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For the second time in six weeks, there is a COVID-19 outbreak at Cayuga Correctional Facility in Moravia. 

The state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision confirmed Monday that there are 15 active cases at the medium-security prison. Five of the incarcerated individuals have symptoms of COVID-19. The other 10 are asymptomatic cases. 

It's unknown if there are cases among staff at the prison. Citing security concerns, DOCCS doesn't disclose facility-level COVID-19 data for employees. 

Cayuga Correctional Facility had its first COVID-19 outbreak in October when 44 incarcerated individuals tested positive for the virus. The Cayuga County Health Department confirmed at the time that there were employees affected by the outbreak. DOCCS identified the 44 inmate cases during facility-wide testing. 

The new cases were identified, according to DOCCS, after incarcerated individuals had symptoms of the virus. Testing confirmed there were other cases and contact tracing was conducted to identify individuals who needed to be quarantined. 

"Every facet of the state's response to the COVID-19 outbreak has been guided by facts, scientific data and the guidance of public health experts at (the state Department of Health) and the (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), and the work of DOCCS to protect the safety of New York's corrections staff and incarcerated population is no different," DOCCS wrote in a statement. "The department continues to review further testing options with the guidance of the NYS DOH." 

The second outbreak at Cayuga Correctional Facility is one of several DOCCS has dealt with during the pandemic. A recent outbreak at Elmira Correctional Facility resulted in 605 confirmed cases at the maximum-security prison — the most at one prison in the DOCCS system. There have been at least 1,776 positive cases among the incarcerated population in the state's 52 prisons. As of Saturday, 1,770 department employees have tested positive for the virus. 

DOCCS explained that incarcerated individuals who have symptoms of the virus are isolated and tested. If they test positive, contact tracing is conducted to identify people who need to be quarantined and tested. Visitation is suspended for positive cases and quarantined inmates. 

The department has faced criticism from criminal justice advocacy groups for its pandemic response. The New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association, which represents correction officers in state prisons, issued a statement last week urging DOCCS to take action to prevent the spread of the virus. 

Michael Powers, the union's president, asked DOCCS to suspend prison visitation and non-essential inmate transfers. He also called on the department to provide an every-other-cubicle buffer between inmates in dormitory settings. 

DOCCS said Monday that any individual being moved from a county jail to a state prison is tested and must have a negative result before they are transferred to the department's custody. If the individual refuses to be tested, the county must have confirmation that the person has been quarantined for 14 days and is symptom-free before they are transferred. 

There are certain protocols state prisons must follow, including a mask mandate for incarcerated individuals and staff, cleaning standards and providing access to hand sanitizer. 

AUBURN — Brewers are used to waiting. From fermentation to barrel aging, they know it can take considerable time to create something special.

Indeed, the opening of Prison City Brewing's new 14,000-square-foot facility at 251 North St. has involved some waiting. First announced in June 2016, it changed sites twice before ground was finally broken in December 2019. Owners Dawn and Marc Schulz then hoped to open it by this summer — until the COVID-19 pandemic began.

All the while, the Schulzes have been waiting. They've been waiting to grow the business they started at Prison City Pub & Brewery in December 2014. They've been waiting to be able to make enough of their nationally acclaimed Mass Riot India pale ale to sell a case to everybody who asks for one. And they've been waiting to share that growth with their employees and their community.

Soon, though, the waiting will be over. Prison City Brewing's new facility will open to the public in early December.

Dawn Schulz told мÓƶà¶à¿ª½±¼Ç¼ on Wednesday that the facility was issued a certificate of occupancy that day, clearing the way for it to open as soon as Dec. 1. She spoke as crews put the finishing touches on its taproom, a modern reimagining of the rustic woods, exposed bulbs and brushed metals that are familiar to any customer of Prison City's brewpub. The room seats about 100, so it will be limited to 50 due to COVID-19. They'll be able to choose from 20 beverage taps, plus light food items like cheese and charcuterie. The menu will be reevaluated in the spring, Schulz said.

That's also subject to the pandemic — as are the ways Prison City will use much of the real estate outside the sleek black facility. The only other area of the 5.5-acre property that's been completed so far is the garden on the north end, Schulz said. Before long, it will yield fruits, herbs and vegetables that will be used in the brewery's food and beer. 

