Cayuga County Legislature seat hopefuls debate issues at forum

Oct. 21—Two fresh faces running for local office faced off for the Cayuga County Legislature'sDistrict 13 seat.

Newcomers Mike Pettigrass, a Republican, and Christina Calarco, a Democrat, talked about different subjects at a forum recorded Tuesday at Cayuga Community College. Tim Lattimore, who currently holds that seat, is in his third and final term. District 13 encompasses the central region of Auburn, including the downtown area.

Both candidates explained how they feel about the direction the county is going. Pettigrass said he's concerned about reported population decreases for both Auburn and the county according to the 2020 U.S. Census, saying the county needs to find a way to "turn the direction around" and maintain its population.

"We need people here to maintain our tax base, we need more business, we need economic growth and we need a place for our future generations to be able to prosper," he said. "We have to find a way to keep people in our community, we need the ability to have them maintain a fruitful career and have a family that can be successful and we can't do that if we continue to lose people."

Calarco said she has seen positive growth in the county, comparing it to when she moved back to Auburn after leaving the area for a few years. Upon coming back, she said, she recalled downtown Auburn having one or two restaurants, saying it was "really desolate compared to what I remembered as a child." Over the last 15 years, she has seen change such as restaurants and breweries opening up, she said. She also added that she feels the protection of Owasco Lake is "on the forefront of people's minds" and she wants that positive change to continue.

"I agree with Mr. Pettigrass that the population decline is an issue, and we need to make sure that there are jobs here and affordable homes for people to stay and actually plant roots," Calarco continued. "But I want to take it from a positive perspective that we are starting to implement those changes and we can continue to do."

In response, Pettigrass said it is nice that new smaller businesses are in the area but feels it is important to find ways "to bring in larger businesses and have career opportunities for our generations to stay."

In regard to how the protection of the Owasco Lake Watershed should be handled, Calarco pointed out the new rules and regulations for the watershed the Auburn City Council and Owasco Town Board approved and sent to the state government last year have "been sitting basically in limbo at this point" and said it is important for pressure to be applied on the state for those directives to be approved.

"The conversations that need to continue need to involve everyone — our farmers, people involved in tourism, the city, the county, we need to make sure all the stakeholders are at the table and have these discussions," Calarco said. "We need to protect the lake but not at cost of completely destroying farmers at the same time, so we need to make sure that those regulations are fair and doable for all that are there."

Pettigrass said the issue of protecting water quality has existed for years without it being solved, with harmful algal blooms appearing every summer. He also noted he believes it will take years to resolve the problem.

"We need to stop talking about it, we need to start implementing some of the ideas," Pettigrass said.

He said the "more logical resolutions" the Owasco Lake Watershed Management Council have come up with need to be implemented.

"They've been working on this for years, there's a lot of people involved in it, (a) consortium of people, scientists and people studying these issues and they've got some great ideas, we just need to implement them," Pettigrass said. "We need to stop talking about it, we need to reduce the nitrogen, we need to reduce the phosphorus in our waters and there's ways to do that."

He also said he favors the new rules and regulations and supports the watershed.

Calaraco and Pettigrass also spoke about topics such as how they would be similar or different from Lattimore, how the federal American Rescue Plan funding the county is due should be spent and whether they feel the county office building should stay where it is now, be renovated or move to a different location. They agreed on certain areas, such as believing the Legislature's current number of 15 districts is in need of reduction and argued against the current weighted vote system.

The candidates said the $780,722 to $1.3 million the county is set to receive as part of a settlement with opioid manufacturers and distributors should go toward efforts such as recovery and education, and both argued against possible county government mandates for employees to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

Staff writer Kelly Rocheleau can be reached at (315) 282-2243 or kelly.rocheleau@lee.net. Follow him on Twitter @KellyRocheleau.

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