NORWICH – A $34,000 state grant intended to fight obesity in Chenango County isn’t anything he intended to pass up, and after making a case for it four times, Public Health Director Dr. Marcas Flindt finally won approval from county lawmakers to take advantage of it.

Flindt said if Chenango County didn’t take the money, then it would simply be divvied up amongst other counties that were. “Why should we give them our money?” he asked.

Flindt’s standing committee had originally approved his request, and its members weren’t happy that their fellow supervisors on the Finance Committee had overruled them. Town of German Supervisor Rick Schlag, who sits on Finance and Health and Human Services, said some supervisors were concerned about spending money on a program and then not being reimbursed for it, as well as beginning an activity that would require personnel or maintenance costs later on.

The supervisor from New Berlin said when resolutions are rejected by another committee (in most cases it’s Finance), then the referring committee “ought to have a say back, not just knock it on its head.”