Onondaga County could spend nearly $300,000 on a study to revitalize CNY Regional Market

SYRACUSE, N.Y. (WSYR-TV) — Onondaga County isn’t backing out of its plan to invest in the Central New York Regional Market, despite all of the issues identified in state comptrollers audit released earlier this month.

The future of the Central New York Regional Market is looking much more promising, with Onondaga County still planning to invest up to $4 million, despite the financial troubles the market is currently facing. The county first plans to spend about $300,000 on a study of revitalizing the market.

“With everything going on at the regional market, what this money is specifically for is to do a study for how we can do things better at the regional market from a logistical standpoint,” said David Knapp, (R) 12th District, Onondaga County Legislature.

Up to $225,000 of county budget money could be paired with a $100,000 grant from Empire State Development. Altogether, this money would be spent on the study.

“We really think we need to do this first to develop a plan moving forward before we decide to invest a whole bunch of money into rebuilding infrastructure and everything else without really the plan moving forward,” said Knapp.

Through the study, the county would learn the ins and outs of how the regional market is operated, its structure, and what needs to be done.

“The study may say we should have different kinds of buildings or maybe there is a better way to do some of the infrastructure and the electrical, the water, the sewer, the whole nine yards, the lot that needs upgrades that are starting to fail,” said Knapp.

“I’m confident that we’re doing the right thing because we can’t let it fail. We can’t,” said Chris Ryan, Minority Leader and county Legislator 8th District.

The entire legislature will vote on the study on June 4, if approved, it will take about a year for the study to be completed. Once completed, the county will come up with a plan on how to move forward in making the regional market a better operation.

In response, the CNY Regional Market’s Executive Director, Amanda Vitale tells NewsChannel 9:

“Myself and our entire team here at the CNY Regional Market have been beyond grateful for the support that we have received from Onondaga County and others. This is just another outpouring of support that shows the County’s dedication to preserving and enhancing the community’s assets into the future. We are both humbled and excited to work in partnership with them to improve our facilities and services, and to ensure that we do all we can in order to best serve our community and constituents into the future.”

Amanda Vitale, CNY Regional Market Executive Director

Powered by News Channel 9.