Editor:

The residents of Medina have a choice coming up on Jan. 20.

The choice is “Do I vote yes to support dissolution and possibly save money in my yearly taxes?” or “Do I vote no to preserve the community that I have lived in for years or recently relocated to live here?” I say vote no.

Voting to dissolve the Village of Medina that was incorporated in 1832 is not the solution.

Medina is very unique in the fact that we have a fully staffed fired department that utilized its members as Emergency Medical Technicians for the most basic EMT right up to Advanced Life Support as a paramedic. The men are dedicated and have provided a service that just last year brought in a little over 1 million dollars.

Previously this service was provided by a commercial ambulance service that had one unit here for 911 calls in the village, as well as the towns of Ridgeway, Shelby, Yates and the Village of Lyndonville. Medina Fire Department provided the backup service when the commercial unit was out of service.

With dissolution there are no guarantees that the current level of service now provided will remain the same. Fire service is a brotherhood and even though Medina fire is staffed with firefighters around the clock, we still need the assistance of our volunteer brothers to work a structure fire, just as we help them in their respective response areas.

Medina also has a staffed Police Department that answers calls to its residents in a timely matter. Outside of the village you have the Orleans County Sheriff’s Department along with the New York State Police to answer county calls. With dissolution you lose the current comfort of knowing a police officer or two will respond within mere minutes.

Our Department of Public Works runs and maintains the village streets, water, and sewer. To maintain the same level of service for this, taxes will not go down to keep the streets cleared in the winter and maintained in the summer.

Water is not guaranteed and to this point no one can answer let alone guarantee that the contract with the Niagara County Water Authority and the Village of Medina will be maintained. Local laws, village planning and zoning laws go away and will need to be brought to Town of Shelby and Ridgeway Zoning and Planning.

My point in all this is look into the promises being made about tax reductions with no loss of current services. Ask questions and become informed about what the true impact of dissolution will be, because frankly I think you will be surprised as to what you might lose and what is being promised.

Sincerely,

Michael G. Maak
Medina

(Mr. Maak is a Medina firefighter.)

Editor:

As we get closer to Jan 20, we as village residents have a very important decision to make. Do we vote yes to dissolve our village or do we vote no and keep our village intact as it has been for over 175 years?

Before I offer my opinion I will state first, yes I am a village employee and have been for the past 21 years. Some will read this and say I’m only trying to protect our jobs, and that’s fine. I understand there are strong feelings on both sides of this subject.

For those who know me they know my parents raised me not to be an alarmist but a realist and my opinion is based on over 29 years in the emergency services field.

For over two years much time and effort has been put into exploring the possible dissolution of our village. Many people have spent countless hours in meetings putting together two different studies to present the information to our residents. I personally know that several of these people are highly respected and qualified professionals in our community.

First, I want to go on record and say, as the fire chief I was included in the informational gathering process of both studies.With that being said, very little time was spent with me by members of CGR regarding the fire department on either study. I was involved with face-to-face meetings, lasting 45 minutes and and an hour, respectively, along with a few emails.

I guess they felt they had enough information to make recommendations for the future of our department based on those interactions alone, knowing that we respond to 3,000 calls a year, have 13 full-time employees, 2 temporary full-time, and over 20 call firefighters. Not to mention a budget of around $1.3 million and revenue of well over a million dollars a year for the Village of Medina.

The second study, when completed, produced a list of recommendations that if
the village dissolves, the towns will have the choice to follow or chose not to. I can compare this list to the one I used to make for Santa when I was a little boy…. A wish list!!

My mother would tell me I was a good child throughout the year, but Santa never brought me everything on my list. Some years I got one thing, some none, but never did I receive everything. Are we willing to dissolve the village hoping we will be granted everything on One Medina’s wish list. The towns have already gone on record stating they are not planning on following the recommendation.

As an example I would like to reference another study that our Village Board commissioned back in 2006 – an ambulance feasibility study. The Medina Fire Department wanted to take over primary ambulance service in Western Orleans County. The study stated it would take 17 full-time firefighters to accommodate roughly 1,500 to 1,700 calls per year.

