Herkimer legislature to submit diagrams of new jail

The Herkimer County Legislature authorized on Wednesday submitting the bubble diagrams to the New York State Commission of Correction for the new county correctional facility.

The bubble diagrams are used to show the general layout and structure of the new facility.

The resolution states that the diagrams may be modified in the future to reflect the County's final needs for the facility, since a location has not yet been finalized for the new facility.

The legislature voted 11-5 to submit the diagrams. Legislators Joseph Chilelli, Dennis Korce, John Brezinski, Daniel Carter and Helen Rose voted against the resolution.

Korce has voted against most of the resolutions having to do with the building of a new correctional facility.

"I feel we should be fighting this unfunded state mandate," Korce explained. "The taxpayers should not have to pay for this. By passing this resolution we are moving forward on what the state wants."

The public safety and emergency management committee of the legislature recently selected a site in the town of Schuyler, the Schuyler Industrial Park, to focus its efforts to build a new correctional facility.

Not everyone is happy with that decision, including Brad Gorea Sr., who owns the Altrux site, which was one of the original six sites approved by the state commission for the new correctional facility.

Gorea approached the legislature Wednesday and asked them to re-consider his site, as it is only 1.1 miles from the courthouse, versus the 9 or 10 miles Schuyler is.

Gorea has 70 acres of land at the Altrux site, enough for the county garage as well. The county was originally planning on placing the county garage on the same site as the jail, but discussions since have not included that.

Gorea says by placing the jail at the Altrux site, the county will save money, especially in transportation costs.

"This could save Herkimer County 3 or 4 million dollars," Gorea said.

The Altrux site was originally taken off the table because of the cost of the site, and water and sewer to the site, which would have to be provided by the village of Herkimer, which has already denied water and sewer to previous sites.

Gorea said he met with Mayor Mark Ainsworth and asked if the village would consider providing water and sewer to the Altrux site. Ainsworth told him to talk to the legislature, which would need to write a letter to the village asking for water and sewer to the site.

Despite the plea from Gorea to reconsider his piece of property for the jail, no legislators formally said they were interested in going down that route again.

Legislator Vincent Bono has continued to reiterate that the village of Herkimer has not responded to letters written by the legislature.

"Only three or four municipalities came forward when we sent that letter asking for the municipalities' input on sites," Bono said. "The village of Herkimer was not one of them. I previously asked the village if there was any site they were comfortable giving water and sewer to and receive no answer. I'm not going back to them to get rejected again."

Deputy Mayor for the village of Herkimer, Gary Hartman, released a statement in response to Bono's previous comments about the village not responding to the county.

"Mr. Bono has often voiced his contempt for the members of our village board, and our community. His statement regarding our response, or lack thereof, to the county on the water issue is totally false and baseless. Regardless of his disdain for Herkimer, he should not deliberately mislead the public," Hartman concluded.

Despite the still heated debate over the location of the new county correctional facility, the legislature is moving forward with the Schuyler location at this time. The committee submitted photographs and documents to the state commission of corrections about the Schuyler site. The commission will then come out to look at the site. If approved, the county will then move forward with feasibility studies on the site. Once the studies are complete, the legislature would then open discussion up for public comment on the proposed site.