Please find the most up to date notices from the Village of Cornwall-on-Hudson.
Head to the Cornwall NYF website to provide your input regarding opportunities and challenges in Cornwall's downtown districts and shape the community's vision and goals to help move Cornwall forward.
All materials from Public Workshop #1 are posted on the website and a survey has been made available to obtain your feedback
The survey has been extended and will be open until Friday, July 14.
Scan the QR code or visit www.cornwallnyf.com
For Immediate Release May 19, 2022
Subject: Proposed 3-Year Contract Between Cornwall and the New Windsor Volunteer Ambulance Corps (NWVAC) for Basic Life Support and Advanced Life Support Services
As most residents understand, individual municipalities are responsible for providing and maintaining an effective and sustainable ambulatory service to their communities. Of recent, it has become more difficult to provide this critical volunteer service due to soaring costs and the dwindling number of available volunteers. This issue has been a topic of debate within the New York State legislature recently, with legislation introduced to establish EMS (the provision of urgent pre-hospital treatment and transport for medical care) as an “essential service.” Long overdue, this effort could potentially reconfigure how ambulatory services are administered across New York State. Unless and until the County and/or State elect to make certain changes, municipalities must seek effective methods to sustain and improve services. Experts contend that the paradigm is evolving and that mergers, or consolidation, exist as an intermediate solution.
For over a year, New Windsor Volunteer Ambulance Corps (NWVAC) has contracted with the Town and Village to provide Advanced Life Support (ALS) services to Cornwall residents for a fee, while Cornwall Volunteer Ambulance Corps (COVAC) provides Basic Life Support (BLS) coverage for a fee, as well. ALS includes the highest level of emergency medicine – paramedic-level treatment – and NWVAC (or another EMS provider with ALS capabilities) has long answered calls within Cornwall for mutual aid, bereft of a contract. COVAC, staffed with Emergency Medical Technicians, or EMTs, has remained a fixture in our community since 1955.
A number of years ago, COVAC made the request to bill patients directly and a decision was subsequently reached to dissolve the “ambulance district” overseen by the Town. By billing insurance providers directly, this was to be a more efficient process that allowed for the Corps to remain solvent without monies allocated from Cornwall. The global pandemic and an attendant paucity of available volunteers has made staffing across the past several years a concern. This, coupled with significant debt accrual resulted in COVAC’s appeal for subsistence from the taxpayers – which the Town and Village jointly agreed to support.
Despite the provided financial support, there continue to exist a number of issues that have not been resolved, as relates to the professional administration of ambulatory services to our residents. Public safety is of paramount concern. Both the Town Supervisor and Village Mayor have met privately with COVAC leadership and members of COVAC’s elected board and operational membership appeared before a joint boards’ special meeting on January 11, 2022.
While COVAC maintains they have mitigated their insolvency issues and improved their first-call response rates, it is the consensus of both boards that NWVAC – widely regarded as the “gold standard” for local ambulatory care – will be contracted to cover both BLS and ALS responsibilities for Cornwall residents. This assumption of responsibilities can be considered a consolidation. Current COVAC members who wish to continue to serve Cornwall residents may interview with NWVAC, and be afforded opportunity to operate out of 1 Clinton Street location, be attired in Cornwall EMS uniforms, and respond to Cornwall service calls in a Cornwall-branded ambulance. This serves both professionalization and training standardization efforts.
On balance, we believe that this decision for establishment of a contemporary public/private partnership model -- created and supported by multiple municipalities, including Town of New Windsor, Town of Cornwall and Village of Cornwall-on-Hudson -- will ensure our residents receive the high-quality emergency medical care they deserve. NWVAC enables Cornwall leadership to remain confident in the model’s financial viability and sustainability, administrative transparency, leader oversight, and accountability while serving as an example for the region.
This was not an easy decision. Careful consideration was given to all impacted equities. Town and Village elected officials reflected deeply on the many decades of selfless service that COVAC and its volunteers have provided to our community; indeed, it is an honored local institution. But the primary responsibility of public officials is ensuring their constituents are afforded best available services for their hard-earned tax dollars. In our estimation, the proposed three-year contract with NWVAC ensures this. Know that we have explored innumerable options to guarantee confidence in the provision of EMS. And we have reviewed a number of similar municipal consolidated-services agreements. This is the best path forward for Cornwall.
On Thursday, May 26, 2022, at 7:00 p.m., inside the Edward C. Moulton, Jr. Village Board Room, located at Village Hall, 325 Hudson Street, Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York 12520, the Town and Village boards will convene a joint special meeting to address this matter publicly. Meeting will be publicly-noticed and contract provisions will be disclosed. The public will be afforded an opportunity to speak and boards will address some factors that led to this decision.
