Investor group plans to buy Cazenovia College campus

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CAZENOVIA, N.Y. — A group of local investors known as 9 Fresh has plans to purchase the campus of Cazenovia College, which closed due to financial difficulties following the 2022-23 academic year. Village of Cazenovia Mayor Kurt Wheeler confirmed the group’s plans for the campus in an email to CNYBJ. No expected purchase price was […]

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MVHS, Oneida Indian Nation unveil artwork at Wynn Hospital

Mohawk Valley, Construction, Design & Real Estate, Energy, Environment & Sustainability, Featured, Health Care, New York News, Nonprofits, Sports, Entertainment & Tourism

UTICA, N.Y. — The Oneida Indian Nation, Mohawk Valley Health System (MVHS), and local officials have unveiled two new public works of art at Wynn

VIEWPOINT: Manufacturing Growth Needs Realistic Energy Approaches

Business Mentors, Manufacturing & Engineering, Subscriber Only

Manufacturing is under-appreciated in New York state. Why is this? One of the main reasons is that there is a negative perception of manufacturing as an industry that is dirty, polluting, and low-skilled. This perception is blatantly false. Manufacturers are real innovators in protecting our environment and building sustainable facilities and they make meaningful progress

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Manufacturers are real innovators in protecting our environment and building sustainable facilities and they make meaningful progress every year in becoming even more sustainable and environmentally friendly. They go even further with their leading-edge investments in renewable-energy sources, energy-efficiency measures, and cleaner production processes. As a result, manufacturing and tech companies serve as crucial leaders in transitioning to a greener and cleaner economy.

This refocused importance on the industrial sector requires us to invest heavily in our energy production and electrical infrastructure. Massive investments in new transmission lines and substations and the deployment of energy-storage systems will be necessary to achieve a carbon reduction while enhancing our economy. It is not possible for the industry to do this alone; massive federal and state support will be required. This will ensure that energy, and especially renewable-energy sources, are available. Recent planned investments by the manufacturing sector in new nuclear, and biofuels like clean hydrogen and renewable biodiesel, helps our communities move toward sustainability. There are many advantages to updating our fuel sources to green and renewable types that support economic growth and long-term sustainability.

However, transitioning to a new energy and carbon-neutral future will take time. Manufacturers certainly will need to make investments in capital-intensive operations. They need safe, available, reliable, quality, and affordable energy. For instance, many of their processes require natural-gas today and will for the foreseeable future. The natural-gas pipes may one day carry renewable hydrogen gas. Also, carbon-free nuclear power is an excellent source of transition fuel. If we want manufacturing jobs, we must make these accommodations. This will require realistic timelines and public support to create the energy grid of the future. Our current grid has been built over the last 100 years. The new grid will take decades to develop and deploy.

What makes this worth our effort is that the industrial sector provides a solid foundation for the economy by creating high-quality jobs, generating wealth, and supporting other sectors of the economy. The technical jobs of the manufacturing sector can begin at any time in a person’s lifetime. Manufacturers will hire you out of high school, after two years of community college, or after your bachelor’s, master’s, or doctorate degree. Earn-and-learn approaches are more available in tech and manufacturing jobs than in any other industry. These community-sustaining jobs are the lifeblood of thriving communities.

Randy Wolken is president and CEO of MACNY, The Manufacturers Association. MACNY says it is the voice and business-solution leader for manufacturers in Central and Upstate New York. MACNY services include advocacy/government relations, workforce development, training and leadership development, networking events, HR consulting, and energy purchasing programs. This article is drawn from the President’s Message feature published on the MACNY website.

OPINION: Protecting New York’s Farmland Benefits Us All

Opinion, Subscriber Only

New York farms have been a building block for our communities and our state for generations. Unfortunately, a number of conditions have threatened our farmland and put enormous pressure on hardworking farmers and the agricultural sector. A recent report from New York Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli confirms the severity of the concerns that members of the

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A recent report from New York Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli confirms the severity of the concerns that members of the Assembly minority conference have expressed for several years.

According to the report, between 2012 and 2022, New York state lost about 14 percent of all farms, accounting for 9 percent of the total farmland in the state. Further, we are losing both farmland and farms faster than the nation as a whole and nearly all our neighboring states. DiNapoli pointed to labor, commodity prices, and unpredictable weather as major contributing factors to these losses.

