GENEVA \u2014 One of City Council\u2019s most outspoken members over the past few years said serious health issues may affect his availability in the coming months.<\/p>\n
Ward 1 Councilor Chris Lavin told City Council at its meeting Wednesday that upcoming treatments may affect his ability to be present at all meetings.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor 17 years I\u2019ve been treated daily for some serious diseases,\u201d he said during the Council update portion of the meeting, adding that his ability to continue working through those challenges is a \u201ctestament\u201d to the medical care he\u2019s received through the University of Rochester Medical Center. \u201cI\u2019m a poster boy for someone who has been kept alive for 17 years with serious diseases with constant monitoring.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lavin said he will need to be \u201cisolated\u201d for a period at some time over the next three months as doctors provide a treatment that may be a \u201cbit of a \u2018Hail Mary,\u2019 probably.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said he has mulled resigning, but after talking with Mayor Jim Cecere and his UR doctors, he opted to stay on City Council \u2014 at least for now.<\/p>\n
However, Lavin said there may be sessions he will absent.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not going to be in person as often because of those things,\u201d he said, noting that he has not missed a meeting in his nearly 2\u00bd years on Council.<\/p>\n
Lavin said he owes it to his constituents to be honest about how his health challenges may affect his Council work.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to just not show up at meetings,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
However, Lavin said he could \u201creconsider that role\u201d if fellow councilors and Cecere \u201cdeem it necessary to leave.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lavin has spent considerable time on Council pushing for greater fiscal discipline and the need for the city to look at new ways to deliver services on a more region-wide basis. He believes towns such as Geneva have grown significantly with the help of city services, but with the city not getting enough in return for providing them.<\/p>\n
In his first two years on Council, some members were reluctant to support many of Lavin\u2019s initiatives.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve never lost so many votes in my life,\u201d he said with a smile, \u201cbut I think we\u2019re heading in the right direction. I\u2019m very supportive of the mayor\u2019s collaborative and collegial way of going about the very things I think are key to this community growing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wish you the best as you\u2019re working through this,\u201d Cecere said. \u201cWhereas your voice may be gone, your call to action certainly hasn\u2019t. \u2026 We\u2019ll support you in whatever decision you make as a councilor.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lavin was elected to City Council in November 2023. He retired as director of the Boys and Girls Club of Geneva in May 2025 after 10 years.<\/p>\n
He spent the bulk of his working life as a newspaper editor and reporter at various locations around the country before returning to his hometown of Geneva.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"GENEVA \u2014 One of City Council\u2019s most outspoken members over the past few years said serious health issues…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62206,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[34184,34185,65,27142,2521],"class_list":{"0":"post-62205","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-geneva","8":"tag-chris-lavin","9":"tag-city-council","10":"tag-geneva","11":"tag-geneva-city","12":"tag-new-york"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116539258563628743","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}