Between the garden and the rest of the property is an 8,000-square-foot dairy barn. The Schulzes imagined it hosting concerts, weddings and other mass gatherings before the pandemic made them public health risks, so it could instead become a space for barrel-aging sour beers, Dawn said. The courtyard outside the facility, simply titled The Yard in a play on the prison theme, is a work in progress, too. But she said Prison City will open some sort of beer garden on the property next summer, with regular live music and a food truck operated by the brewery. The first event there was supposed to be a winter carnival this month, but construction delays and the recent surge of COVID-19 forced its cancellation. That's why the brewery will have Christmas trees for sale this season, she said with a laugh. Located on the lawn, for now, are a few plastic domes where small groups can gather at a table. Though they're heated, they'll only be used on milder days until spring arrives.

Even the name of the facility has yet to be finalized, Schulz said. Its working title when ground was broken was Prison City Farmhouse.

"Sometimes we call it 'North Street' and the brewpub 'State Street.' Sometimes we call it the farm, sometimes the farmhouse," she said. "There's no official name yet."

One thing about Prison City's new facility that's already official, though, is the beer coming out of it.

The 20-barrel system there will raise the brewery's annual production from 1,000 barrels to 3,000 in 2021, Schulz said, and 10,000 after another year or two. The facility also has a canning line where, on Wednesday, employees packaged cases of Elegant Pride, the pale ale with lemon zest and mango tea that won a gold medal at the New York State Craft Beer Competition this year.

Overseeing the canning was Sam Sadovnic, Prison City's new director of brewing operations. An Ithaca College grad and former head brewer of Three Notch'd in Roanoke, he's been helping the Auburn brewery scale up its recipes so they taste the same coming out of the new system as they did coming out of the old, 5-barrel one at the brewpub. The process isn't as easy as multiplying everything by four, he told мÓƶà¶à¿ª½±¼Ç¼. That is the case for water, but malts and hops are a little more capricious. And the system at the facility uses a steam boiler, while the one at the brewpub uses direct fire. So the process involves some trial and error, he said. But more tenured Prison City employees on the line Wednesday chimed in with their approval of the Elegant Pride they were canning.

The new facility also boasts a coolship, a large but shallow metal tray that spontaneously ferments beer by exposing it to open air, and several foeders, wooden tanks for aging beers. Respectively, they'll allow head brewer Ben Maeso to expand into styles like Belgian lambics and oak-aged pilsners. Consulting Prison City on its sour and wood program has been Eric Salazar, a pioneer of the family of styles at New Belgium Brewing in Colorado. With all its new equipment, Schulz added, Prison City will be able to host collaborations with breweries that have previously hosted the Auburn crew, such as East Bloomfield's Other Half and Buffalo's Thin Man. She'd like to use some of that equipment to expand into non-alcoholic seltzers and sodas, too, under the company name Prison City Beverages.

However, Maeso will probably spend more of his time at the brewpub than the new facility, Schulz said. As Prison City favorites like Mass Riot IPA and Crispy Boys lager get scaled up on North Street, he'll keep creating new beers on State Street. She reiterated that the brewpub will remain open, as its full restaurant menu makes it a complementary experience, not a competing one.

Video: Canning at Prison City Brewing's new facility

Cans and bottles of Prison City beer will be available at both sites. Schulz said there are currently no plans for distribution or shipping — but that will also be reevaluated as COVID-19 continues. 

"Packaged sales have been going really well," she said, thanking customers for their support during the pandemic. "We're pretty lucky there."

As she stood in the taproom Wednesday, taking in what she called "the wow factor" of seeing Prison City's new facility come to fruition, Schulz thanked the city of Auburn and the Cayuga Economic Development Agency for encouraging her and her husband to keep their business in their hometown. The $4.25 million project is receiving about $460,000 in relief through a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement from the Auburn Industrial Development Authority, and qualifies for a $900,000 grant through the CNY Regional Economic Development Council for creating 20 to 25 jobs.

Dawn said she's excited to hire the rest of those positions, and to offer new opportunities to her current employees at the facility. She and Marc are also excited to return the favor to their hometown. Though it took years of waiting, Prison City at last has the resources to rival its reputation. And the Schulzes want Auburn to benefit from that.

"People don't come because they can get one Crowler (32-ounce can)," Dawn said. "But if they can come to Auburn to get a case or multiple cases of beer, I think we'll see an increase in tourism."

Gallery: Inside Prison City's new Auburn brewery

A man is facing multiple felony charges after the Finger Lakes Drug Task Force allegedly discovered a handgun and cocaine following an investigation into a fight on Logan Street, the Auburn Police Department said.

Police arrested Harry W. Hurst III at around 9:40 p.m. Tuesday after investigating a fight at 45 Logan St., according to a press release from Auburn police. Hurst, who is 40 and listed by APD as transient, was initially charged with second-degree obstructing governmental administration and resisting arrest, both misdemeanors. 

