manich@leaderherald.com
JOHNSTOWN Half of Fulton County government’s largest department is working from home due to COVID-19, as the pandemic also continues to impact the monetary benefits flow from the department.
Fulton County Department of Social Services Commissioner Anne Solar said Thursday her agency continues to keep an eye on the money trail impacting benefits given by her agency to the area’s needy.
“My biggest concern is the 20 percent the state is taking,” said Solar.
She mentioned the 20 percent the state has “withheld” during the pandemic, which actually represents money that is supposed to be repaid through the federal government. The repayments impact many areas of social services, which have affected local families hard through the pandemic.
manich@leaderherald.com
JOHNSTOWN The Fulton County Board of Supervisors recently adopted a local law to allow Sheriff Richard Giardino to recruit corrections officers from counties contiguous to Fulton County.
Action by the board followed a public hearing on the matter.
The sheriff has needed a larger pool of officers to serve the Fulton County Correctional Facility at Route 29 and Harrison Street. Supervisors voted to adopt local law “B” of 2020 allowing not only residents of Fulton County to serve as corrections officers, but residents of continuous counties, such as Montgomery, Saratoga and Herkimer counties.
“It will help me out,” Giardino said Thursday. “It gives me a larger pool of applicants.”
aonyon@leaderherald.com
GLOVERSVILLE The Fulton County Center for Regional Growth Board of Directors on Friday bid farewell to a long-time board member who they say helped right the economic development agency’s finances following its reorganization.
The CRG conducted its annual meeting followed by the Board of Directors’ annual organizational meeting on Friday that saw board members Timothy Beckett of Townsend Leather and Terri Easterly of Coldwell Banker each appointed to their second three-year terms.
Attorney Bryan Taylor of the Fulton County Department of Social Services was additionally appointed to his first three-year term on the board effective Jan. 1, filling the seat of departing Treasurer Ronald Olinsky of the Greco Olinsky Wealth Management Group of Wells Fargo Advisors.
aonyon@leaderherald.com
GLOVERSVILLE Organizers of a code blue shelter at the former YWCA on Bleecker Street plan to hand out blankets and socks on Saturday as a way to aid the homeless and community members in need while the emergency winter shelter remains unable to open so far this season.
Mike Shrader, who serves as the chair of the Center of Hope advisory board that is organizing the emergency shelter with the Gloversville Free Methodist Church, said Wednesday that shelter organizers came up with the idea to offer blankets and socks as a way to help community members in need get through the cold winter months after the Zoning Board of Appeals rejected their application to overturn Building Inspector David Fox’s determination that the shelter is not allowed under city zoning code.
aonyon@leaderherald.com
Brenda Liett, a congregation and board member of the Gloversville Free Methodist Church and lifelong city resident, speaks in support of the code blue shelter proposed by the church at its 33 Bleecker St. mission building before the Zoning Board of Appeals on Wednesday. (The Leader-Herald/Ashley Onyon)
GLOVERSVILLE After hearing from an extensive list of supporters and opponents of a proposed code blue shelter in the former YWCA building on Bleecker Street and following a lengthy deliberation on city code provisions, the Zoning Board of Appeals upheld the determination by the building inspector that the shelter is not allowed under city zoning code. The ZBA went on in their decision to provide shelter organizers the opportunity to amend their application in search of a variance to potentially advance the project.