The List Goes On (and on)

The now-famous Schoharie County “stimulus wish-list” that has been circulated to state and federal representatives has been hailed as a coordinated, quick-thinking effort by our county’s leaders to get out in front of what could be a huge opportunity. However, it’s a shame that with all this energy and “quick thinking”, this quite extensive list was the best our county could come up with. Looking over the ambitious list of proposed projects, what I find most disheartening is the utter lack of vision shown by our county’s leadership. Instead of long-term, forward-thinking ideas that will foster vibrant and sustainable communities, this list is a one-stop funding shop for all of the absolute worst ideas that have been floating around Schoharie County for the past ten years, as well as some entirely new bad ideas.

The projects for which the county is requesting funding range from reckless speculative ploys to outrageous boondoggles to pie-in-the-sky pipe dreams. And those are the good ones! Then there’s the outright scandalous $90 million dollars being requested for three totally unwarranted I-88 exits. The notion that these new exits would stimulate job growth is doubtful at best. However, they would pad the wallets of the local highway developers (Lancaster) who will most likely get the contracts. Some of that money will trickle down to the workers but other than that there would be little upside.

But the real danger in proposing these interchanges is that if even one of them is funded, at $30 million a pop, and this takes away all that money for other needed projects it will be a colossal and tragic waste for this county.

At best, most of the projects reflect a wide-eyed belief that if only a new exit is built here, or a new water line here, or a gas line here that the skies will suddenly open up and jobs will rain down. All while the promise of Empire Zone-created jobs goes unfulfilled after over two years of waiting. Anyone who actually believes the county’s projected job creation figures, well, there’s a bridge on Podpadic Road for sale.

As usual, little thought is given to maintaining our downtowns as livable and functional communities. And this is the real opportunity associated with the stimulus bill, and it’s the one our leaders completely missed.

All of our commercial centers in Schoharie County are in need of facelifts, and this is nothing new. But where is the money for downtown streetscape improvements and façade rehabs? Where is the money to rehab the upper-level apartment units in Downtown Cobleskill’s business district? For that matter, where is the money to replace those damn windows in the Newberry Square building?

I know that its hard to restrain oneself when the government is giving away free money. Even those who regularly decry government pork are going hog wild. However, a list of bad projects that goes on and on (and on) is a bad strategy for capturing federal stimulus dollars. Even if there are good projects on the list, which there are, they are inevitably going to be overshadowed by all the bad ones. A far shorter list, with a few solid (and less costly) projects that are long overdue might have gone a lot further. In the end, it may be that our county’s leaders have actually screwed up something as simple as free money. Nice one, guys.

Next Steps for Newberry Square?

The recent Schoharie County court decision overturning the Village of Cobleskill’s $20,000 fine against Newberry Square owner Henry Ioannou affirms what had long been apparent to anyone driving down Main Street over the past year: The village is completely powerless when it comes to getting this owner to step up and maintain this property.

That Judge Bartlett’s decision is legally questionable and probably ought to be appealed, is a moot point. I sincerely doubt that a different decision would have translated into a different outcome with regards to the plywood. This owner is a deadbeat and has obviously committed himself to not making any improvements to the property. And this is not an acceptable long-term solution for this community.

Last year there was talk of an investor buying the building and using Restore NY grant money to rehabilitate the upper levels. But that doesn’t seem to be an option. Apparently, there is new talk of another buyer, but don't hold your breath.

More than likely, the saga will go on, and the village will be stuck with a deadbeat owner who would rather pay a lawyer than a window installer. Which brings me to the question, if the village can’t find another buyer for the Newberry Square building, why don’t they just acquire the building themselves, through eminent domain, if necessary? For years, the village has been talking about moving its offices back downtown. Is there a more appropriate time and place for such a move?

As the private sector has failed to find a profitable use for the Newberry Square building, it falls on our local government to insure that this centerpiece of Cobleskill’s business district is returned to some productive use. The existence of village offices could insure a steady stream of customers into the building, making it’s several retail spaces, as well as those in neighboring buildings that much more attractive. The same could be said for rehabilitating the upper-level apartments, either as offices or residential units. As it stands now, Newberry Square's blight is pulling down the rest of that Main Street block and indeed Main Street itself.

Now that the courts have cut off the Village's legs with regards to remedying the current owner's mess, the Village has an obligation to look into more aggressive approaches. Moving Village Hall to Newberry Square could resolve many issues at once. At the very least, it's better than sitting around waiting for Henry Ioannou to call a window repairman.