On behalf of the Town and Village Boards,
Joshua Thomas Wojehowski Supervisor
James A. Gagliano Mayor
August 26, 2022
Dear Cornwall-on-Hudson residents, neighbors, and friends:
One of the things I am supremely proud of as an elected leader is fact that our Village Board and the Cornwall Town Council seek to find ways to better collaborate and jointly improve our greater Cornwall community. That said, Town Supervisor Wojehowski asked me to share this conjoined NY Forward grant application effort with Village residents.
NY Forward is a new State-funded program that provides support for the revitalization of New York State’s smaller and more rural communities in order to reinvigorate local and regional economies by creating vibrant downtown destinations, all while preserving the unique characteristics of each individual community. What an honorable pursuit!
Via this NYS program, we have the unique opportunity to secure up to a $4.25 Million grant to be split equally between the Town of Cornwall and the Village of Cornwall-on-Hudson. As part of our continued, joint effort to serve our community’s diverse needs, we know how critical it is to include you – our community stakeholders -- in this process.
The more input we receive from the community, the better we can craft efforts designed to make greater Cornwall the most desirous place to live, work and raise our families. Although we will be prioritizing those initiatives that are most important to our community, we will seek to ensure that ALL submitted offered ideas are fairly evaluated and considered. Even if ideas do not meet NY Forward’s requirements, we will be sure to appraise the shared feedback as part of our ongoing community development efforts.
The following survey should take no more than 10-15 minutes to complete, dependent upon the amount of ideas and feedback you elect to provide. Please respond to these survey questions with 1-2 sentences where possible.
Link to Survey:
https://culturedesign.typeform.com/NYForward
Thank you, in advance, for your participation and feedback! Have a great weekend, all.
On behalf of the Village Board,
Mayor James A. “Jimmy” Gagliano
Cornwall New York Forward Local Planning Committee (LPC) Meeting #5 October 24, 2023, 5:30 – 7:30 PM Town of Cornwall Town Hall 183 Main Street, Cornwall, New York 12518 This meeting will be livestreamed. (Visit the Village/Town websites for the link)
Join the fifth, and last, LPC meeting for Cornwall’s New York Forward. LPC members will determine the final slate of projects to be included in the Strategic Investment Plan. Please note that LPC meetings are public working meetings for committee members, and time will be held at the end of the meetings for public comment.
PROPOSED PROJECT SURVEY Scan the QR code to access the survey or go to CornwallNYF.com and share your feedback on the slate of NY Forward projects. The survey will remain open until Thursday, October 19.
In February 2023, Cornwall was awarded $4.5 million by Governor Kathy Hochul through the NY Forward (NYF) program. NYF is a comprehensive approach to boosting local economies by transforming communities into vibrant neighborhoods. As part of this effort, the Town of Cornwall and Village of Cornwall-on-Hudson are seeking input from local businesses about the challenges and opportunities for sustaining and expanding businesses along Cornwall's main commercial corridor. Your input will help us better understand the kinds of projects that should be advanced through NYF to enhance the commercial vitality of Cornwall.
This survey will be open to responses until July 28, 2023 Access through the link below: https://forms.microsoft.com/r/zXkzx2wvVp Questions? Email CornwallNYF@vhb.com or visit their website www.cornwallnyf.
The NY Forward (NYF) program, announced by Governor Hochul in 2022, is a program designed to invigorate and enliven downtowns in New York’s smaller and rural communities – the types of downtowns found in village, hamlets, and other small, neighborhood-scale municipal centers. The goal is to transform downtowns into vibrant, flourishing neighborhoods focused on sustainable economies and development to create areas where the next generations of New Yorkers will want to live, work, and raise a family. Each New York State Regional Economic Development Council (REDC) nominates two or three communities for the NYF award. This award intends to fund projects for redevelopment, job creation, public improvements, and business and housing opportunities. In February 2023, the Town of Cornwall and Village of Cornwall-on-Hudson were selected as one of the NYF awardees to receive $4.5 million. A six-month planning process will link the community’s vision, goals, and revitalization strategies to specific projects that have the potential to revitalize downtown Cornwall. This process will be guided by a Local Planning Committee (LPC), which consists of local and regional leaders.
Projects selected for NYF funding should advance the program’s goal of catalyzing the development of an active downtown, enhancing public spaces, and growing the local economy. An open, community-based planning process has been created to promote innovation and creativity within the project application timeline. A Call for Projects will be issued June 16 and explain the eligibility requirements for potential projects. The LPC will select a slate of projects for inclusion in the NYF Strategic Investment Plan, which will be submitted to the multi-agency State NYF program for final funding decisions. LPC meetings will be open to the public and will be livestreamed. Virtual Office Hours will be held twice throughout the duration of the Call for Projects. Links to the Office Hours will be posted on the Cornwall NYF website (www.cornwallnyf.com).
Office Hours: June 27: 4pm – 6pm & July 13: 11am – 1pm
To learn more, visit www.cornwallnyf.com