The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/tag/tompkins-county-legislature/)
Taking her oath of office on Tuesday, Leslie Schill will serve as a Tompkins County legislator, hoping to improve housing security and vaccine distribution.
The Tompkins County Legislature voted Tuesday to pass the Reimagining Public Safety Plan, with the county committing to the 17 police reforms that intend to rebuild trust between law enforcement and residents.
Legislator Leslyn McBean-Clairborne (D-2nd District) was elected Chair of the Tompkins County Legislature. She is the first person of color to ever serve in this role.
The county legislature unanimously agreed last Tuesday to adopt the five-cent paper bag fee to reduce single-use waste, which will take effect on March 1, 2020. The local law will be enacted alongside a New York State-wide bag waste reduction act that bans most plastic bags from retail sales and allows individual counties to opt into the paper bag fee.
Earlier this month, the Tompkins County Legislature narrowly voted in favor of a resolution that would allow rifle hunting for big game in the area, joining 58 other upstate New York counties that already granted such permission.
What was predicted to be a close contest between the incumbent and a challenger from the left is now a one-man race after Rich John ’81’s opponent withdrew.
Reed Steberger ’13 withdrew from the race to represent Collegetown and the Ithaca Commons at the county level on Thursday night, hours after The Sun reported claims of coercion and sexual assault made against the candidate.
Three women told The Sun this week that Steberger forced them into non-consensual encounters or coerced them to engage in sex while they were in college in allegations that span nearly three years.
Richard John ’81, in an interview on Wednesday, said that if he is elected to the four-year position, he will draw on his past experience representing constituents — for decades as a lawyer and as the district’s representative on the Legislature since 2015 — to serve Collegetown and downtown residents.
Steberger is now running as a Democrat to represent District Four, which covers all of Collegetown and the Ithaca Commons, and is running against an incumbent Democrat.