“The overall decline of farmland is troubling, as conversion to other uses, particularly residential, commercial or industrial, may prevent its use for farming in the future. This includes 1,728 acres located in agricultural districts classified as solar electric generation facilities,” DiNapoli’s report said.

Thankfully, despite this alarming trend, output and production have remained stable, and there are some highlights to note. New York state ranked top three among the states in the production of apples, milk, beets, maple syrup, and cabbage, and overall, our farms took in $8.5 billion in 2022. That represents a 47 percent increase from 2017. We have also seen a large spike in agritourism income.

Our farms continue to face significant headwinds, however. In 2022, farm expenses reached $6.2 billion, a $1.9 billion increase compared to 2017. Labor costs jumped 68 percent during that period, by far the largest increase of any category. Making matters worse, the number of hours farm employees need to work before being eligible to earn overtime has already been reduced from 60 to 56, and that number will be cut all the way down to 40 by 2032.

For these reasons, our conference has fought hard to protect New York’s farms, and we will continue to do so in light of the comptroller’s report. In recent years, we have proposed policies like the “Food Insecurity, Farm Resiliency and Rural Poverty Initiative” to assist farmers struggling during the pandemic. We have also introduced legislation to give our dairy industry a boost by allowing state schools to buy improperly maligned whole milk and 2 percent milk produced here. Our conference also wholeheartedly supports continued funding for locally sourced food reimbursement to reimburse school-lunch programs that have purchased at least 30 percent of their food products from New York state farmers, growers, producers, and processors.

New York’s farms are a huge part of our state’s proud tradition of producing some of the nation’s best agricultural products. Preserving our farmland and ensuring valuable farm acreage isn’t needlessly hijacked by ineffective green-energy initiatives is in everyone’s best interest. We must find a way to reverse this troubling trend before it’s too late.

William (Will) A. Barclay, 55, Republican, is the New York Assembly minority leader and represents the 120th New York Assembly District, which encompasses all of Oswego County, as well as parts of Jefferson and Cayuga counties.

OPINION: Make America Great Again is more than a slogan

Opinion, Subscriber Only

It is necessary For the first time since the reign of Franklin D. Roosevelt, which put the full-throated administrative state in place, America has aligned the executive, legislative, and judicial branches to restore power to the people and rip it out of the hands of their taxpayer-funded overlords in the federal bureaucracy. This is the

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It is necessary

For the first time since the reign of Franklin D. Roosevelt, which put the full-throated administrative state in place, America has aligned the executive, legislative, and judicial branches to restore power to the people and rip it out of the hands of their taxpayer-funded overlords in the federal bureaucracy.

This is the time, purpose, and vision behind the founding of Americans for Limited Government more than 20 years ago.

In the past three years, the U.S. Supreme Court has opened the door for the first time in decades to roll back federal regulatory overreach. The court declared that regulations that go beyond the law passed by the elected Congress are unconstitutional in West Virginia v. EPA.

And just this past year, the Supreme Court overturned a 40-year-old decision that instructed courts to give deference to the wisdom and knowledge of the federal bureaucracy over those who were suing to prevent the expansion of the regulatory state. By ending so-called Chevron deference, the federal courts can listen to arguments and dismiss absurd or disputed claims by regulators when confronted with conflicting and credible testimony.

These two cases, along with a few others that have the same effect, open the doors not only in the courts, but also for Congress to act to shut down this unconstitutional expansion of government.

To make matters even more hopeful, President Donald Trump has appointed Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to head a non-governmental Department of Government Efficiency (or DOGE). The goal of DOGE is streamlining government and providing the President and Congress a pathway to not only wring waste, fraud, and abuse out of the system, but also to provide a blueprint on government reorganization.

These are hopeful times, but here is the secret that we all know. If changes are simply made using Donald Trump’s formidable [executive order] pen and paper, they can be rescinded as early as 2029.

This is why Congressional action is essential. Narrow majorities in both the House and Senate will dictate some of the scope of changes that can be made. But Congress can help write overreaching regulations out of the law by refusing to reauthorize legislation unless the regulatory changes are made. It can strip funding for the implementation of regulations through the appropriations process. And Congress can affirm executive branch-recommended rescissions reflecting cuts in spending that have been deemed wasteful or unnecessary by the White House.

