the student is required to take a final exam and answer a minimum of 75% of the questions correctly in order to move on to display a "certificate of completion." Each course is designed to take approximately two hours to complete. Throughout the course there are web links to reference materials, such as NYS Statute, and DOS land use publications and legal memoranda. The linked materials are designed to supplement what is discussed in the course. Students are encouraged to view these materials to get a better understanding of the subject matter.

If you want to contact the Training Unit for general online training questions unrelated to registration, please send an email to:

LocalGovOnlineTraining@dos.state.ny.us.

For technical questions related to online course user problems or questions related to online course subject matter, please send an email to:

LocalGovOnlineHelp@dos.state.ny.us

Also you may call (800) 367-8488 and ask to speak to a staff member of the Land Use Training Unit.

It is up to each municipality to decide if this is an acceptable form of training and it is suggested that students present to their municipalities a printed copy of their passing test results and certificate of completion upon completion of each course.

If your municipality is a member of either NYMIR or the New York Planning Federation, you are eligible to use the Land Use Training & Certification School. The New York Municipal Insurance Reciprocal Land Use Training Program for Local Government Officials is an online training program designed to teach the basics of New York land use law. The program is made available to governmental officials, planning and zoning board members ,municipal risk managers and others for noncommercial purposes. The program has nine tutorials and a glossary with links to definitions and various New York State statutes. The program is produced by the Pace University Land Use Law Center and the New York Planning Federation. It is made available through the New York Municipal Insurance Reciprocal, which is owned by the 530 New York Municipalities it insures. You can download the program FREE! from NYMIR http://nymir.org/zoning_reg.shtml or the zip file (1.6 meg) from NYPF:

http://www.nypf.org/NYMIR_land_use_training.zip.