Officers noticed what appeared to be a handgun and cocaine both on Hurst and in the vehicle he was in, police said. Investigators secured a search warrant from Cayuga County Court Judge Thomas Leone. A search of the vehicle found a loaded 9mm handgun, approximately an ounce of cocaine and almost $2,000.

Hurst was then charged with second-degree criminal possession of a weapon, a class C felony; criminal possession of a firearm, a class E felony; third-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, a class B felony; fourth-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, a class C felony, and second-degree obstructing governmental administration.

Hurst was arraigned in Auburn City Court and remanded to the Cayuga County Jail without bail. His next day in court is Dec. 7.

Harry W. Hurst III

Harry W. Hurst III

Recent Auburn and Cayuga County crime and court stories

"Rockin' Weedsport" would have been a portrait of a bygone era before the COVID-19 pandemic.

But the nearly complete loss of live music since March has made Pat Donnelly's documentary feel even further removed in time from its subject: the concert series at the Cayuga County Fairgrounds.

Part one of the three-part documentary was released for free Nov. 23 on Facebook.

In an interview with мÓƶà¶à¿ª½±¼Ç¼ on Tuesday, Donnelly said "Rockin' Weedsport" tries to capture the community around the concerts and the work that went into them.

With global names like Ozzy Osborne, Metallica and Van Halen coming to the titular village every summer to play a stage in the center of a racetrack, the venue was a cherished haunt for local music fans and a destination for regional ones. By Donnelly's calculation, about 2 million concert-goers passed through the gates at the fairgrounds between 1980 and the early 2000s. 

Bringing all those names to Weedsport was Pat's father, Glenn Donnelly, then the owner of the fairgrounds. Today, however, an independent promoter like him probably couldn't book that kind of talent due to the emergence of corporate promoters like Live Nation, Pat said. So his documentary shows how his father did something that "could probably never be done again."

"I just want people to remember how much joy he brought to Weedsport and the fans, and what a positive asset he was to the town," he said. "He put Weedsport on the map."

Having attended most of the concerts, Donnelly collected a trove of material to make a documentary about them: photos, videos, even the performer contracts and riders containing their food and beverage requests. Another helpful source of footage was the Syracuse NBC affiliate, WSTM-TV, which regularly filmed interviews and songs at the fairgrounds. 

In 2014, Pat began working on the documentary with Auburn concert promoter Art Wenzel by recording interviews with Glenn and local musicians like Joe Whiting and Todd Hobin. Wenzel would pass away two years later, but Pat kept working. As he prepared to assemble all the footage, he was able to fill in any narrative gaps by reaching out to fans on Facebook for memorabilia, stories and more.

Wenzel: The music has stopped in Weedsport, but the memories remain

WEEDSPORT | Beginning in the early 1980s, a small village in Cayuga County formerly known as Weeds Basin began an extraordinary run into the f…

"Without Art doing the foundation for this, I'd be lost," he said. "And the fans have been an enormous help. They've made my job a whole lot easier."

It wasn't until the pandemic began in the spring that Donnelly finally had the downtime to enter the editing room. He estimates he had 50,000 hours of material. But as the co-founder of a media production house whose clients include NASCAR and ESPN, the process was nothing new to him. He focused the first part of the documentary on the early years of the series, 1980 to 1985.

The second part will cover the heyday of the mid-'80s to '90s, when tagline "You know it's summer when they're rockin' in Weedsport!" became a fact of life in Cayuga County.

If the series had a peak, it was the most attended concert at the fairgrounds: Van Halen with Vince Neil on July 4, 1993. Donnelly said its 12,000 tickets sold out in minutes. Other popular ones included Guns N' Roses and Aerosmith on Aug. 9, 1988, and Alabama on July 22, 1986. One reason Pat's father was able to book those bands at the height of their powers was because in 1985, he began leasing and promoting concerts at the Orange County Fairgrounds in Middletown and Riverfront Park in Manchester, New Hampshire. So Weedsport was part of a package deal he was able to offer, Pat explained.

Van Halen and Cayuga County: Late rock legend had many ties to area

Jimmie Dagnesi was sitting with Eddie Van Halen one afternoon in 1982 when the legendary guitarist pulled a bottle of Southern Comfort out of …

The third part of the documentary will conclude the story of the series with the early 2000s. In 2004, Glenn sold the fairgrounds as part of a $4.3 million package along with the facilities and ownership of the racing organization he co-founded, DIRT Motorsports. Around that time, the concerts had shifted from superstar names toward all-day festivals like the K-Rockathon.

