An Open Letter To Elmira City Government From Chemung River Friends

[TTL News 318]

This is being sharedon social media today:

 

Thursday, May 2, 2024

Mr. Collins and Mayor Mandell, and members of the City Council, today was a beautiful day for a walk.

I took the new Chemung Chamber Tourism Manager, Alexis Rolston, with me so she could get a first impression as a tourist of downtown Elmira’s Riverfront Park and walking bridge. The New York Susquehanna Basin Water Trail will begin promotion in 2025, and we'll be pushing folks to riverfront Elmira businesses as part of the marketing here in Chemung. I really wanted to see what her first impression would be, since it will be the same impression our tourists will have.

Picture it, if you will:

As a tourist, you’ll be parking the Centertown Parking Garage, where you’ll have the pleasure of walking through actual human excrement to make your way to downtown Elmira. That’s because the elevators are broken and there’s a homeless encampment in the garage. The stairwells double as a public restroom.

We begin our walk at the historic Midtown Building. We pass several vacant businesses on both sides of the garbage-littered street. Business owners are leaving downtown Elmira because there is no parking. A customer who parks once in the parking garage is a customer that is lost to us. Paul Kingsbury said he specifically discussed this with you many years ago and his concerns were dismissed. The folks at Downtown Grind and I discussed this, too. Ultimately, the lack of parking killed their business. Our own organization had a business meeting recently that ended with a declined lunch invitation because our visitor did not want to dine in downtown Elmira after having tiptoed around human fecal matter to get to my office. They didn't feel safe leaving their car in the garage. It was embarrassing, to say the least.

As we make it to the corner of S. Main and Water (A) we find a small corner garbage can--seemingly the only one on this side of the block--that has been tagged with graffiti. The sidewalks are filthy and in need of a power-wash.

We cross over to Riverfront Park, which was only recently updated but then clearly forgotten, as the beautiful plantings have been overrun by weeds and trash (B). For a brief moment, we can see the beautiful Chemung. There have been talks about building a boardwalk here since at least 2017, but it remains a bleak, concrete wall, blackened with decades of dirt and debris. At 5' 5", it is just a few yards before my only view of the river is replaced with a dirty concrete wall. There is a rusty open pipe sticking out of the ground here, as big as my fist. It has a white piece of plastic ribbon wrapped around it instead of an orange cone.

More trash, more weeds, the occasional (beautiful!) tulip, and we find ourselves under the train bridge (C). Filomena Jack has made a beautiful mural here, and we step around a puddle of stagnant water and debris to view it.

Under the Clemens Center Parkway (D), we find several dumpsters worth of trash spread all over the place and a tent city. I ask the folks there if they need supplies from us to clean up their garbage. They say they’re fine; who are we to ask? I tell them were with Chemung River Friends and Chemung County Tourism, ask who can I talk to about cleaning up all the garbage. They had chased away our volunteers on April 20th, saying we were on their private property.

The tent city folks tell us they have permission from the City Manager to be here, so I can take it up with him.

I thank them for the information and we continue.

Now we’re in the older part of the park (E), and you have to watch your step because the bricks are broken and have heaved in many places. A mural here has been vandalized and neglected and is peeling away. The garbage can is full and people have begun piling trash next to it. Piles of rotting leaves fill an empty water feature. Again, weeds and garbage abound.

At the new walking bridge (F) we find the sidewalks covered in graffiti. The single planter has cigarette butts, no plants. The bench is splintering. Garbage here--and there’s plenty--will find it’s way right into the river. We take note of the single garbage can located at point G. First impression made, we head back.

I challenge you to take the same walk and share what you think her first impression was of downtown Elmira—the same impression every tourist will have.

Our organization has the desire and the volunteers to transform this area, but we can’t do it without financial support from the City of Elmira.

We can maintain the gardens, install new flowers and native plants, educational kiosks, keep the walking paths clear of garbage and debris. We’ll gladly dispose of the needles and meth pipes and get rid of the graffiti. Well set in motion a new downtown that the people of Elmira will discuss with pride. We need your financial support and your public support to do it.

Friends of the Chemung River Watershed requests annual financial and police support from the City of Elmira to clean up and maintain the downtown riverfront business area, including daily cleaning of the Centertown Parking Garage, which we will provide. We will also use this funding for when we have to pay the city for permission to cleanup (it costs us $50 per cleanup for permission from the City of Elmira to clean the City of Elmira) unless the City is willing to waive those permit fees. Daily cleaning of the garage is critical to the success of downtown Elmira businesses, and a well-maintained downtown park is just as important, so this is an easy win for the City and a big draw for downtown businesses and tourism.