As you can see from the demographics of our department as stated above, we do not have close to the staffing levels recommended by this study and respond to double the amount of calls. I tell you this not to complain about our manpower. Only to make a point that a study does not need to be adhered to by leaders. A study is just that, with no obligation to follow.

Comments have been made on social media that state, if we don’t dissolve the village there is no guarantee that we can maintain our current services as they are today. That statement stands true every year, for any municipality no matter how small a town or how big a city.

I have been a department head since 2003. Each budget year we have to work diligently to maintain costs as we move forward to the next. There are some costs that are beyond our control. There have been years that we have had to cut into our equipment budget to keep costs at a respectable rate and still provide the level of service our community deserves. I can not say that taxes will not go up from year to year, but I will say if the village does not dissolve we will continue to work hard to keep your services intact.

I do not fear change. Change is good if it provides a clear and positive path to follow. If the village dissolves, there is no clear path. We do not know how it will affect your emergency services. I can only speak for the Fire Department. Your Medina Fire Department as you know it today will not be the same, and in my opinion we have the best fire and ambulance protection here in the western side of Orleans County.

The Medina Fire Department is part of a wheel, “the hub” and the spokes are four excellent volunteer fire departments – East Shelby, Shelby, Ridgeway and Lyndonville. We all need each other’s help and if you take one part away from the wheel it will have a hard time spinning.

If a fire and ambulance district are not successful in being created as the studies suggest please know this, Shelby and Ridgeway Fire Departments will be asked to respond to calls inside their respective townships that were once the village. The increase in call volume alone for each department will be on average six times the amount of calls they respond to now. That alone will be very hard for an all-volunteer department to sustain.

It is a fact that fire doubles in size every minute. Shelby’s fire hall sits roughly 1.5 miles outside the village and Ridgeway is 3 miles away. Again these departments are excellent but the fact is it will take longer for trucks to arrive on scene inside the old village borders.

The Medina Fire Department maintains four ALS (Advanced Life Support) ambulances staffed by some of the best paramedics and EMTs WNY has to offer. One of the only options if the ambulance district isn’t created is to go back to a commercial ambulance service.

There is only one presently with a state-wide CON (Certificate of Need) which could set up shop quickly. It is the same company we had prior to 2007 which could not maintain the level of service our community needed even then. No commercial ambulance will maintain any more than one ambulance in our area with a possible floater during high-call volume times.

Another fact… We will be waiting longer times for an ambulance to get to an emergency. As I worked for three years in the Orleans 911 dispatch center before coming to work at the fire department, trust me I spent many times on the phone reassuring the caller on the other end that help was near when I knew help was still a long way away from them. In comparison, the Medina Fire Department was on scene within 3 minutes each time we were dispatched to an emergency inside of village, bringing help much sooner.

Here comes the realist in me… The guys at the fire department are concerned. These last two years have been the most stressful years of my career, trying to keep the guys focused on doing our job (which is adherently stressful enough) without the distraction of the possible dissolution.

If the Village dissolves I can predict that we will start losing some very good young firefighters almost immediately to other departments. These firefighters don’t want to leave the village they love but with young families to support they will leave for a more stable and secure future. I know they say we will have two years to make the transition but what isn’t being talked about is how do we maintain our level of service when we start losing valuable firefighters.

With uncertainty in the air there won’t be anyone knocking on our door knowing the future of our department is unknown. I can not possibly work these men any harder if we lose manpower. I refer again to the study above regarding staffing levels, they suggest one paid firefighter for every 100 calls per year. We are currently at approximately 200 calls per paid firefighter per year.

At some point, sooner than later, tough decisions will have to be made if we feel our level of services can not be maintained to our standards or that the Village of Medina residents have become accustomed too.

On Jan. 20, we as village residents will be faced with in my opinion one of the most important votes of our lifetime. I know in a lot of elections we all ask ourselves: “Does our vote really count?” Trust me, it does. Before you vote, please educate yourself as much as possible with the facts and then ask yourself, what level of service am I and my family willing to live with or live without?