The great news is Speaker Mike Johnson (R–La.) and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R–La.) have already started the ball rolling by directing their committee chairs to identify these overreaching regulations so that the House can hit the ground running on day one.

The even better news is that with the bully pulpit of President Trump, media disruptors like Truth Social, talk radio, [podcasts], and X.com, and groups like Americans for Limited Government, the administrative state will face powerful grassroots pushback directly into Congress urging change.

The great restoration of America is possible. There are many challenges ahead, and it will likely take 12 years of GOP presidential leadership to clean up the mess created on a bipartisan basis over the past century.

But for the first time in generations, there is hope that the administrative-state dragon can be slayed, spending can be refocused upon constitutional priorities, and the great American economic engine will be unleashed to create a future that the baby boomer generation cannot imagine.

Freedom is contagious and freeing the minds and talents of our nation’s entrepreneurs, inventors, and dreamers has been the key to our nation’s wealth, historically creating a prosperous middle class where parents can achieve their dream that if their children apply themselves, they will achieve greater things than their parents.

Make America Great Again is not a slogan, it is a determination to fix what is broken in America including restoring individual freedom and today it is necessary and that is why there is hope unseen for generations.

Rick Manning is president of Americans for Limited Government.

Rome Health names medical director of robotics program

Health Care, Mohawk Valley, Subscriber Only, Technology

ROME — Rome Health recently announced it has appointed Po Lam, M.D., as medical director of the health system’s robotics program. In this role, Lam, a nationally recognized urologist, will provide oversight of the overall care and clinical services for robotic services, according to an Oct. 16 Rome Health announcement. The emphasis will be on

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ROME — Rome Health recently announced it has appointed Po Lam, M.D., as medical director of the health system’s robotics program.

In this role, Lam, a nationally recognized urologist, will provide oversight of the overall care and clinical services for robotic services, according to an Oct. 16 Rome Health announcement. The emphasis will be on maintaining high standards of quality and safety through ongoing education and continuous quality-improvement initiatives.

With support from the Rome Health Foundation, the hospital purchased the da Vinci Xi Surgical System and began offering robotic procedures in June 2024.

“The technology complements our surgeons’ expertise by extending the capabilities of the surgeon’s eyes and hands,” Rome Health Chief Medical Officer Cristian Andrade said in the announcement. “For patients, it means smaller incisions, faster recovery time, minimal scarring and pain, less trauma on the body and shorter hospital stays.”

Bariatric, general surgery, gynecologic surgery and urological procedures can be performed using the robot. Dr. Lam specializes in advanced robotic surgery in the areas of prostate cancer, kidney cancer, bladder cancer, and difficult kidney stones. He will soon be performing robotic procedures at Rome Health.

Dr. Lam has performed more urologic robotic surgeries in the Central New York area than any other surgeon, Andrade said. Certified in da Vinci robotic surgery, Lam serves as a proctor for Intuitive Surgical, Inc.

Lam is a graduate of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. He completed his surgical training from the University of Louisville Health Sciences Center. Lam went on to receive his urologic training at the University at Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. He was also trained at Roswell Park Cancer Center around urologic oncology. Roswell Park is the first NCi (National Cancer Institute)-designated cancer centers in the U.S. Lam finished his fellowship training in endourology, laparoscopy, and minimally invasive surgery at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center.

Dr. Lam is part of the Associated Medical Professionals multi-specialty group, along with New Hartford urologists Jeffrey Sekula, M.D., Daniel Welchons, M.D., Jonathan Block, M.D., and Ronald Kaye, M.D., who perform surgical procedures at Rome Health.

Rome Health is a nonprofit health-care system based in Rome, providing services to patients throughout Central New York. It is an affiliate of St. Joseph’s Health and an affiliated clinical site of New York Medical College.

Ask Rusty: About Disability Benefits While Still Working

Business Mentors, Employee Benefits & Human Resources, Subscriber Only

Dear Rusty: I retired at my full retirement age, am now 79, and will be 80 in December. I have been working consistently since. I get a meager Social Security (SS) benefit, only about $800 [per month] due to my federal retirement offset. Most jobs I have held since filing and collecting SS have involved

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Dear Rusty: I retired at my full retirement age, am now 79, and will be 80 in December. I have been working consistently since. I get a meager Social Security (SS) benefit, only about $800 [per month] due to my federal retirement offset. Most jobs I have held since filing and collecting SS have involved labor-intensive work, to include my current position. This has taken a toll.

