News Details - Records Storage Agreement Approved

Legislators approved a ten-year lease agreement for underground records storage space at the Seneca Army Depot, at a cost of $720 per month ($8,640 per year). The vote was unanimous, with Legislators Kathy Luz Herrera and Pam Mackesey excused. The sublease with Finger Lakes Technologies Real Estate Holdings, LLC takes effect as of October 1. The agreement, applying to storage of certain permanent original records the County must retain, stems from the need to relocate the Tompkins County Records Center to meet the Legislature’s directive to vacate Old Library building in a timely manner. Nearly all County records have been digitally scanned, saving the County millions of dollars in anticipated cost that would have been needed to build a new records storage building.

The Legislature had been scheduled to vote on another measure that would have allowed the Old Library’s other tenant, the Community Justice Center, to vacate; however, a proposal to enter into a multi-year lease agreement within Center Ithaca for space to house the Day Reporting Program and Drug Treatment, as recommended by the Capital Plan Review Committee, was withdrawn. County Administrator Joe Mareane told Legislators that the County learned last week that the space in question has been leased to another tenant and that the County is resuming the search for possible space. Both Capital Program Review Chair Mike Lane and Legislator Jim Dennis expressed serious disappointment about the decision and how it was communicated to the County.

08-07-2012