COLUMBUS – The Town of Columbus is a small country community and its supervisor says the only way to promote the area is to increase public awareness and government transparency.
Columbus Town Supervisor George Coates added that he only plays a role in the local municipality and that his Columbus Town Board deserves most of the credit.
“I’ve been so incredibly fortunate in that I’ve always had an outstanding group of people support me and the community. You must be very thankful for your board’s support in getting anything done and I’ve been lucky so far,” said Coates.
Coates is unopposed on the ballot this November, and so are all the other seats in the Town of Columbus, including a two-year term for Town Clerk with incumbent Brenda L. Weidman seeking reelection. Also, incumbent Town Council members Kavin E. Winton and Bruce E. Vermeulen along with Superintendent of Highways Kevin D. Cross are all seeking four-year terms in their respective positions.
For Coates, this will be his third term in office and the 12-year Columbus resident says he’s available to the community whenever they call.
“We tried to bring in more open government, even more open than it was before and anybody knows they should just call me at home if they need me,” said Coates.
“We want to encourage public interaction and to get people involved you got to keep in touch with them, especially the ones that might disagree with you,” he said.
Although Coates continues to collect a supervisor paycheck from the county, he has waived his annual Town of Columbus salary each year he’s been in office.
Coates said some of the specific challenges appearing on Columbus’ horizon include an aging town hall.
“We have some physical issues with the town hall the structure is about 18 years old and it starting to degrade. Now is the time to step in and have something done or else we’ll be force into it when we can’t plan for it as well. The state is also pressuring us for the construction of a salt shed for our highway department,” he said. Coates said he wasn’t really sure if the town needed a shed, but was open to a debate about the issue.
Coates also said the town was in the middle of reevaluating its properties. “We are in the process of doing a reevaluation of the properties which hadn’t been done in something like two decades. Our equalization rate was at 41 and there is a question of fairness,” he said.
Another concern was one reverberating from supervisors across the county, decreasing state aid to maintain local highways.
“We worry about it all the time, the state funds. CHIPS (Consolidated Local Street and Highway Improvement Program) had scheduled 42 percent hit but was reveres in 2009 to 2008 levels,” said Coates, crediting the efforts of Chenango County Department of Public Works Director Randy Gibbon.
“The main thing is every time you turn around something has to be done and everything needs money and it has to come from the people. You can’t help but worry about it.,” said Coates. “Honestly there are a lot financial challenges ahead for the town. We’re not the most affluent area and those areas seem to be the hardest hit.”