A review of the City's Adopted 2024 Budget Worksheet shows three vacancies in the Buildings department (total salary: $118,332.28) and two vacancies in the Garbage and Refuse Department (sum total: $77,708.80)--a total availability of $196,041.08. Our organization could manage 24/7/365 cleanup of the parking garage and riverfront park walking path and walking bridge for just less than half of that--$80,000 per year, which would include maintaining and improving the gardens; installing picnic areas and educational kiosks; installation and maintenance of art; cleaning the parking garage; keeping the bridge free of graffiti and trash; and more. The only thing the City would have to do is mow the grass (or lend us the mower, and we'll mow the grass, too).

The budget shows three vacancies in the police budget. I'd strongly recommend having a dedicated police presence to patrol the garage and downtown area 24 hours a day until it no longer has a reputation as a place where you can do drugs and leave your garbage in your tent city with the blessings of city management.

At the point when the parking garage elevators are fixed and we have daily cleaning and a reputation for enforced security, the garage becomes a selling point to downtown businesses and there is no reason for the citizens to balk at parking meter fees.

There is so, so much potential here. You have so many citizens who are desperate to help clean up this city if they had the resources to do so. Please consider financially supporting us in this effort and giving us permission to maintain and improve these assets.

At the very least, please let me know when we can arrange to remove the homeless encampment and debris from under the bridge, which will require police presence.

I look forward to your reply,

Elizabeth Zilinski (She/her/hers)

Executive Director

 

To find out how you can help or to learn more about the Chemung River Friends, CLICK HERE

What are your thoughts on this?

[KarenK 384]

This is not new by any means.  I wonder about the money they want?  Are they making requests for grants and being denied?  Seems like that is the correct process to go through for money.

If they have all those people want to volunteer, then according to my definition of that, it's not paid (ask me how I know lolol)

They also appear to want the money that is there due to vacancies on staffing.  I would assume the city wants to fill those vacancies eventually as do the police.  I know they are trying to hire.

The city also has a HUGE liability exposure with a bunch of "volunteers" doing the things they want to do.  What if one of those homeless goes after someone and hurts them?  I'm sure injured person would then go after the city.

[TTL News 318]

An additional press release was just sent out. In addition to the above open letter, the release included the following information:

Quote

 

The Friends of the Chemung River Watershed Executive Director, Elizabeth Zilinski, sent an e-mail to City of Elmira Mayor Daniel Mandell, City Manager Michael Collins, and the City Council, calling on them to provide financial support to the organization and allow them to provide annual planting, cleanup, and maintenance of downtown Elmira’s Riverfront Park and the Walking Bridge, and regular cleanup of the Centertown Parking Garage for $80,000 per year.

A downtown cleanup was held by the organization on April 20th, for which they paid the City of Elmira a $50 permit fee. The City of Elmira is the only municipality that requires the organization to pay for a permit to organize a cleanup of municipal properties. The group of more than 40 volunteers collected a full dumpster of litter, including a meth pipe and syringes, from downtown Elmira. Volunteers were unable to clean up near the Clemens Center Bridge in Riverfront Park because a group of people living under the bridge chased them out of the area.

When the new Chemung Chamber Tourism Manager, Alexis Rolston, visited the office of Chemung River Friends, which is in the historic Midtown Building in downtown Elmira, Mrs. Zilinski took her on a tour of Riverfront Park, one of Elmira’s tourist destinations. The letter she sent to the city’s leadership followed, accompanied by a photo of their walking path.

The letter and many photos of the dire situation in the business district was shared on Chemung River Friends’s Facebook page, and Mrs. Zilinski was asked by the River District Merchant Association to make a statement to the Council.

Elmira City Councilmember Nick Grasso also invited Mrs. Zilinski to the City Council meeting on Monday, May 6, after 6:00PM to speak on these issues during the time allotted for public commentary: five minutes. The organization’s volunteers, the citizens of Elmira, and downtown business owners are encouraged to come and support Chemung River Friends in transforming downtown Elmira.