Old Whine, New Bottles

Let’s not harbor any illusions about the recent passage of a compromise version of the so-called ‘bigger better bottle bill’. The only ‘green’ that Governor Paterson is interested in here is the $200 million+ in unclaimed bottle deposits that the bill will transfer into state coffers. Not that that in and of itself is necessarily a bad thing, given the financial crisis facing our state, and the fact that there is no conceivable reason why this money shouldn’t be used to help stave off budget cuts or tax hikes.

The recently passed bill addresses several key aspects of New York’s deposit bottle recycling system. First and foremost, the bill places a 5-cent deposit on water bottles, i.e. the 12 oz. plastic containers that have been rapidly proliferating over the past ten years. Other provisions in the law include the transfer of 80% of unclaimed bottle deposits from the beverage industry to the state. The bill also increases the handling fee paid by the bottlers to stores and redemption centers from 2% to 3% and mandates New York State-specific UPC codes for ALL containers sold in the state to prevent out-of-state containers from being redeemed in New York (like in Seinfeld when Kramer and Newman tried to take a mail truck full of bottles to Michigan, where they pay out a ten cent redemption).

However, while the bill was heavily supported by environmental activists and public interest groups such as NYPIRG (New York Public Interest Research Group) as a way to increase recycling and keep plastic bottles out of landfills, the beverage industry has fought the bill tooth and nail, mainly because they were afraid of losing the hundreds of millions of dollars in unclaimed container deposits.

It now appears that this industry is planning a risky gambit to stir up old fears that the new law will cost consumers, cause people to lose their jobs, and that the new law simply won’t work. These are the same old complaints that the beverage industry has been using to kill the bottle bill for the past ten years. Not to mention the fact that these are the same scare tactics they used in the early 1980s when the current deposit-recycling system was put into place.

But the beverage giants are merely drawing attention away from the plain fact that they are the ones responsible for the problem of container disposal in the first place as they are producing the containers. Deposit-based recycling systems insure that the industry bears some responsibility for taking out its own trash. Otherwise, there is no incentive to look into more environmentally neutral packaging and bottling methods, as the costs of disposing of containers are subsidized by taxpayers and built into state and municipal property taxes in the form of curbside recycling programs, street cleaning services and procuring new landfill capacities.

Another complaint designed to gain sympathy pits the new recycling regime against the mom-and-pop grocers and convenience stores, who critics claim, simply lack the space to accommodate all the containers. But before you shed a tear for the small corner store owner, consider the fact that virtually no one redeems bottles and cans at small grocers and convenience stores. They take them back to supermarkets which have separate redemption rooms and reverse vending machines.

While these larger-scale grocers will likely experience an uptick in container redemption, the notion that they will be unable to accommodate the increase is absurd. And so it goes for the rest of the unfounded claims that the new law will drive up the costs of bottled water and break the backs of bottlers and distributors.

This legislation is an important update to a valued recycling program that recognizes the changes that have taken place in consumer trends and is in fact long overdue. Hopefully, lawmakers will keep this new bill on track to become effective on June 1st and understand that the fear tactics are nothing but a desperate end game by the beverage industry to cling to millions of dollars in unclaimed deposits.

Dead-Ender

The New York State Assembly’s Republican conference recently held another panel on how to stop the ‘brain drain’ as part of its “RemaiNY” initiative. This time, the events were held on Long Island, but previous forums were held in Upstate, which would seem more appropriate given the exodus of recent college grads from Upstate’s communities. In any case, over the past twenty years much has been made of the so-called ‘brain drain’.

But the issue always seems to be framed as if it were the responsibility of Upstate NY’s communities to adapt themselves to the needs of the young, ambitious and college-educated, when perhaps it should be the other way around. I look at everything that Upstate New York has to offer: a moderate climate, some of the most beautiful natural landscapes in the world, an extremely low cost of living, and some of the nations’ oldest and richest historical communities. I then have to wonder what it is exactly that the people leaving in droves are hoping to find.

Well you can get your answer by looking at the places these people are leaving for, i.e. New York City, Boston and Chicago metro regions. What do these places have that we don’t, besides heavy suburban sprawl, traffic-choked highways and gentrifying (read: unaffordable) inner city neighborhoods? Well, contrary to conventional wisdom, it’s not a lack of jobs that drives these people away from Upper New York, it’s a lack of jobs that pay a ton of money to fuel an obsession with status and material acquisition that has become the standard of the American way of life.

A person can easily live in a city like Amsterdam or Utica on minimum wage (maybe with a little help in the form of food stamps, WIC and Medicaid). But what, that’s not good enough?

That these people don’t want to live in MY Upstate NY is not something I consider a problem and I don’t believe that we should waste one second thinking about how to keep these people in this state. Let them go off and join their rat race. Good riddance!