There are a lot of different figures being tossed out there about what will we save if we dissolve. I know personally as I figured out my supposed savings, if I go by the savings calculator on the One Medina’s website. It equates to one and a half months of my cell phone bill or going out to dinner less than one time a month for a year. I’m willing to give up both for life if it means having a police car, a fire truck or an ambulance at my front door within 3 minutes of calling.

We all have a choice. I choose to live in the village for the services they provide and I’m willing to pay for that. The residents in the towns of Shelby and Ridgeway have also chosen where they want to live. The Village of Medina residents should not be the only ones allowed to vote on decisions that will impact the towns.

If the village dissolves and services are lost, there is no going back to the way it was. If you have faith in your leaders and department heads then give us a chance to continue to provide the services we have been in our community for the past 175 years. I love the Village of Medina and surrounding area. I was raised here, went to school here and started a family here. If I work here another 15 years or retire tomorrow, I will always be proud to tell people the Village of Medina is my home.

On Jan. 21, after the vote is done, no matter the outcome, will life still go on … absolutely. We will still go to bed at the same time, wake up, kiss our family goodbye, grab our coffee and head to work. If the village dissolves, the blanket of security that we cover ourselves with each night as we close our eyes will undoubtedly be thinner.

Please remember, as the saying goes: You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.

Respectively,

Todd Zinkievich
Proud Fire Chief of the Village of Medina Fire Department

Editor:

I was born and raised in Medina. I am totally against the dissolution of Village of Medina. Rather than split the Village of Medina in two, eliminate our heritage and give up local control of our government, it would be better to simply to look for ways to improve efficiency in our village and towns.

There may be instances where town and village can share equipment or work out joint purchasing agreements.

Instead of offering multiple insurance policies there may be a cost effective group policies that could be offered in order to receive better rates.

I believe there are ways to cut costs without dissolving the village.

Sincerely,

Jennifer L. Hazel
Albion

Editor:

Tom Rivers had a wonderful editorial in the Hub on Jan. 5 titled “Here’s a resolution that every elected official in Orleans should support.” It’s about the disproportionate amounts of state aid that villages and municipalities receive as compared to the amounts that cities receive, regardless of population.

As the Village of Medina’s decision on whether to dissolve looms, I can’t help but wonder why more village governments aren’t pushing for fair funding to turn themselves around rather than to just dissolve and hope that the state money which has been “promised” to encourage dissolution is renewed year to year. While the latter solution may save the average village taxpayer enough money each month to splurge on a large pizza and an order of wings (projected $40 a month savings for the average village household and at the expense on an increased tax rate for town residents), will it do much more than this?

The former solution would surely allow our villages across the state, with the right leadership, to thrive and even grow; it could permanently bring the money needed to draw in industry and technology, to fill our Main Street shops, to grow our tourism dollars, to preserve our historical sites, and to fund arts and cultural programs.

I hope that Medina’s residents show up to the polls in overwhelming numbers to vote on the 20th. I hope that whoever is in leadership of Medina in the weeks and years following the vote, whether a village mayor or town supervisor(s), can think bigger than just tax savings and truly work to enrich the village or former village.

Most of all I hope voters recognize all that is at stake for our village before they cast their vote and that they are aware of ALL of the possible ways, with willing leadership, that we can work for a revitalized and prosperous community.

Respectfully,

Julia Goheen
Medina

Editor:

Personally I find it unseemly and perhaps counterproductive for village employees to enter the debate about dissolution of the Village of Medina. No matter what their true motives are, people will assume that they are doing it for fear of losing their jobs.

That said, I too worry very much about them losing their jobs. The dissolution plan sounds good and might make sense if the two towns were willing to have anything to do with it, but why should they? They have always looked after the interests of those constituents outside of the village rather than those in the village. That is not going to change. So let’s be realistic.

Without the cooperation of the two towns there are two possible outcomes from dissolution. The first will be losing village services and hoping that the towns will be willing to take up the slack but why should they? That would force them to raise taxes on those outside of the village.

The second outcome would be that the former village residents will have to pay extra taxes to cover the cost of keeping those services and of course the costs of an agency to oversee those services.