My question: is there any provision in Social Security that permits re-evaluation of Social Security benefits for disability after one has collected and paid into the system for some 15 years? I suspect not but thought I would ask, since at my not so tender age, I am faced with having to cease employment that generates needed income.

Signed: Still Working at 79

Dear Still Working: I’m afraid that Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits are no longer available once you reach your SS full retirement age (FRA), which for you was age 66. Indeed, anyone collecting SSDI at full retirement age is automatically converted to their regular SS retirement benefits at the same amount they were previously receiving on SSDI. That’s because SSDI benefits are intended to sustain workers up to their SS full retirement age, but SSDI goes away once FRA is attained.

Thus, the provision to apply for SS disability allows only those who have not yet reached their full retirement age to seek disability benefits. Once FRA is reached, SSDI benefits are no longer available. Simply for your awareness, there would be no financial advantage for you to receive SS disability benefits anyway, because the most you can get on SSDI is your full retirement age amount. Thus, since you retired and claimed SS at your full retirement age, no additional disability amount would be available anyway.

FYI, I admire, at your “tender age,” that you are still actively working, but I’m afraid you cannot claim more now on Social Security disability because you’ve already reached your FRA. However, from what you’ve written, your SS retirement benefit has been affected by the so-called Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) which affects those with a separate pension earned without contributing to Social Security.

If you’ve been separately working (and contributing to Social Security) since you left government service, and you now have more than 20 years contributing to SS from other non-government “substantial earnings,” it’s possible that you can request a reevaluation of your WEP penalty. WEP provides relief for those who have more than 20 years contributing to Social Security. So, if you have more than that over your lifetime, you could ask that your WEP reduction be reevaluated to consider your additional years contributing to Social Security. If that is the case, your monthly amount would be increased to consider those additional years contributing to SS since you first claimed.

I suggest, if you now have more than 20 years of contributions to Social Security from your non-government work over your lifetime, that you call the Social Security Administration (SSA) to request reevaluation of your WEP retirement amount. FYI, you can see exactly how many years of SS-covered work you have by requesting an “Earnings Statement” from the SSA. You can get this statement by calling (800) 772-1213, or at your personal “my Social Security” online account at www.ssa.gov/myaccount. In any case, I wish you good fortune, and hope that reevaluating the WEP reduction to your SS benefit may offer some small financial relief as you go forward.

Russell Gloor is a national Social Security advisor at the AMAC Foundation, the nonprofit arm of the Association of Mature American Citizens (AMAC). The 2.4-million-member AMAC says it is a senior advocacy organization. Send your questions to: ssadvisor@amacfoundation.org.

Author’s note: This article is intended for information purposes only and does not represent legal or financial guidance. It presents the opinions and interpretations of the AMAC Foundation’s staff, trained, and accredited by the National Social Security Association (NSSA). The NSSA and the AMAC Foundation and its staff are not affiliated with or endorsed by the Social Security Administration or any other governmental entity.

Small Business Development Center at OCC is changing its name

North Country, Education & Training, Employee Benefits & Human Resources, Featured, New York News, Nonprofits, Small Business, Sports, Entertainment & Tourism

ONONDAGA, N.Y. — The Small Business Development Center (SBDC) at Onondaga Community College (OCC) plans to change its name to one that “encompasses the region

ANDRO and Frankfort launch pilot program to improve community safety

Employee Benefits & Human Resources, Featured, Health Care, Law, Accounting & Taxes, Mohawk Valley, New York News, Nonprofits, Sports, Entertainment & Tourism, Subscriber Only, Technology

ROME, N.Y. — The PRISM Lab at ANDRO Computational Solutions LLC has launched a new pilot program, featuring the Team Awareness Kit (TAK), with the Village of Frankfort as part of an initiative to provide municipalities with technology to improve community safety. TAK, developed by the U.S. Department of Defense in cooperation with companies including

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Former fire department treasurer in Oneida County charged with stealing $92,000

Employee Benefits & Human Resources, Law, Accounting & Taxes, Mohawk Valley, New York News, Nonprofits, Sports, Entertainment & Tourism

DURHAMVILLE, N.Y. — A former treasurer of the Durhamville Fire Department in Oneida County has been arrested for allegedly stealing more than $92,000 from the

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