Road closed Tuesday

OXFORD – County Road 17 between Loomis and Cooper School House roads in the Town of Oxford will be closed Tuesday, until flooding repair work is completed.

The traveling public is asked to plan accordingly. Local drivers will be allowed access to their homes; however they will be required to travel away from the project for the closure period. Call the Chenango County Department of Public Works at 337-1710 for more information.

City of Norwich conducts street tree inventory

NORWICH – The City of Norwich will be conducting an inventory of city managed trees, between the sidewalk and the curb, beginning on Tuesday. The inventory will be completed by the Headwaters Youth Conservation Corps and community volunteers. The Corps members will be identifying and measuring each tree, and assessing the tree’s condition and whether three-phase wires are present. Also, they will be marking locations of existing trees as well as potential planting sites.

This inventory has been made possible through a cost-share grant from the NYS DEC, a Round 10 Urban and Community Forestry Grant funded through the Environmental Protection Fund. The data collected through this inventory will be complied into a report that describes the make-up of the City’s forest, the number of trees, species and condition, as well as the economic and environmental benefit of those trees.

If you are interested in volunteering with this inventory, contact Marjorie Grap at The Place at 336-9696.

Pool to be open through Labor Day

NORWICH – Extra availability of lifeguards working at the Kurt Beyer Pool will allow the pool to stay open through Labor Day weekend this year.

In past years, lifeguards – often college students – have had to leave the area to return to school, said City Youth Bureau Director Bob Mason. “This is the first time in the 16 years that I’ve been director that we have been able to stay open through Labor Day,” he said, noting that the pool is usually closed by the third week of August.

Pool hours will also be changing to noon-6 p.m. in the final ten days it’s open.

Community forum addresses dispute resolution

NORWICH – The Chenango Community Forum will be meeting at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Guernsey Library on Court Street in Norwich.

This month’s speaker will be Jan Marcy, a retired public school librarian, and a community mediator. For the past 13 years, Marcy has worked as a trained mediator for the Community Dispute Resolution Center, which is a program of Catholic Charities. While not a part of the New York State court system, the Dispute Resolution Services is described as functioning in partnership with the courts to provide a free, informal, non-judicial alternative way to resolve disputes, and to move toward mutually-acceptable solutions. While the program is specifically designed to deal with personal and professional conflicts, in this time of nation-wide governmental dysfunction, participants hope to discuss how this process of dispute resolution might also be applicable to the political process. What would happen if our politicians actually focused on resolving problems for our people, rather than scoring political points for the next election?

The next forum on Sept. 12 will be Tea Party member Irving Wesley Hall discussing a national balanced budget amendment resolution.