I guess that the good news is that with the dissolution of the village all contracts with village workers would become null and void. You can’t have a contract entered into by only one party. Whatever agency was overseeing the departments would be free to reduce hourly wages and tell the employees to take it or leave.

Over the years I have heard many complain about this department or that department and the quality of their work. I may have done that from time to time myself. But let’s think this through. If we are dissatisfied with the quality of the work of those earning, say, $40,000 a year will we be more satisfied with the quality of the work of those earning, say, $30,000 a year?

Dissolution might be a great way to break the unions but will it improve the quality of our lives? I wonder.

John S. Grimes
Medina

(Mr. Grimes is a former village trustee.)

Editor:

I have been thinking about the upcoming vote to dissolve the Village of Medina, and I must admit that I have never liked this idea or the idea of consolidating governments. I believe this takes away personal pride for his or her own community.

I have been involved in emergency services for 55 years, and this is my concern: if the village dissolved, what will happen to the fire, ambulance and police departments? Will they be gone or completely restructured? Whether they are gone or are restructured, how will this save money?

Right now you have one of the best ambulance services in the state, run by your fire department, with well-trained personnel for both fighting fires and providing ambulance services, all with fast response times.

Think about a community the size of Medina, without a police department, trying to cover a much larger area. Yes, it can be done, but NOT without the efficiency and expediency you now receive.

Wherever we live, we want to live our lives and raise our families where we feel safe knowing we have a strong fire, ambulance and police services. We have that now in Medina. Don’t let it go.

Sincerely,

David Green
Medina

(Green is the retired sheriff of Orleans County.)

Editor:

Dissolution or shared services?

First off, I will state that I signed the petition to put dissolution of the Village of Medina to a vote. Why would I do that, some might ask? Partly I have grown weary of the back and forth between the “Leaders.” It seemed for a moment shared services was on track to provide efficient government to all residents of the village, Town of Ridgeway and the Town of Shelby.

Somewhere the train went off the track. Accusations started flying quietly and publicly. Leaders need to be leaders and search for solutions – solutions that can benefit all of the people with as little pain as possible.

I say to those that live outside of the village, you do have a say. You must hold your town leaders accountable. If shared services happened, we probably would not come to a vote. I also say fear not, if dissolution is passed, it will take almost two years to implement a plan. If it goes down, we all have four years to work together for a shared services plan. If the current leaders don’t or won’t work together, we all have an opportunity to find new leaders that will work together.

I truly believe there are solutions, possibly not explored. Do I have the answers? No, but I am willing to discuss ideas for the benefit of all. Either way this goes, we as citizens need to communicate to our respective leaders with ideas not yet explored.

Will it be a 2-year plan or a 4-year plan? The village residents will decide on Jan. 20.

I have not decided yet and plan on listening up to the day of the vote.

Sincerely,

Wayne Litchfield
Village of Medina resident

Editor:

I’m from Medina Oh really? I have always said it that way when the subject comes up of where I’m from. “And where are you from?” Oh I’m from Medina, a little town halfway between Buffalo and Rochester.

Actually I’m not from Medina, own no property in the village, and do not live in the village. With the exception of renting an apartment at one time for about a year, I have never truly been from Medina. Maybe I need to change my explanation to truly reflect where I’m from when the subject comes up. I would not want to mislead anyone. I’m from the Town of Ridgeway. Hold that thought.

I read a story in the ‘Hub’ on Jan. 6 about a devastating fire that destroyed a milking parlor on a dairy farm owned by an Amish family on Fruit Avenue, Medina. The structure and its contents were a total loss.

A milking parlor can be likened to the heart of a dairy farm. Without it functioning properly, the dairy farm could not survive for very long. I felt so bad for this ambitious family as they recently moved to the area and have invested much in terms of time and other resources in their property.

About an hour after the firefighting equipment and personnel had left the area, I decided to drive by the property and witness the devastation. The pictures listed in ‘The Hub’ did accurately convey the image of destruction of this central part of the farm operation. What a mess, not to mention the fact that the cows needed to be milked again within just a few hours.

