Last night the County Legislature passed a plan for construction and
infrastructure projects for 2013-2018. The Capital Improvement Program includes
Monroe Community College’s proposed new downtown campus.
The plan, which doesn’t allocate any funding, calls for $32.5 million in
county funds for the downtown campus. College officials want to move the Damon
City Campus from the Sibley building on East Main Street to buildings on the
Kodak campus on State Street. The CIP alludes to the Kodak site, but doesn’t
mention it by name.
In December, the Legislature will vote on borrowing to fund the 2013
projects. Two-thirds of the Legislature – 20 legislators – will have to approve
the bonding.
The Legislature’s 18 Republicans voted for the CIP and the 11 Democrats
voted against it, which shouldn’t come as a surprise. Democrats have said they
support Mayor Tom Richards, who wants to keep the campus at the Sibley
building. But they also say they haven’t ruled out support of the Kodak site
and that they want a public debate of the options by the Legislature. Democrats
wanted the section of the CIP that dealt with the new downtown campus to use
site-neutral language.
Democratic Legislator Vinnie Esposito introduced an amendment to change the
language, but Republicans voted it down. Esposito said that the Legislature and
the public haven’t had a chance to express their opinion on the site. And, he
said, the Legislature should have a more exhaustive discussion about where the campus
should be.
Before the vote, several speakers weighed in on the downtown campus. Bret
Garwood, the city’s director of business and housing development, urged the
Legislature to consider keeping the campus at Sibley. And Karen Morris, a
business law professor at MCC, spoke in favor of the Kodak site, as did a
student government representative. (Morris is also an elected Brighton town
justice and a Democrat.)
This article appears in Jul 11-18, 2012.