 

 

[Chris 2,226]

Just now, TTL News said:

A downtown cleanup was held by the organization on April 20th, for which they paid the City of Elmira a $50 permit fee. The City of Elmira is the only municipality that requires the organization to pay for a permit to organize a cleanup of municipal properties.

Just when you think you've witness peak stupidity around here, something like this comes along. You have got to be shitting me. 

2 minutes ago, TTL News said:

Volunteers were unable to clean up near the Clemens Center Bridge in Riverfront Park because a group of people living under the bridge chased them out of the area.

The wrong people are being chased out. That goes for the entire city.

[MsKreed 1,204]

The River Friends are 100% correct. The disrepair, garbage and creepy elements downtown do keep people away. Not just tourists, but those of us in other parts of the county (and likely even residents from other neighborhoods in Elmira) feel safer parking and walking in Corning, Waverly or one of the shopping centers up the road.

 

I'd love to hear a statement from the new Tourism Manager on what she thought of the walk they took. 

[Chris 2,226]

3 hours ago, MsKreed said:

The disrepair, garbage and creepy elements downtown do keep people away. Not just tourists, but those of us in other parts of the county (and likely even residents from other neighborhoods in Elmira) feel safer parking and walking in Corning, Waverly or one of the shopping centers up the road.

I see enough of Elmira through the course of my workday to not want to be there anymore than I have to be.

There’s nothing in Elmira that I can’t do in Horseheads or The Valley. And without all the BS.

[Chris 2,226]

[MsKreed 1,204]

He deleted his first public response to the Letter.  It was long-winded and seemed to miss her entire point in an effort to defend the conditions downtown.

He called her letter a "tirade". Ignored that it was addressing the issue of litter in and around the waterfront, and addressed her as if the whole point of her 'tirade' was to complain about homelessness. Then called Chemung River Friends (and presumably their hundreds of volunteers) "hostile"'

Here's a screen shot was a grabbed before he took it down....

For her part, Ms. Zilinski maintains that the group did request an in-person sit-down meeting, but that was ignored/declined by the Mayor and Manager. She offered email copies of a request they made a month ago. 

For all his preaching of "constructive dialogue" it doesn't appear that he has much interest in finding out facts before making knee-jerk replies that later are suppressed to protect his "constructive dialogue" persona. 

He's a piece of work.  Seems a few politicians that lean on their religion to show people how "honorable" they are, also have zero issues with deleting posts and blocking constituents to maintain that "honorable" façade. 

[Chris 2,226]

This right here is a completely asinine statement to make:

The Friends have done a great deal of good for the community as a whole, and not just Elmira. They've been out there, getting their hands dirty for years, not just pontificating from the pulpit or keyboard.

[Chris 2,226]

And I'll make this clear for the 1000th time: Anyone ( and we both know who you are, I see you lurking ) who wants to have a conversation about this or anything is more than welcome to sign up for an account and chime in. I do not make it a habit to block people ( two in more than 12 years and with good cause ) and all viewpoints are welcome. But this is not the echo chamber some are accustomed to, so if you make a statement, you better be prepared to back it up with fact. 

I doubt a single one will take me up on that though. 

[MsKreed 1,204]

22 hours ago, KarenK said:

The city also has a HUGE liability exposure with a bunch of "volunteers" doing the things they want to do.  What if one of those homeless goes after someone and hurts them?  I'm sure injured person would then go after the city.

I understand there could be potential liability. But it doesn't seem like the liability is reduced when the City issues a "permit" for and charges $50.  Feels like the opposite. The City would be less liable if I just happen to wander downtown on my own and am accosted or injured, the City has some defense that "I" bear took a risk (whether I was just strolling or illegally collect litter without a permit).

But once they accept my "fee" and grant a "permit", then they're making an implied statement of approval. 

[Adam 378]

23 hours ago, KarenK said:

What if one of those homeless goes after someone and hurts them?  I'm sure injured person would then go after the city.

hence the request for increased patrolling of the problem areas

[Chris 2,226]

[Chris 2,226]

I should have set a stopwatch:

 

 

[Chris 2,226]

Try a little harder buddy.

[Chris 2,226]

It appears Councilman Brinn has deactivated his Facebook page. 

[Chris 2,226]

On 5/6/2024 at 9:24 AM, Chris said:

It appears Councilman Brinn has deactivated his Facebook page. 

It's back. 