As I drove by this devastation I observed a happening rarely, if ever, seen in the “English” community. There was a group of Amish men clearing the burned out structure, in fact the site of the destroyed structure was virtually free of debris and readied to move forward. I’m sure this small army of helpers all had other important things to do that day, yet they dropped everything in their personal lives to give assistance with a goal of resolving a monumental issue.

It was then that it hit me, I mean really hit me. I relate this fire event to the current situation involving Medina, Ridgeway and Shelby. We can stand around and defend and protect our own separate entities or we can, like the group of helpers previously mentioned, come together to resolve a situation.

The Medina area can boast several examples of municipal success stories which have disregarded geographical and political boundaries and resulted in constructive cooperation.

The Medina Central School district consolidation from approximately 10 separate area school districts is a prime example. The Medina Memorial Hospital, The Sandstone Society, Hospice of Orleans and countless other civic ventures, all serve as examples of purposeful cooperative efforts by men and women with a vision for our community.

Our community has been and continues to be fortunate to have citizenry committed to looking beyond the status quo. Change and progress can be synonymous if driven by open minds and cooperative efforts on the part of those chosen to represent us.

The end result could be once again when asked, so where are you from? Oh, I’m proud to say I’m from Medina, you may not have heard of it. It’s a quaint community, located on the Erie Canal about halfway between Buffalo and Rochester, with a vision for its future.

Lee Blackburn
Fruit Avenue, Medina

Editor:

I keep thinking about this “dissolution” vote in Medina and how it will impact people both in their pockets and their lifestyle.

As far as the financial impact; while both sides have serious points, I lean toward the side of keeping things as they are because I don’t think you can bring down the cost factor by “spreading the pain” unless you degrade the services. There is history of other communities who have done this without reaping that promised cost saving benefits.

I also think the “Villagers” have a lot to lose if they vote for dissolution. Will your country counterparts care about your DIFFERENT NEEDS because the Village has a large population in a small area?

This becomes a huge factor in fighting fires and policing the people – Hence, SAFETY. Let’s face it; the danger to close neighbors from a burning building in the village is much greater than from a burning building in the more open Town of Ridgeway. A nasty-tongued or deeding miscreant in the village poses much more danger to close neighbors than in the countryside.

The other thing is that the Village is kept up and tidy, and up to date on repairs. Those repairs are constant and concentrated, unlike the occasional usage of roads in the countryside which are likely unlighted. Village residents enjoy well-lit streets, water and sewer services, and early plowing of your streets.

I can’t help but compare my Barre Center tax bill including the lights that illuminate the Town of Barre which because I rarely go that direction, never enjoy. While I understand the need, I grumble every year. If your Village Government is dissolved how do you think your neighbors will feel about the services you now enjoy? You have a good thing which YOU control. I wonder why you would want other outside taxpayers deciding whether or not you NEED all that you enjoy.

Cindy Troy
Barre

(Troy is president of the CSEA union for Orleans County employees.)

Editor:

The members of the Medina Police Benevolent Association strongly encourage all registered village voters to vote on Jan. 20. This vote is NOT to combine the village and two townships into one entity or “One Medina,” but to dissolve the village.

Dissolving the village ends any agreement with the village and the Medina Police, ultimately resulting in ending police services for the village.

So what are we saying? Police services that you as the village taxpayer pay for are gone, including community policing, quick response times to calls, animal control, downtown business door checks, crossing guard, school resource officer, K-9 officer, officers’ knowledge of the community, 24/7 coverage, and many other services.

One Medina promoters have preached that there will be no loss of police services, everything will remain the same. The creation of a police force falls on the towns, who have publicly said they have no desire to create. The towns are satisfied with the sheriff and state police service.

As of a letter sent to the Medina-Ridgeway-Shelby Consolidation Feasibility Study Committee dated Jan. 27, 2011, the Orleans County Sheriff’s Office indicated that its department is NOT currently in a position NOR interested in providing services to the village and that the village is already well served by the Medina Police Department.

The Medina Police again strongly encourages the registered village voters to consider the level of police services they want. Please vote.

Members of the Medina Police Benevolent Association

Chad Kenward
Michael Borrell
Joseph Frentz
Steven Fox
Todd Draper
Greg Fraser
Mark Prawel
Mark Parker