According to concert database , the last bands to play the fairgrounds stage were K-Rockathon 13 headliners Three Days Grace, Seether and Shinedown in 2008. It was demolished in 2014.

Donnelly said he hopes to finish the final two parts of the documentary before February, when his work will get busy again.

He's been motivated by the reception to the first part, which has already been viewed more than 80,000 times. Also popular has been the "Rockin' Weedsport" merchandise he created, which is available at Speno Music in Auburn, the Colonial Inn in Cato and Hurdy's Redemption & Beverage Center in Weedsport. Its sales have allowed Donnelly to release the documentary for free, he said.

And he's happy he can. Because if there was ever a time for people to appreciate those summer nights in Weedsport, he said, it's now.

"They're looking for an outlet to make them smile and remember, to put a spark in a dreary world," he said. "I knew it would touch a lot of people, but it exceeded what I thought."

Gallery: Images from concerts at the Cayuga County fairgrounds in Weedsport

Less than two weeks after rejecting a plea offer in a felony trespassing case, the co-founder of an Auburn addiction recovery support organization was arrested on new charges.

Nick's Ride 4 Friends co-founder Joel Campagnola, 51, was arrested Monday on an Auburn City Court warrant issued Nov. 25 following an Auburn Police Department investigation of a complaint filed by a man Campagnola had confronted on June 3 at Kings and Queens Court Apartments on South Street.

Campagnola was arrested that day in connection with a complaint filed by an ex-girlfriend, who said he forced her apartment door open, grabbed her by her throat and pushed her into a wall. Campagnola has said he was performing a welfare check on his ex-girlfriend and had both the landlord's and the woman's mother's permission to be there.

Just before going to the ex-girlfriend's apartment, Campagnola went to the apartment in the same building of a Nick's Ride client named Charles Phillips, according to court records. Campagnola believed Phillips may have been selling drugs to the ex-girlfriend.

Phillips gave a statement to police saying that Campagnola grabbed him by the throat and pushed him against a wall, causing damage to the wall. A Nick's Ride peer specialist was with Campagnola and described the encounter as a "shoving match," but Campagnola denied that there was a physical altercation. He said he had the landlord's permission to check on Phillips, too.

Local News

Founder of Auburn recovery support group charged with felony trespassing

• Mary Catalfamo

Phillips declined to press charges on the day of the incident, but later changed his mind, so the Auburn Police Department investigated the allegations further, Deputy Chief Roger Anthony said Tuesday. He said a retirement in mid-summer of the original detective on the case, some time Phillips spent in rehabilitation and a review of phone records all contributed to the delay in making the new arrest.

For the Phillips complaint, Campagnola has been charged with a class D felony charge of first-degree trespassing, the misdemeanor of second-degree menacing and the violation of second-degree harassment. The trespassing charge was elevated to a felony because, according to police, Campagnola was holstering a 40-caliber Smith & Wesson Shield handgun and ammunition at the time of the incident.

The menacing charge, Anthony said, stemmed from Phillips' allegation that Campagnola told him that "(Campagnola) was not a cop and (Phillips) could end up missing" before motioning to his handgun.

In the case stemming from the ex-girlfriend's complaint, Campagnola was charged with first-degree trespassing and second-degree harassment.

Nick's Ride is named after Campagnola's son Nick, who died in 2015 at age 20 after overdosing on a combination of fentanyl and synthetic acid. The organization, which has worked closely with Cayuga County law enforcement leaders, provides peer support services for people in recovery from addiction.

Local News

Auburn support group founder declines special prosecutor's offer in felony case

• Kelly Rocheleau

The Cayuga County District Attorney's Office voluntarily recused itself from the case and the Oswego County District Attorney's Office was appointed as special prosecutor. At an Auburn City Court appearance on Nov. 18, Craig Morrissey, assistant district attorney with the Oswego County District Attorney's Office, offered for the felony charge to be reduced to a violation if Campagnola pleaded guilty. Campagnola's attorney, Dominic Giacona, said his client would not accept any criminal charges, saying Campagnola should not have been charged in the first place.

"There was nothing criminal about that whatsoever," Giacona said after court last week. In fact, it was in the best interest of all parties and their well-being that he was there. So under the circumstances, it's completely impossible to consider a plea to something that was done for the betterment of the people that he's dedicated his life to these days through Nick's Ride."

When asked about Giacona's comments on Tuesday, Anthony said that while he has admiration for the work that Campagnola and Nick's Ride has done, the APD's position is that a criminal allegation was made and probable cause was established in both cases.

"We're going to make that arrest regardless of who it is," he said.