Also, in the most recent newsletter, River Friends director Elizabeth Zilinski wrote the following:

Quote

Our downtown Elmira cleanup on April 20 was very successful, with forty volunteers attending and working hard to fill a dumpster to the very top with trash picked up from the river, parks, and streets. So we were understandably crushed when the next day, the downtown area was trashed again.

So it seems that it's not a matter where one walk was taken and suddenly the litter was discovered, but they had taken the time to do a clean up only to have the area trashed again. 

[Hal 343]

And thats the reason other cleanup volunteer groups have just given up on the City and walked away ! Hearsay but a good source told about a cleanup in progress and watching as bench and gazebo settlers threw more trash on the ground… while the cleanup was still going on in Wisner Park ! 

[KarenK 384]

2 hours ago, Chris said:

It's back. 

Also, in the most recent newsletter, River Friends director Elizabeth Zilinski wrote the following:

So it seems that it's not a matter where one walk was taken and suddenly the litter was discovered, but they had taken the time to do a clean up only to have the area trashed again. 

I'm a little surprised that the entire cleanup area was trashed again.  By the river encampment, of course it was.  But the entire city?  I have been part of the downtown cleanup several times so I'm not buying into the entire city was trashed again.

 

[Chris 2,226]

9 hours ago, KarenK said:

I'm a little surprised that the entire cleanup area was trashed again.  By the river encampment, of course it was.  But the entire city?  I have been part of the downtown cleanup several times so I'm not buying into the entire city was trashed again.

She said “ the downtown area” which you could r take as the entire area or she’s referring to the area they cleaned. Either way, I have no problem believing it.

[Hal 343]

3 hours ago, Chris said:

She said “ the downtown area” which you could r take as the entire area or she’s referring to the area they cleaned. Either way, I have no problem believing it.

I have no problem believing this either . Look at our roads here the day after a good amount of folks did a roadside cleanup. But what is one to expect when Laws such as littering are passe’ and a good deal of other long standing  Laws as well . 
A small amount of the local swinery are more than proud to spread and share their lifestyle with the rest of us it seems . 

[MsKreed 1,204]

I don't drive through Elmira on a regular basis or pay close attention to which businesses (large or small) are moving in/out. But the frequency that I have to drive to Elmira (once every 2 months or so)....to me, it feels like it's gotten significantly worse in the past year or two. 

 

Around the Courthouse and Hazlett are the only places I’ve recently seen anyone walking around that’s dressed like they’re employed. Driving by St Joe’s and Centertown garage to Langdon Plaza and the Arena, I used to see year ‘round, steady pedestrian traffic of well-dressed business casual folks. 

I can’t say whether there are fewer large employers and businesses with workers downtown.....or if those respectable regular inhabitants just don’t want to walk around. Either way, their visibility had dwindled and they're now outnumbered by the unsavory sorts -- lugging dirty backpacks or pushing grocery carts full of junk.  

Edited Monday at 01:24 PM by MsKreed

[Chris 2,226]

41 minutes ago, MsKreed said:

lugging dirty backpacks or pushing grocery carts full of junk.  

And those grocery carts often end up dumped along side the street somewhere. 

And while the homeless population in Elmira is a large cause of the problem, it's not the sole cause. I see people walking or riding their bicycles all the time just drop thewrapper or whatever they have in their hands without a thought. A large segment of our population are pigs, pure and simple, though that comparison is being kinda unfair to our porcine friends. 

[Chris 2,226]

Quote

 

ELMIRA, N.Y. (WETM) – The non-profit group “Friends of the Chemung River Watershed” held the first of several “pop up” clean-up events happening in May. Today we saw Executive Director Elizabeth Zilinski picking up trash by herself at Jim Nelson Park on West Hudson Street during a light rain at noon.

The next cleanup is set for Wednesday May 15th at Mark Twain Riverfront Park, from noon to 1 pm.

“We typically see 30 to 40 volunteers for a big cleanup. For cleanups like this we’ll usually have 4 or 5. Today was a rainy day. I was hoping for at least one, and I got one. I’m counting you,” Zilinski told 18 News reporter Nick Dubina.

“We’re going to start doing these one-hour cleanups at lunchtime around different parks here in Chemung County, and eventually we’ll expand to the other counties. What we’re looking for is how much garbage there is in the park. What things the park needs fixed up for example, we encountered a lot of graffiti at this park. So that’s something we’d want to bring to the attention of the city and they will send somebody out to fix that up,” Zilinski said,

 

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